Curriculum as Productive of Teachers and Learners

Julie Machnaik, ECS210, Oct. 2012

“We cannot understand schools today without a look at what they were yesterday.”

Becoming a Teacher, 2012, p. 60

What were the ‘places’ of schooling like long ago?

Annie Kinghorn, GrandmotherAttended Normal School in 1916

Whitewood, Saskatchewan

One-room Schoolhouse: 1909-1958Rocanville, Saskatchewan

Essential characteristics of the teacher:

• instructional efficiency

• technical knowledge and skills (with well thought out lesson plans)

• physical efficiency (all teachers should be beautiful with no physical abnormalities or weaknesses)

• efficiency in control (because disorder means idleness and good discipline is the foundation of moral training)

• social quality (to know how to act and who to socialize with in the community)

• professional spirit and enthusiasm

• high personal character

• mechanical proficiency where the "ability to stand at the blackboard and impress instruction by illustrative drawing is always a source of power in the teacher”

Normal School, School Management (1912) textbook

1924 Classroom - 3 uncles sitting in back

Laurene Harrison (mother), Residential School Cook, Birtle, Manitoba, 1939-1941

Residential Schools YouTube

Julie Anne ParkGrade One

1964

What do I believe about teaching and learning?

What do I believe about students?

How do I view knowledge?

What do I think should be taught?

What knowledge is worth knowing?

Julie Anne Park, UofR, First year field experience, 1999

I BELIEVE…

Walker School, Grade 6 Community of Learners: My Best Teachers

University of Regina, Faculty of Education 3rd Year Pre-interns, Fall 2009

New

Landscape

NTEP: Nunavut Teacher Education Program

Context is the window of understanding…

Images of Teacher Education

• Teacher as Learned Practitioner

• Teacher as Researcher

• Teacher as Professional

Producing Teachers

Against Common Sense (Kumashiro)Chapter One: Three Teacher Images in U.S. Teacher Education Programs

Teachers as Learned Practitioner

Pairs or Triads:What does Kumashiro say are the limitations of this program?

What other limitations can you think of?

Teachers as Learned Practitioner Learn about students, the what and how to teach

Blend theory & practice

Problematic:• little focus on differences, equity, power and oppression.• only certain ways of knowing students privileged

Need to: • Trouble & disrupt knowledge• See different insights, identities, practices & changes it makes

possible while critically examining to see what it closes off • To teach the contradictions, the gaps, the partialities

Teachers as Researcher

Pairs or Triads:What does Kumashiro say are the limitations of this program?

What other limitations can you think of?

Teacher as Researcher To be lifelong learners To reflect on own teaching practices, readings, discussions To do research projects, working to bridge theory to practice Learning to teach involves reflecting on, raising own questions

and doing research.

Problematic: Doing research does not in itself promise anti-oppressive change.

Need to: • Look at what we have already learned and want to continue to

learn (comfort zone)• Look at what we resist learning (where we feel discomfort). • Ask: what do our students desire learning, how do we desire

teaching, and how do these desires make anti-oppressive changes difficult?

Teachers as Professional

Pairs or Triads:What does Kumashiro say are the limitations of this program?

What other limitations can you think of?

Teacher as Professional Learning to teach characterized as an entry into a profession Clear certification expectations with relevant components of program,

knowledge, skills, and perspectives valued in society

Problematic:• Some in society prescribe ahead of time what all teachers need to

know and do and be in order to be “good” teachers• May insist on only certain knowledge and may not encourage troubling

knowledge and looking beyond.

Need to:• Problematize any effort that claims what it means to be a “good”

teacher• Remember commonsensical definitions of good teaching are often

complicit with different forms of oppression • Examine “progressive” definitions of good teaching as being partial and

contradictory and are always in need of rethought

Images of Teacher EducationWhich of the three images in the chapter best describe the Teacher Education Program you are in and why?

• Teacher as Learned Practitioner

• Teacher as Researcher

• Teacher as Professional

Producing Teachers

Huebner’s Messages:• We must surpass technical

foundations of education• We require historical

awareness of:– where we once were– sensitivity to present

problems, resistances and binds

– and openness to future possibilities

Dwayne E. Huebner’s (1923 - ) Philosopher of education and

curriculum theorist

Curriculum as Production of Learners

http://www.education.gov.sk.ca/ministry-overview

What does it mean to be a student?What does it mean to learn?

