Term One in Review

So I thought it might be nice to give a bit of re-cap on my classes now that the first term is through. I had a total of four classes: Educational Foundations, Technology in the Classroom, Human Development and Learning, and Curriculum and Instruction. I want to simply highlight some of the major issues/projects that came out of each class to give you an idea of what the experience was like.

Educational Foundations:
This course really examined the history and philosophy of education, both ours personally and that of the United States. In keeping with Antioch's focus on progressive education we read books such as John Gardner's Excellence, and Experience and Education by John Dewey. Our professor, Dr. Jayasri Ghosh, had some fantastic insight into the history of education as she was born and raised in India, a country which has been formally educating people for longer than the United States has been in existence. Coming from a country with such a long and varied history as India has she was able to provide great context and comparison for many of the topics that arose. I found it fascinating to learn about how the various shifts in economics, immigration, etc. during the early years of the U.S. played into our school system. There were many issues which I had assumed to be contemporary debates which in fact go back for decades. For example, with immigration issues today there seems to be a constant tension in our schools between teaching in English and teaching in a student's native tongue. This debate, which I had thought to be a product of contemporary immigration issues, actually began in the 1940's when large numbers of German immigrants were forced to abandon their German textbooks and German speaking schools to show their allegiance to the U.S. at the outbreak of WWII. Overall, this course struck a balance between looking at the impact of historical issues on education and exploring our own personal approaches to and theories regarding education.

Technology in the Classroom:
As you might have guessed, this course focused on the roll of technology in the classroom. The content was a cross between investigating uses of technology in the classroom and the philosophical issues that arise around equity and equality in the use of such an expensive resource. We made use of technology in multiple projects for this class from learning the basics of WEB 2.0 to creating wikis and Webquests (essentially web-based guided inquiry lessons). Click the pictures to see a couple of the Webquests. Here's one from Sarah Abshire investigating citizenship-















and this one is mine looking at history and rock and roll-















I enjoyed this class and especially enjoyed the fact that we had opportunities to produce things we can use in future classrooms (such as the webquests).

Human Development and Learning:
This class was great in many respects. Being a psychology class it was taught by a psychology professor but he was clearly invested in applying the info to education so we had a fair amount of latitude to focus our work on what was relevant to us. This course was more lecture based than some others but that's sort of unavoidable with so much information to present. Most classes consisted of two elements: 1) A student presenting on one of the major contributors to the fields of developmental and educational psychology, and 2) An activity-based discussion group focusing on one of our texts, Childhood and Nature. This book makes the case that we need to promote, through our educational system, more connection between people and their communities and people and nature. Considering the host of environmental issues facing our world today I found this book to be particularly applicable as well as well written and interesting.

Curriculum and Instruction-
As evidenced by the title, this class explored the basics of curriculum and instruction. We looked at topics such as the relationship between what you teach and how you teach, different instructional techniques and different types of curricula. This was one class in which I had an adjunct professor, Patricia De La Osa, and realized what a great opportunity that can provide because the professor who was teaching us about teaching in the evenings was actually spending every day teaching in a public school. As far as 'real world' application goes this was one of the best classes I have had. We did a fair number of activities around the basics of lesson planning, using Washington State educational guidelines, etc... We also reflected upon our own experiences as students, what types of influences have been present in our lives and how those will affect our approaches to teaching. Finally, one of the best parts of this class was the tone that the professor set, the class was great to be in every week and Patrice mixed in the occasional pep talk (such as the video below) for good measure.



Now that term two is off and running I will be back to posting every week so keep tuned. We are also working on getting other students to post about their experience so hopefully we will begin to get more voices than just mine!

All the best,
Mike

How do we 'Take out the Negatives'?

Check out this clip from last year's meeting of the Texas State School Board.





This year Texas has adopted new social studies standards which have got many people, both in Texas and elsewhere, wondering if the process of curriculum hasn't gotten a bit too political. According to the Seattle Times (see the full article here), some of the more controversial changes in the new curriculum are-

• Downplay of the "rationale for separation of church and state", specifically requiring students to study the fact that those words were not in the Constitution
• "strengthened requirements on teaching the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers"
• "[requiring that] the U.S. government be referred to as a 'constitutional republic,' rather than 'democratic.'"
• Requiring students to "evaluate efforts by global organizations such as the United Nations to undermine U.S. sovereignty."
• And rejecting "language to modernize the classification of historic periods to B.C.E. (before common era) and C.E. (common era) from the traditional B.C. and A.D"

So why are people upset? Many have questioned the unabashedly political tone of the entire process wondering if board members really have the best interests of students at heart. One board member commented "we're an elected body, this is a political process. Outside that, go find yourself a benevolent dictator." This has to raise the question: does it make sense to have state school boards elected? Are we letting people decide what our children learn based on their own political agendas?

Teachers in other states, especially those who may not share the conservative views of the Texas board, have an interest at stake here as well. Not only will Texas educate a whopping 4.8 million students over the next ten years (the length of time before the next revision), but "The standards also will be used by textbook publishers nationwide who often develop materials for other states based on guidelines approved in Texas."

So, is it bad to take a critical approach to our history? Should we try and 'take out the negatives?' Or do we just hope that ten years from now the political climate in Texas is more moderate?