curriculum as self and complexity

ECS210 - March 3rd, 2014

what does a good student look like, act like,

sound like?share via

http://moourl.com/goodstudent

“Reading” curriculum documents…

❖ Form a group of two or three. ❖ Send a representative to come and get a copy of

the handout: The Goals of Education❖ Examine the document. Think, pair, share

(#useful):❖ What constitutes a “good student” in

Saskatchewan? What does this make possible/impossible? W0 can be a good student?

What FNIM knowledge is encouraged?

The language of Native Studies 10(Saskatchewan Education, 2000)

❖ a focus on “supporting Aboriginal identity”;❖ developing, “knowledge, positive attitudes

and cultural understanding”; ❖ an emphasis on “positive images of First

Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples”; ❖ a focus on “identity development” of

Aboriginal youth; and a call to teach Aboriginal students in a manner “compatible with [students’] backgrounds and learning styles.”

HEGEMONY (hegemonic): The processes by which dominant culture maintains its dominant

position (i.e. through education)

Source: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/marxism/terms/hegemony.html

Ken Robinson - Paperclip

❖ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzBa-frc2JA

❖ How is the self being removed from curriculum? How is a certain type of learner being produced? What knowledge counts as “good” knowledge?

Uncomfortable knowledge

From Kumashiro, 2009, p. 25

Important Words

❖ Partial Knowledge❖ Troubling Knowledge

Uncomfortable knowledge

❖http://treatywalks.blogspot.ca/search?q=settling+the+land

OR❖http://moourl.com/treatywalks

❖What about this material makes us uncomfortable?❖What does that discomfort tell us about ourselves?❖How does it relate to troubling and partial knowledge?

“We teach who we are.”- Baszile, 2008, p. 382

❖ “If we agree that effective teaching and learning requires, for instance, that teachers know their students as raced (gendered, classed, etc.) then it is equally important to suggest that such knowing is possible only to the extent that teachers know themselves as racialized beings (gendered, classed, etc.) in relationship to their racialized students.”

❖ Baszile, 2008, p. 383

Curriculum of Self❖ Why is self important in curriculum?❖ The curriculum is never simply a neutral assemblage of

knowledge, somehow appearing in the texts and classrooms of a nation. It s always part of a selective tradition, someone’s selection, some group’s vision of legitimate knowledge.” - Michael Apple

❖ How does our curriculum of self affect our classrooms? our students?

❖ What could not be said in the auto-biographies - gender,race, class, sexuality?

❖ Who can think of their own identity as being somehow untouched by their experience as raced/classed/gendered/sexed?

❖ Why is this knowledge/admission uncomfortable?

Writing Prompt: Read carefully the last full paragraph on page 41. For seminar on

Wednesday, post to your blog a response to the following:

Reconsider your autobiography. What hidden messages are now visible to you in what you

could offer as your autobiography? For example, what does it mean that you did not address your gender, or your sexuality or your racialization as important or constituitive of your identity? Take Kumashiro seriously - "We need to be examining

our lessons and lenses, their political implications, and possible alternatives.... we

need to put front and center the very things we do not want in our ... (autobiography), the very

things we do not even know are in our ... (autobiography).”

(From Kumashiro, 2009, p.41)