First Curriculum Session – What revelations to me?

When teachers were asked by our school leader to come find out what curriculum was, no one knew what discoveries would be made. At first, the team of teachers was surprised at the number of teachers and of those present, and they were somewhat puzzled, some remained puzzled till the end. “What is this all about?” As the activity proceeded, starting with teachers identifying what constituted their beliefs about learning and the teachers came out with various practices involving actions, strategies and activities and placed them under “common” themes. A superficial analysis revealed that some of the thinking behind these subconscious practices (experiencing, understanding, applying, motivating, communicating, collaborating….etc) were not new.

I see this revelation of teachers’ beliefs about learning a step in the right direction for the school’s effort to enhance the teaching and learning that focuses on 21^stcentury outcomes. “What was the one thing?” The answer to this question is “Well, it does not matter!” I believe that the purpose of the session(s) is to enable anyone who is confused or unsure to discover what practices supported by their own beliefs of learning for the 21^st century classroom. The ideas can then be extended to the various subjects content area, thus forming the model of 21^st century teaching and learning.

A more interesting revelation to me was the leadership practice that I believe will make a vast contribution to this modeling of 21^st century teaching and learning. This is how I saw such practice put into action by my school leader.  He stood in front of all of us and given the declaration of “I also do not have the idea nor solution”. Such proclamation of not being the sole thinker and contributor sets the proper expectations for all of us and made everyone the champion of all related to learning and teaching. This was productive as I saw all teachers willingly take over the position of leading the charge in learning. If our school is to meet the learning needs of all students, to create a combined wisdom of all teachers for the betterment of our students, then we cannot rely solely on our school leaders. I just daringly stated that we need to remove the school leaders as the sole source of decision making, but without doubt, the school leaders are crucial for this to happen. Actually, by doing this, the school leaders are the architect of school 21^stcentury teaching and learning.