I didn't have a clue...when I participated in my first curriculum development experience. Still a graduate student in an M.A.T. program, I was preparing to do my internship (student teaching) in a school with no full-time English teachers. My fellow interns and I were the English Department and we inherited absolutely nothing in the way of curriculum—except the kids themselves and some used books. Zero, zip, zilch in the curriculum department. And this was 25 years before anyone even started talking about the standards movement! I'm not sure how effective we were with those kids that year, but we certainly learned a lot about what did and did not work in curriculum development. In a word...know your clientele!
Experience number two occurred in my first two years of teaching in a large, suburban high school (2200 students in grades 10-12) where I had a wonderful experience designing all kinds of interesting curricula for a "phased elective program" that was all the rage then. English and social studies departments in particular were building six-week elective courses on all kinds of high interest topics. Remember, this was 1971-1973 and high schools were in the "if we build it they will come" mode. In this progressive era, I taught film, film-making, consumer reading, science fiction, and a host of other topics that WE thought would be engaging for our students. This was an interesting time for curriculum development and was followed shortly by the usual cycle...back-to-basics.
During the next 10 years, I had almost total free-rein in developing curriculum for my middle school and high school classes; also, many opportunities to work on a new school program for both levels. Heady times...exciting...and very challenging.
What did I learn from all of this? Lessons learned will be described in a subsequent post.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Sunday, March 14, 2010
What a week!
It’s been an interesting week…proposed national standards in English and math were released on Wednesday while the cover of Newsweek magazine suggested that firing teachers was the way to "save" education in the U.S.
Sounds like it's time to call the psychiatrist! Middle school guru, John Lounsbury, suggests that when we are faced with vexing curriculum issues, we should call the psychiatrist rather than the curriculum coordinator. Why? Because many of the issues that pop up as curriculum related are really about our inability to think about things in new ways.
Keeping the old models as Heidi Hayes Jacobs described in her new book, Curriculum 21...structures like schedules, grouping patterns of both students and teachers, and how we use space and time. Most high schools, for example, use a traditional class schedule that dictates what and how any content will be delivered. In similar fashion, why don't more schools (including middle schools!) use the middle school team as their model for organizing professionals?
Time to call the psychiatrist...to get us to think about more than adding or dropping a course...about more than changing the length of class periods...about more than typing papers on computers instead of typewriters...and calling that curriculum development.
In the meantime, take a look at the proposed national standards linked above to see what you think, particularly about the standards in your area of expertise. And take a look at the Newsweek article as well...and some of the lively discussion that is taking place about it online.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
What I Learned About Curriculum from 17 High School Students This Week
For the second year during the February school break, my wife and I accompanied area high school students to help rebuild New Orleans. This year we took 17 students from Old Town and Orono High Schools (and one each from Bangor HS and Hampden Academy) to help rebuild two houses under the auspices of the St. Bernard Project in St. Bernard Parish (southeast New Orleans).
On one house, we began the tedious but important work of "mold remediation" where for a day and a half, 14 of us scrubbed the invisible mold spores from every inch of the studs, rafters, walls, and beams. Wearing respirators we scrubbed our hearts out...not glamorous work, but critical in the 8-12 week cycle of rebuilding a Katrina-damaged home. Later in the week, all 22 of us spent a day out in the country on the bayou, replanting Cypress and Oak trees to provide wind cover and prevent erosion, replacing the trees killed by the flooding.
Spending one week with 17 high school students is quite the experience and I loved (nearly) every minute of it. (Ok, except for the last two hours in the van listening to hip hop on the way home from Logan Airport...but that was my problem!) As I reflected on what I learned by this year's experience I couldn't help but see the connection with EDC 533. Here is what I learned about how adolescents learn and what is important to them. Do you see a connection to our discussions about curriculum and learning? What do these issues have to do with what our curriculum is and how we make it work?
• Adolescents want to do things—physical things...and they want to do them now. No one minded steel-brushing mold off every surface of a house because they knew how important this first step was in rebuilding a house for someone who didn't have one. And also, because they were working side-by-side with their friends.
• Teenagers want to change the world and they want to do that now too. Not when they are older...they recognize how much they can accomplish and they are anxious to get on with it. Conversely, they have too much tolerance for wasting their time, when they could be doing something useful.
