ECS 203 Curriculum & Pedagogy

 According to the commonsense understanding, a "good" student is one who is quiet, listens, follows instruction, completes their work and does well during assessments. These are all the things students are expected to learn that is "off the record" or not a part of the explicit curriculum. Kumashiro defines the "good" student as the kind of students who allow their teachers to have and maintain control of their classroom.  As a teacher, Kumashiro felt pressure from the school and society to produce this type of student. When he was not achieving this with his particular student, he felt as if he was not being an effective teacher. Painter described a "good" student one who's finished result was a "nobel man" prepared to become a member of society. Defining students as "good" based on their ability to conform to these not explicitly stated expectations is problematic. The students who are privileged by this definition are t...

For the critical summary assignment, I decided I was going to focus on Margaret Macintyre Latta. Margaret focuses on aesthetic education but to narrow it down, I decided to focus on her topics regarding play within the curriculum. I find this an interesting topic as I have never heard of play-based curriculum outside of the physical education curriculum.  In researching Margaret Latta, I came across one of her articles "Accessing the Curricular Play of Critical and Creative Thinking". This article focuses on the importance of aesthetic education, in particular, play. Within the article it is mentioned that it is the educators curricular task to draw students into the depth and complexity of learning across all subject areas, in doing this, critical and creative thinking is necessary. Latta, Hanson, Ragoonaden, Briggs and Middleton (2017) suggest that "too often , the critical-creative shaping of students inquiries is apt to be thwarted and even denied in classrooms"...

 The Tyler Rational theory of curriculum shaped my elementary years because most of my time spent in elementary school I was put into a split grade classroom. Looking back on my experiences, I can see that elementary school was focused on meeting the outcome and being graded on the surface level understandings rather than the actual process of learning and digging deep into the information. I remember my teachers always having strict plans because they had to teach multiple grade levels and meet different outcomes for each grade. I had the same teacher for both grade 5 and 6 because she was a split grade teacher and for both years. When I was in her classes I remember we focused on the exact same learning outcomes for both grade 5 and 6. This did not allow us to go in depth with the information that was being taught each year nor did it give us room to further explore or dive deeper into the topics discussed. Once we met the surface level understanding of the outcome through the fi...

Kumashiro defines "common sense" as information we already know. Common sense is the knowledge that is passed on traditionally through cultures for generations as what we have always done/known. When Kumashiro was teaching in Nepal he was criticized and questioned on his teaching ability by students and staff because his common sense understanding of school and teaching in American was much different than what Nepali schools' understandings were. Kumashiro made it clear that common sense in one place may be completely different from common sense knowledge in another place.  It is important to pay attention to common sense because it is what we are used to and what we believe we should be doing. Paying attention to common sense will allow us to break away from our sense of comfort and make us recognize that the values and perspectives we are continuing to teach and learn are oppressive. "What is significant here is the notion that oppression often plays out unrecogniz...