Here educators consider what has come of their putting curriculum in question, their setting it aside in favour of generative engagements with the ideas that underwrite it, and their standing for something else or other with their students, colleagues and communities.
Limitation, expertise, wellbeing, provisionality, being ‘caught up’ in outcomes or ‘handcuffed’ by curriculum, rules and authority, leadership, assessment, planning, structure and the unexpected all come clearly into play as educators discuss curriculum within context of philosophies of schooling and the ethics of education in community, in place, in rural education. Of course, strong resonances with the New Pathway on Assessment exist here.
With new voices continuing to be added as we move along the way, one student, five teachers, a school principal and one school vice-principal/teacher consider curricular innovation in its wake, with both strong cautions and clarifying commitments.
They live and work in five rural school districts in British Columbia, in the province’s Kootenay and Peace river regions, its Gold Trail district (south of the Cariboo), on and around Northern Vancouver Island and on Haida Gwaii. The interviews took place from 2012 to 2016.
We join the discussion in its increasingly ethical cast…what is it to “do the right thing” where curriculum is concerned?
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?
To what extent is expertise expected of teachers in your experience/contexts? In what?
What concerns have educators in this video of the expectation of teachers’ ‘expert’ authority? What exactly do they favour (and what words do they use to describe it)? (these can be elusive, so its good to be very careful in our reading/viewing)
What reasons do educators give, or imply, for their view of curriculum, and/or the necessity of curricular innovation?
For what specific reasons, in your view, do teachers get ‘caught up’ in the ‘what’ of teaching?
Regardless of the diversity of views that may obtain about ‘doing the right thing’ with respect to curriculum, what is your view of the need for its discussion? Is it central or supplementary to good education? How/why might it be important in your view? What do educators, education & curriculum become through it?
Many dismiss views like the student’s in this video as a kind of naïve sort of quirk or idealism – how could his comments be important in an ethical sense where transgression and control are concerned in education? Can curriculum be innovated in conversation with views like these? Can it be without them?
In your view and/or experience, what is the relation between curricular enforcement (in directive or ‘traditional’ curricula) and teacher wellbeing?
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