• Adults are absolutely critical in the lives of young people—as role models, mentors, friends, and yes, as adults. Kids need people to fulfill parental roles (whether mom and dad or other caregivers), but they also need opportunities to learn from other caring adults.
• Young adults are amazingly tolerant and understanding of others. They are empathetic and caring about the life situations of others.
• And, of course, they are just plain fun to be around!
On one house, we began the tedious but important work of "mold remediation" where for a day and a half, 14 of us scrubbed the invisible mold spores from every inch of the studs, rafters, walls, and beams. Wearing respirators we scrubbed our hearts out...not glamorous work, but critical in the 8-12 week cycle of rebuilding a Katrina-damaged home. Later in the week, all 22 of us spent a day out in the country on the bayou, replanting Cypress and Oak trees to provide wind cover and prevent erosion, replacing the trees killed by the flooding.
Spending one week with 17 high school students is quite the experience and I loved (nearly) every minute of it. (Ok, except for the last two hours in the van listening to hip hop on the way home from Logan Airport...but that was my problem!) As I reflected on what I learned by this year's experience I couldn't help but see the connection with EDC 533. Here is what I learned about how adolescents learn and what is important to them. Do you see a connection to our discussions about curriculum and learning? What do these issues have to do with what our curriculum is and how we make it work?
• Adolescents want to do things—physical things...and they want to do them now. No one minded steel-brushing mold off every surface of a house because they knew how important this first step was in rebuilding a house for someone who didn't have one. And also, because they were working side-by-side with their friends.
• Teenagers want to change the world and they want to do that now too. Not when they are older...they recognize how much they can accomplish and they are anxious to get on with it. Conversely, they have too much tolerance for wasting their time, when they could be doing something useful.
• Adults are absolutely critical in the lives of young people—as role models, mentors, friends, and yes, as adults. Kids need people to fulfill parental roles (whether mom and dad or other caregivers), but they also need opportunities to learn from other caring adults.
• Young adults are amazingly tolerant and understanding of others. They are empathetic and caring about the life situations of others.
• And, of course, they are just plain fun to be around!
Sunday, February 7, 2010
How hidden is the hidden curriculum?
In the late '50s (that would be the 1950s, thank you) I attended a new neighborhood elementary school in my hometown of Tecumseh, Michigan. Small town America in the 1950s. School was nearby and we walked our rode our bikes; we went home for lunch and someone was there to make it for us; and we went home after school, changed our clothes and went out to play with friends until we were called in for supper. It sounds a little like an old episode of Ozzie and Harriet (please look it up if you don't know what this show was).
School was predictable and engaging enough, I suppose. I don't remember much about the curriculum of the elementary years outside of several soundbites that even 50 years later are vivid: Making Easter baskets in 4th grade; spelling bees in grade 4 and higher; naps in kindergarten. That's about it, but I do remember exactly what I learned in fifth and sixth grades.
In fifth grade, my teacher, Mr. W. was a veteran. While I must have learned any number of other things, what I remember most about fifth grade was his many war stories...which he told us every day. The single most vivid recollection of sixth grade was the time our entire class had to hand write, copy really, a paragraph about not acting up and getting in trouble when our teacher was out of the classroom. Mrs. G, our teacher, thought she was teaching us a great lesson by making us copy that paragraph 50 times...and she did. But after the numbness in my fingers wore off, I realized that my classmates and I did learn a life's lesson...but sadly, not the one Mrs. G. intended. The lesson we learned was that you shouldn't tell someone to do one thing and then not model that behavior in your own life. Why did we learn that lesson? Because as a teaching principal Mrs. G. was frequently out of our classroom seeing to her principal duties, leaving us, her sixth grade class, to our own devices. Sometimes that worked...but often it did not. If I had asked either Mr. W. or Mrs. G. what they intended to teach us those two years, I'm certain the lessons we learned were not what they intended. The "hidden" curriculum strikes again.
