Curriculum Session – First of many

Today’s session on curriculum provided valuable insight to the briefs of my fellow colleagues regarding learning. Some responses made me say, “She and others understood what I tried to do.” Though it may be mis-represented idea – it was what I believe the “flow” represented. The session also provided me with a vocabulary to think more precisely and more sharply about the work of curriculum. “… and all these years, I have been trying to hunt for the notion of shared concepts and principles... a practical structure is here all along.” I told myself. And once that were to happen, I am sure that I will understand many things – or at least begin to understand them.

My concern for the school now is not that the teachers who seek to help students find authenticity and utility in what they teach – beyond the traditional paper-and-pen test. My worry is for the talk of “drop in grades initially” because of the refocus on curricula with those attributes. It sounded more like a clause in an agreement contract. Real-life context and applying in the curriculum is not new in our teaching. I personally believe that all students deserve and need to derive meaning from the curriculum. I am totally against the idea that only a small group of our students can work with high level, meaning-rich curriculum. Incorporating properly planned context and meaning into our curriculum will only provide the kind of pleasure (motivation – as we called it) in our students that will enable them to learn well.

The learning intent of this session will help teachers (18 of us a start) see that in order to teach well, teachers themselves need to first know what we want and need our students know, understand and do, then we as teachers can enable our students to learn.