April 6th

Well, another one down. Time sure flies when you're having fun! As a last post, I would just like to reflect on the class as a whole and say that I enjoyed working with everyone in the class and enjoyed the content of it as well. Thank you everyone for worthy contributions to the discussions.

As for a personal reflection, I'd have to say that I see more and more that there is no answer to the "right" curriculum. As I have said before, I thought coming through the master's level, I would be able to find a style, system, curriculum model that fits everything, but it's just not true. Thank you Prof. Hlynka for exposing us to a variety of models/styles, etc. It's also astonishing to me that time after time, generation after generation, people (professionals, government, all stakeholders) keep producing new models. That shows that people feel the need for change. Education obviously continues to change and therefore, curriculums must too. That kind of blows my mind that something so systematic has drastic enough changes to merit a new program or model to follow. That's where society comes in I guess. People are the driving force to curriculum change. Students' interest are a driving factor. Technology is a strong driving factor. Can you imagine going to school today as a student in one of those one room school houses, better yet, can you imagine teaching that? I realize there are schools today with teachers of multi-level, but that's not to what I am refering. Times change and therefore educational systems must too. Interesting none the less, or as Prof. Hlynka would say....fascinating!

March 23

I know I wasn't in class last night, but I thought I'd blog anyway. First of all, I am interested to read your blogs for the sole reason that I am curious as to everyone's interpretation of Baurillard. I briefly read some of his work and the first idea that came to my head was "bold". He comes across as a confident man just based on some of the views he has about society.

Secondly, I'll add some thoughts about a completely unrelated matter. My vice principle gave me a document called, "The Journal of the National Staff Development Council" because he knows I am taking my masters in educational technology. I was reading it between parent conferences last night. What caught me interest was an article about the isolation of fine arts teachers. I thought it might touch on what we discussed in class about how to assess things like art and phys.ed, etc. However, it was an article about collaboration between teachers and the on-line community. It was just about sharing what you do in the classroom. The second article that aroused my attention was about international education. It also just relayed the fact that teacher collaboration and the on-line learning community was essential to have some standards between schools and classrooms. After reading several articles, the same theme seemed to emerge. I wondered if this is huge trend. Is education going to become one huge global on-line learning community where students and teachers share ideas from classroom to classroom, country to country.....and then back to Baurillard and his views on technology's effect on globalization of society.

So, tell me what you discussed last night.....

L

Mar.16 th class thoughts

Wow....lots to talk about (Prof. Hlynka, you missed a good one!!)I finally get what everyone means by our "American Curriculum". Okay, I'll eat my words. However, now I am wondering if that is true in every industry. Is our rapid progress in health care (specifically cancer care) due to American research as well? It seems quite deflating to think about that. So, why aren't Canadians conducting more research? Is it simply a representation of our population? I guess we'll have to get cracking guys!

Secondly, the article/curriculum the Orest gave us was certainly interesting. I can understand the perspective of the church. They are an institution that is grounded in some long standing values, but what I don't understand is why are they opposed to the whole thing? For example, there is a section about violence toward women. I would think the the church would want their children to learn about this. It is an equality issue. On that note....I was baptized and confirmed in a Christian church. I went through Sunday school and confirmation classes. We were taught to accept everyone, not to judge people and most importantly forgive and forget. So, the way I'd look at this curriculum is to accept the content because I was taught to accept people no matter what their preferences are. This leads me to the idea of postmodernism. I heard recently from a colleague (after a lengthy conversation about students of today's society) that the number of people who attend church has dropped significantly (I'm not sure whether that is in Canada, Manitoba or locally in this area). I wonder if it due to postmodernism and all the accepted views of topics today or the lack of time on parents' parts, or a general disregard for religious values. Either way, if people aren't going to church as much, how much weight does the church have in public school education. (keep in mind that I'm not disrespecting the church, just asking a question)

Lastly, I thorougly enjoyed the Science curriculum analysis (it didn't have cubes or anything though....)Just kidding. Great job!

Mar. 2 class thoughts

In case you couldn't notice from my comments in class....the idea of being "Americanized" bugs me. There are so many reasons. First of all, we aren't only Americanized, but Europized? and Asiaized? Many people in Canada own Toyotas, Honda's, buy Ikea furniture, wear designer clothing, etc. In fact, if we looked at the labels of most of the stuff in our life I think it is safe to say that very few of it says "made in Canada". So, we aren't just Americanized, but globalized and I think that it is the nature of the world. It's just getting smaller. Secondly, if people are upset about being taken over by the US, perhaps Canadians should start marketing Canada better. The olympics was a great show of that. I'd say we promoted Canada pretty well, so why not all year, every year. A friend of mine is a film maker. He's won several international awards at film festivals, won grants to make more films, etc. However, if I tell you his name I can guarantee nobody will know him. That is because he doesn't market himself as a film maker. There's never been any articles in papers about him, nor has there been any commercials about him or his films, so why would we expect him to be bigger than a Hollywood film maker who spends a ton of money marketing their work. So maybe Canadians deserve to be taken over (I'm don't honestly believe that, I'm just playing the other side)

The last statement I'd like to make about being Americanized is about curriculum (and that's what I should be commenting about). I'm obviously not knowledgeable enough about how all of this works (hence the reason I'm in school) but are the curriculum documents that we use not made in Canada by Canadian stakeholders (teachers, administrators, consultants, politicians)? And is the curriculum content not based on Canada? I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand what is Americanized about our curriculum? Can someone help me out with that?