When I think about all the things kids learn in school...as well as how hard teachers work to have them learn those things, I wonder why the hidden curriculum is so strong and powerful. Is it because we don't often consider the unintended consequences of what we don't explicitly teach or because we ignore the real lessons right in front of us. For example, all the relationship issues that exist in an institution like school where so many different people co-exist. How can there not be a number of lessons learned there? This is the heart of the "hidden" curriculum, I believe.
And our students are watching us every step of the way...seeing how adults treat each other; how some teachers treat certain students with less care and respect than they deserve; how some groups (athletes, honor students, students from affluent families) receive favored or special treatment.
What other examples of the hidden curriculum should we be aware of? And how can we move it from hidden to a legitimate part of the curriculum?
School was predictable and engaging enough, I suppose. I don't remember much about the curriculum of the elementary years outside of several soundbites that even 50 years later are vivid: Making Easter baskets in 4th grade; spelling bees in grade 4 and higher; naps in kindergarten. That's about it, but I do remember exactly what I learned in fifth and sixth grades.
In fifth grade, my teacher, Mr. W. was a veteran. While I must have learned any number of other things, what I remember most about fifth grade was his many war stories...which he told us every day. The single most vivid recollection of sixth grade was the time our entire class had to hand write, copy really, a paragraph about not acting up and getting in trouble when our teacher was out of the classroom. Mrs. G, our teacher, thought she was teaching us a great lesson by making us copy that paragraph 50 times...and she did. But after the numbness in my fingers wore off, I realized that my classmates and I did learn a life's lesson...but sadly, not the one Mrs. G. intended. The lesson we learned was that you shouldn't tell someone to do one thing and then not model that behavior in your own life. Why did we learn that lesson? Because as a teaching principal Mrs. G. was frequently out of our classroom seeing to her principal duties, leaving us, her sixth grade class, to our own devices. Sometimes that worked...but often it did not. If I had asked either Mr. W. or Mrs. G. what they intended to teach us those two years, I'm certain the lessons we learned were not what they intended. The "hidden" curriculum strikes again.
When I think about all the things kids learn in school...as well as how hard teachers work to have them learn those things, I wonder why the hidden curriculum is so strong and powerful. Is it because we don't often consider the unintended consequences of what we don't explicitly teach or because we ignore the real lessons right in front of us. For example, all the relationship issues that exist in an institution like school where so many different people co-exist. How can there not be a number of lessons learned there? This is the heart of the "hidden" curriculum, I believe.
And our students are watching us every step of the way...seeing how adults treat each other; how some teachers treat certain students with less care and respect than they deserve; how some groups (athletes, honor students, students from affluent families) receive favored or special treatment.
What other examples of the hidden curriculum should we be aware of? And how can we move it from hidden to a legitimate part of the curriculum?
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Curriculum Questions
Which of these make sense to you?
• Work on a project for 43 minutes, scramble to put it away, and move to a different room to start another project (or listen to someone else talk about a totally different topic)...and continue to do that all day.
• Work with up to 10 different experts each and every day one 10 different topics...yet, these experts never (or rarely) talk to each other about the things they know in common.
• Not have access to the tools you need to do the job...if you are building something, you don't have a hammer, saw, and measures. If you are writing something, you may have a pencil, but you don't have a computer.
You get the picture. Schools have many regularities—the way they are organized...six hours each day with a series of random contacts between teachers and students. Connections among classes are the exception rather than the rule (and this is true at the elementary school more and more...just as it always has been at the middle and high school levels).
Other regularities include a school year of approximately nine months and an extended summer break.
Several questions for you to think about?
√ Do these common expectations or commonly accepted ways of "doing school" assist learning or do they hinder learning? Are there better ways to organize schools...at any level?
√ In most schools, the curriculum is organized around separate subjects (and again...more and more so since NCLB...but that is another story!).
√ If someone appointed you principal of the day, what would you do about some of the school regularities we all grew up with and know so well?
Is your school regular?
• Work on a project for 43 minutes, scramble to put it away, and move to a different room to start another project (or listen to someone else talk about a totally different topic)...and continue to do that all day.
• Work with up to 10 different experts each and every day one 10 different topics...yet, these experts never (or rarely) talk to each other about the things they know in common.
• Not have access to the tools you need to do the job...if you are building something, you don't have a hammer, saw, and measures. If you are writing something, you may have a pencil, but you don't have a computer.
