The Last Post

I have to say that I am a little sad that this is the last post, and that this course is over. I thoroughly enjoyed this course for many reasons.
First, I think the class size helped to make it such a beneficial experience. We were able to go deeper into our conversations with one another, and felt comfortable with sharing our thoughts and ideas. For me, working with only 5 other people made it feel comfortable and easier to delve into ideas and conversations. It almost felt more like a PLC – where we were able to discuss current issues in the field of curriculum and teaching and relate them to our own classrooms.
This brings me to my second point. I really appreciated that, in this course, we were able to take everything we were learning and apply it to our own experiences and situations. This is what makes these courses extremely valuable. I cannot say how many times I have been in a class where, being a “minority” as a music teacher, was not permitted to take projects or assignments and shape them so they would apply to my field. So this course most definitely helped me in my area of music because I was able to take what we were learning and apply it to my own teaching. Isn’t that what education (of any age) should be about? Being able to take what we are learning and apply it to our everyday lives?
Third, I thoroughly enjoyed the blogs. At first I wasn’t too keen on it, but once I set it up I realized it was going to be awesome. I really appreciated the way we were able to write about what was on our minds in relation to what we were discussing, reading, and experiencing. I think it is definitely more beneficial for learning to take this route, rather than having exactly what we need to write about (ie. a specific article) dictated to us. This left it open for us to write about issues and ideas that were important to us, our fields of teaching, and various experiences.
Fourth, I found the course work to be very useful. I promise I am not sucking up here! :) This is one of those rare courses where I think I will go back and use a lot of the ideas and thoughts that have come up through discussions, readings and presentations. The material and discussions were meaningful and useful.

I think that, even if I never plan on actually designing a curriculum, the content of this course was extremely useful at the teaching level. We covered so many important topics centered around curriculum, and I think that they would be important for any educator to consider. I learned that even if one is not involved in the making of the curriculum, it is still important to understand where the curriculum is coming from. We pondered some important questions. What knowledge is of most worth? What are we teaching now that we might be apologizing for in the future? What is real and what is not? What are the pros and cons of specific curriculum designs? Should curriculum and instruction be together or separate? What role do teachers play in curriculum? What should the role of the curriculum be? And so many more! Thinking about these questions allows us to look at our own curriculum documents, as well as methods of implementation, and make important decisions on the “how’s”, “what’s” and “when’s” of our curriculum.

Then there is the big question that, I think, will now eternally haunt all of us to our graves! What is curriculum? The next person that asks me that will get the following answer: “Do you have five hours?” Exactly one year ago I would have thought “easy question”. It’s a book that tells teachers what to teach so that everyone is teaching the same material. Now, I know it is so much more. For one thing, I believe curriculum is art. It is the process of deciding what is important to human life, just as the arts are often trying to figure this out. It is also one person’s (or group of people’s) interpretation of life and its’ important aspects. It is also open to the interpretation of the eye of the beholder. Curriculum is science. It is full of hypotheses, subject to variables, and seeking truth. Curriculum is math. It comes with many different formulas, each providing different answers. It hopes that the end result will be the same for everyone. We know, however, that this cannot always be the case. One of the descriptions of curriculum that stuck out in my mind was a metaphor from Graham in one of his blogs: The curriculum is a living document, and the teacher is the life-giver.

And now, a summary of my blogging experience. I have already stated that I found the blogs to be an extremely useful for learning. I didn’t usually write my blogs until just under one week after each class. This was due to think time. I am the kind of person who takes a long time to process information and formulate my own ideas. I often need quite a few days of thinking before I am able to comment! I need to give information time to sink in. Therefore, I was glad for the blogs, rather than say…having to write some sort of “exit slip” at the end of each class. (I’ll note here that I am not a fan of exit slips. I have always found them extremely difficult because I have not processed information yet, and I am not ready to comment). The blogs gave us the think time. Mine were also usually more “emotionally charged” rather than strictly factual, because that is the way I experience life. I am driven by emotions, and they always work their way into my responses!
Altogether I wrote 15 blogs (summarized below), and commented on 29 blogs.