Feb. 23rd's class reflection

I was struggling with how models dehumanized people involved, but I understand completely. In fact, it reminds me of my first year in Mexico and the dehumanization that I experienced. My administrator thought that all teaching staff should be able to plan their weeks to the point that if she walked into a classroom at any given time, she should know what was going on. She made all of us write lesson plans for the whole week. This meant 40 lesson plans to her on Monday morning. Being in Mexico,the last thing I wanted to do on the weekend was write 40 lesson plans. Secondly, half the time, or more than half the time, when she walked into my class with her clipboard, I wasn't doing what it said because things had shifted off course by the end of the week. The funny part is that one of my colleagues caught on to the fact that this was just a hoop jump for us and nobody was reading them. Part of this exercise was to share with our colleages the lesson plans for various subjects and levels. The teaching staff wasnt' reading anybody elses lesson plans but either were the administrators. My colleague wrote nursery rhymes, poems and one line jokes on 40 pages and handed them in for about 3 months. Not a single person said anything to her. She finally went to the administrator and told them that the exercise of writing 40 lesson plans was ridiculuous and a waste of trees. The exercise was soon dropped. Now I understand what you meant by dehumanizing because I think that is what I experienced. However, at this moment, if an administrator saw my day book, it would probably look like I was very disorganized, but in my head it is crystal clear.

Secondly, I think that you can still work around a model and use the affective domain. Within the context of a model there is still some degree of personal style and freedom. I think teachers can adjust their lessons accordingly. Many of us can think on our feet.

In regard to art, I have already made my comments on this. I think it is very difficult to assess subjects like art, phys.ed, music, etc. because they are very skill based and if you don't have the aptitude, it doesn't mean you didn't get anything out of the class. Also, like I said in class, in terms of appreciation, is it better for students to know the messages and meanings behind pieces of art, music, etc. or should it be a self-inquiry thing for them? I get a very different take on pieces of art than my husband, but it doesn't mean I don't like it or appreciate it.

Feb. 16th's class

I really got thinking about Graham's comment about the girls that drowned in the car. I went home and talked to my husband about it. Here's the thing....I have always held the view that technology is the new wave and as teacher's we better get knowledgeable about it and be able to teach it and understand the new devices, etc. in order to keep up with the students. This is primarily my reasoning for a pursuing another degree in educational technology. I find myself defending technology to other educators and making a strong case for letting the students "get away" with using devices in class because it it the new thing and it is the teacher's that must start to change and get familiar with this. My husband on the other hand is the complete opposite. He gets very upset with students using devices in class and thinks that students are getting away with far too much and is dead set on not changing his ways in the classroom. So this topic comes up quite a bit between us. We find each other's view a good compliment. However, I went home last night and told him I agreed with him...to his shock, he asked why. I told him what Graham had mentioned about having items stored in long term memory and that eventually sometime in our life they will re-surface whether we find them valuable at the time that we learn them or not. I told him the exercises we did and how we used many parts of the brain and how problem solving comes from long term memory and the ability to use it. I mentioned how the students today are so programmed to use technology as a way of problem solving or perhaps using technology instead of problem solving that the girls in the car may have resorted to using a cell phone to save their lives rather that using their knowledge of pressure or tools to get out of their car. I took back everything I said to my husband about defending technology because now I understand how technology may hinder these students from using their common sense. I say this quite quickly and still do find value and merit in using technology and still feel that teachers need to get on the technology boat, but now understand that it may be dangerous to solely rely on it. Another story is from a trip my husband and I took to Nova Scotia a few years ago. We went to Lunnenberg, stayed at a bed and breakfast with a fellow who used to man the lighthouse there. After telling us it had been shut down and is now a tourist attraction, I asked if GPS had caused that. He said maybe, but just months before a ship had crashed right infront of the lighthouse because the batteries in their GPS had died and they were staring at a broken device rather than using the light from a lighthouse. All the people on board died. There has been conversations about using an ipod touch as a textbook for schools considering they hold much of the information from a textbook and it is relevant to today's use of technology. Also, they have google at their fingertips so that they can find answers to anything. My husband of course was outraged by this. However, now I am second guessing "google at your fingertips". It may not save your life or atleast teach you to problem solve.