You get the picture. Schools have many regularities—the way they are organized...six hours each day with a series of random contacts between teachers and students. Connections among classes are the exception rather than the rule (and this is true at the elementary school more and more...just as it always has been at the middle and high school levels).
Other regularities include a school year of approximately nine months and an extended summer break.
Several questions for you to think about?
√ Do these common expectations or commonly accepted ways of "doing school" assist learning or do they hinder learning? Are there better ways to organize schools...at any level?
√ In most schools, the curriculum is organized around separate subjects (and again...more and more so since NCLB...but that is another story!).
√ If someone appointed you principal of the day, what would you do about some of the school regularities we all grew up with and know so well?
Is your school regular?
Sunday, January 10, 2010
One more time around the curriculum
Can our curriculum be student centered AND leave no child behind, posits Gayle Andrews in her excellent curriculum article in the November 2008 issue of Middle School Journal? Gayle talks about the changing context for the original vision of Turning Points 2000 when it was published in 2000..."In a world increasingly focused on accountability, extensive federal and state legislation, policies, and mandates seem to clutter the educational landscape and obscure and perhaps overshadow the students who should dominate it."
This is the second encounter I've had today with the essential notion of young adolescents as the focal point for middle level education. Imagine that. Maybe we are making some progress...or merely returning "back to the future." Here, in this article, Gayle Andrews makes a critical point about redefining some priorities.
And here is where it gets sticky..."Turning Points 2000 called for integrating curriculum across disciplines, a seemingly problematic suggestion in light of discipline-based standards and high-stakes tests." But, Andrews delivers the clincher when she points out the (curriculum) elephant sitting in the room, "Although disciplines and departments have reigned in schools for more than a century, few could reasonably contend that these structures have led most students to deep understanding in the various subjects." Ouch. Of course they don't, because they are disciplines in departments are organizational conveniences that only give a semblance of order, structure, and yes, learning.
Later, Andrews indicates that if she and co-author, Tony Jackson, were to write Turning Points 2008...they would turn the first recommendation about curriculum "on its head....In a new version, the concerns of young adolescents would be the primary foundation for curriculum, with standards and how students learn best in a close tie for second."
The rest of the article makes a case for returning to integrated curriculum and centering on students as the middle level focus. Among several other important points is the one that Andrews acknowledges..."...the limitations of teaching concepts absent a rich context that students find relevant and meaningful." There is no doubt...and everyone is writing about it...that the current system lacks that rich context because teachers focus on the details within the standards rather than the overarching concepts.
The solution...we must get teachers thinking again about the big picture...and not the details of disciplines and test items. If you haven't read this gem of an article—and it carries a big punch—walk, don't run to secure your copy.
A Whole New Mind
Hearing Dan Pink talk about his work, particularly ideas from his best-seller, A Whole New Mind, at National Middle School Association's annual conference in Indianapolis in November 2009 was terrific. Although I have read and used AWNM for several semesters, I always pick up new ideas that I haven't seen before as well as ways of thinking about the six senses that Pink describes in depth.Of course, as an educator, I always try to apply his work to schools and students and finding such applications is not difficult at all. At NMSA he summarized some key points using (to me at any rate) some different language than I had heard his use before. Again, another way to think about these important ideas.
1. Explore new metrics—measure more than IQ which gets lots of play in schools, but doesn't begin to include the full range of intelligences.
2. Get real about STEM—of course math and science and engineering are important, but so are the arts, literature, foreign languages, physical education and many other areas that have traditionally been part of the K-12 curriculum, but now receive less time and emphasis.
3. Re-think motivation—not surprising since Pink has a new book (Drive) on motivation soon to hit the bookstores. Stress doesn't work as an incentive, nor fear, nor many of the things that we use as motivators in schools.
4. More forest, less terrarium—more need for the big picture; also, we need to have a larger view when dealing with problems. Time to consider alternatives, like Google's notion of allowing employees to spend 20% of their work time on projects they are interested in. (Many of the creative aspects of Google have come out of that 20% time.)
5. Finally, infuse the arts throughout the curriculum. No question how important this is.
Suggestion for all, read or re-read Pink's A Whole New Mind.
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