Can art criticism of curriculum lead to an Orwellian future? Our students are with us for more hours out of the day than with any other group, such as their family, sports team, etc. Based on Vallance's article, it is essential for us to consider how we shape the experiences we give our students. If we don't provide them with the experiences necessary to engage with material, become better learners, and informed citizens, then our educational system is doing them a disservice. After all, isn't education supposed to purport a set of desired social values? Isn't education supposed to cultivate essential knowledge and skills to prepare students for high education and the world of work? Isn't education supposed to make students think (critically)?
Reading through Vallance's article I couldn't help but feel a connection to the curriculum, as described through the eyes of an art critic. It helped me feel the flow of the course and experience aspects of the course that might not be notable otherwise, such as the appropriateness of the essay and one's perception of it. Art criticism can provide curriculum developers with an interesting way to review and revise elements of curriculum to make it more meaningful for students and teachers.
What I must question is our quest to control learner experiences. Outcomes can be objective. The way people experience them doesn't have to be. Every teacher has a bias and that can be apparent in the way that we deliver our lessons or through the topics that we decide to teach or leave out. Despite this potential bias, students will still learn curricular outcomes and the bias is isolated at the classroom level (although throughout various classrooms).
What happens when the bias comes from the curriculum developers? What happens when they have a political agenda that they are trying to promote? What about social change? Of course our society needs to recognize that there are better ways to live than what we have been doing, but whose job is it to tell us? When curriculums begin considering how to shape learner experiences, one must demand to know whose perspective those experiences represent! Is it appropriate for teachers to teach a curriculum that verges on social constructivism? What about in science? Is there a social constructivist aspect to it as well? That would be interesting.
As curriculums prescribe learner experiences, it becomes easier for the government to become "thought police" and promote ideas and values in students to achieve a certain societal end. Could we be creating a generation of drones aligned with government ideologies? Maybe we've already done this? Maybe our current problems in society are the result of too much consideration of learner experiences. Maybe the department of education has purported an ineffective set of knowledge and values on society. To be a successful democratic, free-market capitalist society, we need to share a certain mind-set. Hmmmm.....
If curriculum were stripped down to bare facts, then we could leave it to students are parents to impart their own values. Teachers could get extra training on how to provide effective instructional activities, and anti-bias training. Let's see the thought police get us now!
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You raise some interesting points in your blog, Brad. In particular, your statement in your concluding paragraph about if curriculum were stripped to bare facts then students & parents could impart their own values. However, even the selection of what bare facts are included could reflect a bias. As an example I've referred to before, I have been involved in AIDS education programs which only included prevention information pertaining to abstinence. This reflected the agenda of the creators of the curriculum, which was to discourage adolescent sexual behaviour and therefore omit informaiton about how to make that behaviour safer for active adolescents. The group I was with adapted the curriculum to reflect information about safer behaviours - a decision which reflected our bias against censoring the information. Both the curriculum and designers could argue strongly in favor of their point of view. So, who gets to decide which view is correct? Or are they both?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comment that "when curriculums begin considering how to shape learner experiences, one must demand to know whose perspective those experiences represent!" It has been interesting in class to discuss how curricula are often ambiguous as to who the author actually is. Such was the case with the Discover Canada document - lots of people acknowledged were as contributors, but no group of people singled out as the authors. I wonder if this is a deliberate decision so that, if the response to the curriculum is unfavorable, no one person gets nailed to the wall. If so, it's an effective strategy (although, it does serve to furter my distrust of bureaucracies who seem to make it very challenging to determine accountability in many arenas, not just with curriculum).
hey brad...i think there is a collective (un)consciousness that affects people in groups and can ultimately influence such things as curriculum...we are impacted by the news and the social condition that surrounds us...recent changes to the bio curriculum reflect a growing concern about obesity...sustained development was a sort of oxy(moronic) conservative statement that found its way into the curriculum and became part of the dialogue in the classroom...in fact it was also part of their platform at the time...public accountability was also part of their platform and it was under their administration that grade twelve exams re-appeared...i didn't get involved in the debate but perhaps there was a growing concern over education and perhaps people were losing faith...another possibility is that some teachers were only paying lip service to the curriculum and the provincial exams were an attempt to get everyone back on the same page...naievely i always thought one had an obligation to follow the curriculum...recent events have shown me this is not the case...one of my own daughter's teachers was a bit of an ecoterrorist...he felt tha volunteerism was important and built it into his grade ten course...he even had it for marks which is sort of a contradiction...nothing like motivating volunteers with a cool ten percent...interestingly this situation had gone unchallenged for a number of years...and i am sure one could make a strong argument for the idea in general...but it was not his responsibility nor did he have the authority to make those changes to the curriculum...it was a bit too much too handle and led to an interesting meeting...in the end i invited him to justify the changes to the board...seemed to do the trick...so, "thought police" at one end of the spectrum and rogue teachers with their own agenda at the other...tricksy
ReplyDeletejust a quick comment on your general comment of "Thought Police"
ReplyDeleteWhile i was working on the curriculum projects in Thailand i realized that i had a direct influence on what students would be learning in the classroom.
Having lived in Thailand for multiple years and seen the massive problems of pollution,air quality, garbage, and other general environmental issues I made a concerted effort to integrate environmental awareness whenever possible.
Having said thta....I realize that it's still the classrooms teachers responsibility to create meaningful behaviour change regarding those objectives....