Consider these thoughts on curriculum presented by William Ayers (1992)
The curriculum is a thing, something bought and sold, packaged and delivered. The teachers are clerks, the front line employees doing their jobs. There is virtually no talk among school people of the curriculum as interactive or constructed, of teachers as transformative intellectuals or moral agents.
Talk of school improvement generally means buying a buying a different package and inserting it into the existing structures, cultures and realities. Ideas that are potentially transforming...become thus reduced to fit into mindless, airless spaces: "We have a critical thinking unit first thing in the morning," or "We do character ed. just before lunch." the name remains but the larger reality has overwhelmed whatever might have been hopeful there.
It is commonplace for academics to be dismissed by school teachers as being impractical, theoretical, philosophical...Equally common (but less discussed at the university) is a practically universal condescension toward teachers, toward the practical.
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2 comments:
Can't we all just get along?! I believe the whole 'climate'of relationship between theory and practice needs adjustment. For change to be a successful process, all players must be at the planning table and a mutual 'value'for each area of expertise acknowledged, sought and included. One way to help build bridges would be to allow TIME for teachers to reflect, evaluate and discuss curriculum with theorists and peers. TIME is not available - teachers are completely absorbed for 10 months directly working with students, planning, marking, with little time for a bathroom break, let alone the luxury to wax philosophically about the broader curriculum issues. Another way to bridge to gap between practice and theory is to apply some of Eisner's Arts Based Education Research suggestions. He promotes the 'enhancement of perspectives'vs. an aim at certainty, which traditional research seeks. Eisner also recommends a change in the language theorists use; it often serves as a repellent: "the use of ordinary, everyday speech...may serve toa ttract a different readership than normally engage in research texts". If this 'lingo' were to change a bit, the field would be more welcome to 'nonresearcher practitioners, policymakers, and general public'. So, TIME (which needs money, Language, and acceptance of varying perspectives are 3 ways to perhaps make the 'shifting curriculum' experience more enjoyable and useful.
Class,
I agree with Joanne, theory & practice should be amalgamated into one piece of "constructions" or become a unified paradigm.
AVG
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