January 13th – Reflections On Our First Class:
As a result of the Christmas canon that was presented in our first class, my mind, of course, went to Christmas concerts! I talked about how we seem to be losing our Canadian Christian identity in order to accommodate all cultures and beliefs. This led me to note that perhaps in education we sometimes hide who we are (and quite possibly encourage students to do this also) in order to avoid “offending” others. I questioned the fact that we call ourselves a Canadian Mosaic (rather than a melting pot), but we do not seem to practicing what we preach.

January 18th – Initial Thoughts on “Metaphorical Roots of Curriculum Design”:
This blog was written after reading Kliebard’s article on metaphors for curriculum design. I didn’t necessarily like the Metaphor of Production (good metaphor, but I don’t like to think of education in this way!). I thought the Growth and Journey metaphors hit the nail on the head.

January 26th – Thoughts on Questions Posed in Class on January 19th:
In this entry, I examined two questions. The first was, “What are we doing now that might need to be apologized for in the future?” I noted that there are always going to be mistakes, but part of the problem with mistakes is that you don’t always see them as mistakes when you are in the process of making them (hence the term “mistake”). Sometimes it takes years to realize the outcomes of our actions, especially where education is involved. The second question was “What knowledge is of most worth?” I thought that it wasn’t the specific objectives of courses like science and math that were most important, but it is the skills and values we gain from such experiences.

January 27th – For Vikki
I took this opportunity to say what I had planned on saying to Vikki, but did not get the chance. This was an excellent reminder for me to let people know that I appreciate them and show them the difference they have made in my life.
January 27th – Reflections on January 26th
In this entry, I discussed the idea of teaching to student interests. While I believe it is important to take student interests into account, I also think it is important to expose them to new things rather than only catering to their interests and wants.
January 27th – Not on the Test
This was not a I also shared a link to the video “Not on the Test” which addresses issues with assessment (based on the U.S. No Child Left Behind policy).

February 8th – Thoughts on Feb. 2nd
This blog took me to the topic of curriculum potential. I noted that teaching music allows for a lot of flexibility, and discussed the new music curriculum and its’ implications for teaching music.

February 15th – February 9th- Curriculum & Instruction
In this entry I took a look at curriculum as including instructions or leaving out instruction. I tended to favour the idea of leaving instruction out of curriculum in order to allow teachers to make the curriculum more relevant for their specific groups of students.

February 21st – Standing in the Gap – Feb. 16th
This week I discussed our technological culture, and how I think that it may not be technology itself that causes the issues, but it is how and when we use the technology. I also noted that teachers need to stand in the gap between how students are using technology and how they should be using technology.

February 28th – Models and the Creative Mind
In this entry I discussed the implications of a creative mind and the use of models versus metaphors in curriculum design. It also brought me into a discussion of the different “minds” in our classrooms and how we teach to these varying ways of thinking.

March 6th – A View from My “Place” – Reflections from March 2nd
This blog focused on a question posed by Brad in his Cynthia Chambers presentation, “How do we construct a provincial curriculum to give voice to all of these different places?” I hoped that the curriculum “makers” were from a variety of backgrounds, but also thought that curriculum should be flexible so that teachers can adapt it to their own (and their students’ own) places in life.

March 22nd – Gender Studies Course – Reflections on March 16th
In this entry I discussed issues that arose from the Ontario proposed Gender Studies curriculum. I could see points on both sides of the debate and realize that topics such as these can put us in a sticky situation!

April 5 – Reflections on March 23rd
In my last blog, I confessed that I am a genius and that is probably why I had a difficult time understanding/getting much out of the Baudrillard article…
So I went on to discuss technology and its’ implications both in and outside of the schools.