February 9th's class

Discussing various models/designs/content of curriculum makes me think of a conversation I had with a colleague not long ago. We were talking about how both of our grandfathers dropped out of school in grade 8 because they had to go to work to support the family. Without a high school education, we both said they were very intelligent, in fact rank among some of the smartest people we know. I'm not sure if part of this is due to the age and experience at which point we knew them, which I think is a education of its own, but certainly social skills come in to play big time in terms of intelligence. We were suggesting that forcing a child into the work force makes them very sociable and therefore, the mere conversations with older people is a learning experience. We also agreed that students can learn an awful lot from being in a work place and that apprenticeship programs and practicums are sometimes, the best option for students who don't want to be in a classroom. So, all this talk about designs of curriculum made me think of having no curriculum. I saw that Graham posted on my blog about the instance of having no curriculum in a school, so what if the public school system only ran until Grade 8? What would happen? It worked in the early part of the 20th century and there were some very smart people....not that I'm suggesting this as an option!

Thoughts on Feb. 2's class....

I enjoyed the conversations about metaphors....the funny thing is that I love this topic because I am a very concrete and linear thinker. My father in law told me that was a terrible thing to say about myself! I'd say that I "get" metaphors, but never initally go looking for them.

My question for discussion is about the Kliebard article. It appears that he is suggesting that curriculum is a metaphor, theory, idealistic, not practical. That's kind of ironic, isn't it? Teaching is a practial thing and yet the guide we use is not. It's kind of funny to me. At the same time, I appreciate that completely because it give me tons of freedom in terms of methods and style of teaching. So my question is...what is curriculum's use?

January 26th's class

I couldn't help think about Vicky after Prof. Hlynka made the announcement. I didn't know her that well, but well enough to know that she was a good person and certainly had a passion for being an educator. It's very sad.

The funny thing is that last class we were talking about the apology that the government made about residential schools and I was thinking that it is too bad she wasn't in class because I'd like to know how she felt about it. Her childhood school experience was in a residential school and she told all of us in front of the class how traumatic it was for her. My question for her was whether the apology was a bit of a slap in the face or maybe very much appreciated. I wonder if it is one of those situations where an apology doesn't do very much after a certain point. It certainly can't undo any of the damage done.

Secondly, I wanted to comment on Duchastel's criteria for a study guide. Doesn't the criteria for a study guide depend of what it is you are studying for? Why does Duchastel get the credit for making the criteria for a study guide? I think a study guide could look like many different things as long as it prepares you for what you are studying.

On a final note, I thought I'd mention my thoughts on the Discover Canada guide. At first glance, I thought is was quite good because I'm currently teaching the Grade 11 Canadian History course and all of what I just taught is mentioned in there. I thought it would have been nice to give the students a copy of this as a supplement to the course. However, the closer I looked, the more I could see that this was almost like an informational brochure. In terms of content for new Canadians, I don't think they'd need information like transit, banking, grocery stores because that is just logistics of moving somewhere. (I have lived in 4 other countries besides Canada and it's just information you need to acquire to live there. However, if you want to understand and learn about where you are going to live it is helpful to know some history and some of the immediate parts of the culture.) So, if I were moving to Canada I would like a brief history, but primarily to learn about some of the daily traditions. For example, living in Malaysia, it would have been nice to know what the city wide siren was that I heard 5 times a day. It would be nice for a new Canadian to know the national anthem,(living in Mexico, I heard the national anthem so many times that I could sing it, and never heard the Malaysian anthem once in the whole time being there) some famous Canadians that people actually can have conversations about, popular places to see (UNESCO) and geography of the country, some of the resources and industries, (we can't grow bananas or coconuts, but it would be neat to know what are our major exports), cultural and religious make up and the restrictions on people (it would have been nice to know that I wasn't allowed to leave the country of Malaysia for 185 days after arriving. My Christmas trip home got cancelled pretty quick.) I'm rambling now, so I'll stop, but in a nut shell I think it would be nice in general to be educated about the information that Canadian born people know. My last critique is the grammar. We analyzed the grammatics and realize there must have been a reason for the style, but it does seem rather weak to me that an official government document can be so careless.

January 19, 2010

I guess it's my time to be defensive!!! When Professor Hlynka brought up the 4 issues about education in the media I had to take a tiny bit of offense, not toward our professor, but the fact that these issues point the finger at teachers. The four issues he brought up were all negative media about education and the frustrating thing is that we never hear the good or positive media. It makes me think about how teachers really need to have tough skin to be in this profession because we always end up as the scapegoat. Secondly, other industries and professions are also taken to the guillotine, such as the RCMP or the Police and also doctors. As soon as someone doesn't take care of their health, someone asks why their doctor never advised them or when someone leaves their house unlocked and they get robbed, it is because the cops weren't patrolling the neighbourhood. Perhaps during his school career, Michael Phelps was an underachieving student for whatever reason or the comment the teacher made has been taken out of context. I'd be willing to bet that Michael Phelps had some GREAT experiences and teachers at school. However, naturally, it's always the teacher's fault.

January 12, 2010

Well, I must say I have never listened to Christmas music in January! The songs actually made me think of my grandmother. I wondered if time has been a factor for the marketing type songs like Rudolph, etc. The reason is I never EVER heard my grandmother sing those and she used to get mad that my brother and I sang them. She also said they weren't about Christmas!