Cycle Two: The Contents of Curriculum

This weeks readings had us thinking about what the content of curriculum should be. What do we put in and what do we leave out? In a nut shell, Dewey wanted more exploration and experience, Hirsch wanted students to all memorize the basics and allowed practical application to be flexible, while the article from the New York Times showed a new way to teach with video games.

John Dewey’s (not the Dewey of the Dewey decimal system) philosophy, as found in “Child and Curriculum”, is that curriculum content needs to be experienced. If it is not, the lack of connection with what the child already knew, felt, and loved would make the curriculum “formal and symbolic,” having no real lasting impression on the child, leading to a lack of motivation and ultimately, “the child’s reasoning powers, the faculty of abstraction and generalization, are not adequately developed,” (118-119). According to Dewey the value of experience is not merely found in the experience itself, but also in the “standpoint, outlook, and method,” (116) of the student, allowing for continued growth in that role.

Not surprising, Dewey also seems to be against textbooks. Especially in comparison to the teacher, textbooks generally reduce the student to a “lower intellectual level,” (118). The material that is presented within the textbook is not translated into life-terms (a way for the student to see how it relates to him/herself), but is a substitute for experience.

I think Dewey’s ideas are relevant for today, especially among the youngest of learners, those in the pre-school and kindergarten age range. Young children should be learning by doing. While there are some things that most readily lend themselves to rote learning—the alphabet, days of the week, months of the year, shape and color names—others can simply be learned as children move around the classroom, exploring their surroundings and using problem solving skills when the needs arise. While we have daily curriculum activities at Tutor Time, a majority of a child’s day is spent engaging in self-directed play/learning. Outside of directed learning times, we as teachers, simply explore with the children, becoming part of their play, and encouraging them to follow their own interest. While one child might be exploring magnets, trying to figure how to make them go together and pulling them apart (early science), another may be using blocks to symbolize a birthday cake (cognitive thinking), another maybe looking at books in the book center (basic literacy), while still another is counting with pegs (early math). Each is self-directed and each is learning. The curriculum at that moment is varied and exciting.

I think it would be more difficult to incorporate Dewey into a high school classroom. It would be costly to have all of the materials necessary for students to be working on multiple projects and lessons at a given time. Teachers and students would have to conference about what was going to be studied, what the outcome was going to be, and how the student would be graded. Students would also find it harder to jump with a subject such as math where one concept would rely on the knowledge of another.

(For Further reading on how Dewey is still influence education around the world: Dewey in Turkey: Lessons for today)

Hirsch’s chapter “Cultural Literacy and the Schools” outlines a different approach to curriculum. After exploring curriculum of the past, his plan was to incorporate extensive and intensive curriculum. The content of the extensive curriculum is “traditional literate knowledge, the information, attitudes, and assumptions that literate Americans share—cultural literacy.” (127) It would be a minimum of what all students should know; for example, who is Shakespeare and who are Romeo and Juliet? In contrast, intensive curriculum “ensures that individual students, teachers, and schools can work intensively with materials that are appropriate for their diverse temperaments and aims.” (128) So while all students will know about Romeo and Juliet, they don’t need to read that play. If the students are more into history, they could read “Richard III”; if fantasy, “A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream”. Differentiating would seem to work better with Hirsch’s model.

Hirsch and Dewey do share one similarity: that student likes and dislikes should be at least a consideration when choosing curriculum. Additionally, “[ The intensive curriculum] coincides with Dewey’s recommendation that children should be deeply engaged with a small number of typical concrete instances.” (128)

A core list of knowledge to fill the extensive curriculum that all Americans would know does seem a lofty goal. However, with No Child Left Behind and standardized testing, each state has already determined what they think is important for their state’s students to know. For instance, in Maryland, all students will know about Mendel and his influence on genetics. So, it is possible. And while this would help cement cultural literacy, there is also an element of this cultural literacy that is passed on within social context as well. I learned how to spell the color orange not because I was required to by my school, but because of the crayons in my coloring box.

I found the New York Times article “Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom” to be very interesting. Using what a student is interested in has been a common theme among both Dewey and Hirsch, and students today are interested in technology. I also believe that students today, more than at any other time in history, are going to have to be able to function in a world where they will need to video conference, Skype, create blogs, and podcasts.
Going to school in the 90s,my friends and I reminisce about being excited when we got to go to the computer lab to learn about the realities of pioneer life by playing Oregon Trail or practicing our geography skills while playing Where in the World is Carmen Santiago? These forays were the exception to our school day and a great treat. Through computer games of all types, I learned how to type, do math problems, dissected a frog, and create stories. Games are a valuable tool to reinforce concepts and ideas, but they are not a substitute for education.

My biggest disagreement with the article came when Doyle suggested a shift in teaching and learning because of what is being done by students outside of school. “Why”, he questioned, “memorize the 50 states and their capitals? Why, in the age of Google and pocket computers, memorize anything?.... He took aim at spelling, calling it “outmoded.”” These “outdated” skills are more useful than Mr. Doyle believes. Memorizing the times tables, something Doyle might suggest would be more easily done with a calculator, may in fact take more time and result in keying errors. Times tables are a building block to higher math skills, such as division, long multiplication, and fractions and algebra. Memory is also the key to oral traditions that are part of many cultures. Spelling improves reading and writing fluency and also improves vocabulary and comprehension. Spelling is also important to those journalists and communicators that Doyle feels he is educating. Transcripts and articles will be turned down when an editor realizes the piece of writing is full of errors that a spell checker could not correct, for example homophones.

I was also a little wary of basing a curriculum on spending so much time in a fantasy world, as were many of the primary examples in the article. My friend Dave and I were discussing this article. He relayed a story about his nephew(whom I will call Jake) who learned to read and do basic math skills(through buying and selling) at a young age with the help of a video game. However, Jake soon began to have trouble separating fantasy from reality and wanting to continuously be in the other world. I have trouble with a curriculum that spends so much time in the creative. Studies have shown that people who spend too much time playing video games often confuse reality and fantasy, have allowed the sedentarism to have a negative effect on healthy, and that these games often portray women and minorities in a poor light.

Curriculum is ever changing and so our views on what it should be. It is up to us, as teachers, to dissect best what will help our students learn and grow and use whatever means possible.
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