April 13th – The Last Post
See above!

Well guys, it has been a blast. I’ve learned a lot and truly enjoyed getting to know you. Discussions were so rich and it felt like such a supportive atmosphere. I will miss you! Hopefully our paths will cross again!!

THE END.

Reflections on March 23rd

Ok, as we all know, I think Baudrillard was a little over my head. Or, as I said to my mom, perhaps I am just too much of a genius and it was under my head. Haha :) So...I will not talk about Baudrillard.

I think the thing that caught my attention the most during our last class were the two videos we watched.

The first was the three-minute montage of media images that bombard viewers on a daily basis. It is obvious that a lot of what is on television is definitely not appropriate, but this video provided an excellent look at the variety and frequency of such images/ideas. The material we make available to children is shocking. In fact, I was just watching America's Funniest Home Videos the other night - a family show, on at 6:00 in the evening - and it went to a commercial break and the very first commercial we see is a bunch of young girls drinking beer and dancing suggestively with beer in hand at a huge house party. Because I was watching the show with my 9-year old niece I was particularly disturbed by this. Of course it spawned a nice discussion between the two of us about drinking. But it is crazy that these types of images are so easily accessible to young children. What about all the kids that don't have someone watching with them and discussing the things they see on TV?

So I guess this is where schools, teachers and curriculum come in! With our society changing the way it is, I do believe it is absolutely necessary acknowledge these issues. I'll bet that such media images had some part in causing people to feel the need to create that gender document we looked at in class. There is definitely a need to acknowledge in schools what students are seeing and hearing through multi-media. Like we've discussed in class - where is the line between the job of the teachers and the job of the parents? When I talk to my parents, grandparents and other family members and friends, it is obvious that those lines haven't always been so blurry. The school had its place and the parents had theirs. So what has happened now that causes schools to have to fill in the gaps? As much as one might like to say that schools should not have to take on parental roles, what can we do? We can't leave our students floundering. So I definitely think that curriculum and curriculum design do need to accommodate the changing needs of our students and the changing jobs of the school.

In the second video - the Profiles of Generation M2 from the Kaiser Family Foundation - there was one line at the very end that caught my attention. It was when the young guy was talking about text messaging constantly, and he said that when he gets a text "I feel special". I think that one statement hit the nail on the head. "Young people of today" are always being admonished for talking on the phone, texting friends, emailing, using social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, and playing video games. But I have to wonder...it can't be solely at the fault of these kids. If these kids didn't have their cell phones, computers, video games and friends to occupy themselves with in their spare time, what else would they be doing? Would their parents play board games with them in the evenings? Would they take them out to the museum? The zoo? For a walk? Chances are that many of these parents are either holed up in their offices working, or else glued to the TV for the evening. I really do think that this "hyperconnectivity" is a way for people to feel special. They feel part of a community when they would otherwise be lacking that feeling. Now, I don't want to sound like a grump. Obviously there are many, many, many wonderful parents out there. And I'm sure even wonderful parents have kids who are obsessed with "hyperconnectivity". But I do think that family time has definitely suffered.

Turning again to curriculum, I think that this raises a lot of conflicting issues. On one hand, we say that because we are a technological world and our students use all kinds of technology we should be incorporating technology into our classrooms. At the same time, one could say that because students are bombarded with all of these technologies outside of school we should try to expose them to different ideas and methods of communication in school. Personally, I tend to lean toward the latter. I am here to teach students what they do not know. Not what they already know. I'm not sure I've said this before, but as an example, we have many wonderful music technologies that can enhance music learning (ie. Garage Band, Music Ace, etc.). However, I generally choose not to incorporate these into my classroom because I know that many students spend much of their evenings and weekends "plugged in". Instead, I use the time to help them make music as a community, with real people and real instruments, rather than on their own while staring at a computer screen.

So technology creates a tricky situation for education. Do you go with the flow, or do you go against the grain?