Here we move further into the question that has presented itself through this documentation pathway so far: Is there a general orientation toward curriculum being articulated and, if so, what should we call it, and what are its terms?
Variously participants articulate here the stakes of curricular innovation in education, on what terms it may proceed, and what specifically may be at issue or risk in advancing in innovation (or professing something new). With all of confidence, uncertainty, frustration and great commitment, in this brief video, two superintendents of schools, a school principal/teacher, a school vice-principal/teacher, three teachers and one parent begin to clarify the locus of the transformative and ethical dimensions of curricular innovation in education.
They live and work in four rural school districts in British Columbia, in the province’s Kootenay and Peace river regions, as well as on Lasqueti and Haida Gwaii. The interviews took place from 2012 to 2016.
Note the multiple connotations of the concept of sacrifice at play…of enduring, of doing away with something, and of making something sacred.
Some questions to consider (we recommend brief small group discussions that can each then ‘compare notes’ about the different directions opened in how such ‘complicated’ conversations can go):
How do you respond to this video?
What does it bring to mind for you?
What questions do you have upon viewing this video?
What is required of educators by what is asserted in this video? What choices must be made?
What do the documentation participants express as curricular values in this documentation? What are the very specific realities they assume? How are these sorts of questions important (or unimportant) to education, in your view? What do you call their consideration in education?
How is schooling seen to be against innovation in this documentation? How is innovation asa curricular value articulated in this video? What is its absence implied as (i.e. what is the world that is made by the absence of curricular innovation)?
In your experience, what of importance is not talked about, but is “just assumed“ in education? How does curriculum produce such silence, and at what cost (and for whom)?
What sacrifices have you made for innovation in education, and what has come of these efforts? (and be careful not to conclude too soon!!)
From the video, what could the ‘new matrix’ of education be called? How does each possible name require further thought? What should we call this process, and how is important to the project of education?
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