Every once in a while you come across a story, that nails it.
On June17, 1744, Commissioners from the English colonies of
Maryland and Virginia negotiated a treaty with the Indians of the
Six Nations at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. As part of the deal the
Indians were invited to send boys to school at William and Mary
College. The Indians replied
".....if the Gentlemen of
Virginia will send us a Dozen of their Sons, we will take care
of their Education, instruct them in all we know, and Make
Men of them."
The Commissioners offered "to send the boys to school".
For the Indians there was a point a purpose to the education, it was
"to Make Men of them."
If Education had a single purpose, point, aim, then selecting
suitable curriculum to teach would be easy. Sending them to
school, to educate them, to teach them, to help them reach
their potential, none of these are aims that can or will or do
direct curriculum choice.
WE NEED TO NAIL THIS ONE.
We need as a community, as professionals, to work out an aim
for everything, a single guiding aim which provides a purpose
for teaching. Currently curriculum is based around "the disciplines",
an arbitrary division of knowledge that occurred with reasonable
rigor about 100 years ago. They have no real relationship to how
students learn, what knowledge is important, and they don't
encompass all knowledge.
What should the young be taught?
How to make sense of the human condition.
And should follow along these lines
What's happening?
To what or whom?
Where?
When?
Why?
The type of questions toddlers ask constantly, the questions
that come naturally, and form the basis of how we learn best.
The aim should be to provide students with the skills they will
need to live in the 21st century as positive happy productive,
functioning adults, who understands their relationship to society
and value in it. Who understand that their actions have an
impact on the society in which they live. Who understand how
that society works. All life is linked
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/time.html
Only an education
that teaches connectedness to all things will help them make
sense out of life.
WELL you might say - this is a pretty unwieldy aim, Cathy
and you would be right - this needs a great deal of discussion.
BUT immediately allows a close examination of the current curriculum.
It defines what can be removed from the curriculum, areas of
study which aren't essential to the functioning of a student or
future adult in our society.
There needs to be one core basic curriculum that encompasses
all Seymour Papert's "Driveresque" knowledge. And the
disciplines become specialized optional areas of "Latinesque"
knowledge, which students can choose to study according to
their own interests. This would essentially free teacher's of
cumbersome curriculum overload and allow them to work with
students on the more important areas in greater depth and detail.
So you could loose immediately, algebra, long division, and
concentrate on a lot more of what is currently called consumer
maths in the general course. Offering more specialized maths
in elective courses.
Learning to read, and write is essential, but also, to, are speaking,
social relations, how organizations such as schools work, and the
relationships within them, learning to make decisions, what things
interrest you, what it it is like to work, and what jobs are of interest.
Text books, with their third and fourth
hand information would be redundant as students studied reality,
starting in primary school with the social organization with which
they are most familiar there own school.
Applying the
What"s happening?
To what or whom?
Where?
When?
Why
questioning techniques to new and old situations.
Here is a beginning, what do you think, it's time for a change,
to restructure
This kind of zig is long overdue in education
Excerpts and Inspiration, and Quotes taken from
A Seamless Curriculum*
*A single, systemically integrated whole, every part of which
relates logically to every other part
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