What is significant about place? Context?

Student M• Misbehaving, time outs• Teacher wanting control• Not becoming the kind of student the teacher

desired• Deep concentration in art, ask questions• “Was I bad today?”• “Not the kind of student that schools & society

often tell them to be” (Kumashiro, p. 21)

Student N

• Loved to read (but not bks in class)• Wanted to discuss ways to make sense of books

(not just one interpretation)• Writer of own topic in own format• …Weren’t we just finding out YOUR answer?• “If the lesson itself is problematic, then there is

little reason for students to be engaged” (Kumashiro, p. 22)

Taken-for-Granted View

• Expanding minds• Building foundation• Increasing understanding• Search for strategies to move students

from “empty” glasses to “full” ones

• Oppression can result from WHAT students learn as well as from HOW students learn

• Oppression can also result from WHO we allow students to be

Dick & Jane: What are the messages to the children?

• Freire’s pedagogy starts from a deep love, and humility before, poor and oppressed people and a respect for their "common sense"

• Trust & communication between educator who also learns and student who also teaches

• Students need to learn to think critically to overcome social constructs that are paralyzing

• Urges both students and teachers to unlearn their race, class, and gender privileges and to engage in dialogue with those whose experiences are very different from their own

Paulo Freire (1921-1997)Critical Pedagogy

Shortly before his death, Paulo Freire is reported to have said: “I could never think of education without love and that is why I think I am an educator, first of all because I feel love.”

M I N D M A P S H A R I N GAlternative Schools in Saskatchewan:

Who are the learners allowed to be? How does this connect with your thoughts of what a ‘good’ student is?

• Choice A: Prairie Sky SchoolPrairie Sky Youtube Outdoor Kindergarten SmileBox

• Choice B: Cornwall Alternative SchoolCAS Youtube“Never giving up on the minds of tomorrow”

• Choice C: Montessori School of ReginaMontessori Madness YouTube“Help me learn to do it myself”

• Choice D: Mother Teresa Middle SchoolMother Teresa Principal’s MessagePhoto Slideshow: NTEP visit

In my future classroom…Where do I start? • Kid-watch

Who are your learners? What gifts do they bring? Where do they come from? What is their story?

• ‘See’ and plan for differences as well as sameness

• Understand the significance of context

• Choose a variety of resources that are meaningful & relevant

• Know your own strengths, gifts and weaknesses• Examine your own beliefs, values, assumptions• Know your own knowledge & limitations of being an

anti-oppressive education• Be willing to feel ‘discomfort’ in your learning• Ask what you want to learn/teach & what you resist• Challenge yourself to learn, unlearn, relearn• Continue to ask:

What do I see? Not see? What do I do? Not do? What do I teach? What do I leave out? Why?What kind of learner is privileged in my classroom? Who is marginalized?

• AND if you think you have all the right answers, then start asking different questions!

2. Uncovering the Lessons of Classroom Furniture: You Are Where You Sit (Ch. 2: p. 145-153) “What is the “hidden curriculum” of material school settings?” (p. 148)

For Seminar: Please read the following TWO New Teacher Book Readings and jot down key quotes to discuss at this week’s seminar

1. Time to Learn: (Ch. 1: p. 9-19) “While keeping a critical eye on my own practice, I have also begun to think more critically about teacher education programs.” (p. 17)

C LO S I N G M E S SA G E S F R O M K U M A S H I R O … …

Kumashiro urges us to…• Transform schools into spaces where all students will

be safe, addressed, and affirmed

• Create spaces within schools where students can go for help, support, advocacy, and resources

• Change the knowledge that all students have about people who are labeled ‘different’

• Broaden students’ understanding of differences and different groups of people by integrating into the curriculum a richer diversity of experiences, perspectives & materials.

Kumashiro, K. (2009). Against Common Sense, p. xxxviiAND remember…“An anti-oppressive teacher is not something that someone is. Rather, it is something that someone is always becoming.”

Kumashiro, K. (2009). Against Common Sense, p. 15