Cycle Four: How should curriculum be created?

                I will be completely honest with you. I found the article on the Texas Board of Education and its influence on the United State’s education system riveting. No, there is no hint of sarcasm in my voice. I thought it was a very powerful read however, a bit bias towards the Texas Board of Education. At one point the writer stated that, “Christian thinkers like to point out…” which lumped all Christians into a category.  This statement made it hard for me to trust this journalist’s view points, which were clearly anti Texas Board of Education. Honestly, Texas is to the education system of the United States as Roger Goodell is to the NFL! On a side note as I was researching teaching evolution in public schools I came across this article, http://www.bibleliteracy.org/bibcdocs/TheBibleAndItsInfluenceTEIntro.pdf. Page 12 talks about a book that was actually made for teaching the Bible in public schools called, The Bible and Public Schools, based on our First Amendment Rights. 

                I felt very ignorant to the power Texas holds in our education system. It seems that there is a hierarchy with the Texas Board of Education being at the top. It then trickles down to the textbook companies, the states power, districts power, the school boards power, the schools authority, teacher say, and finally student influence. Now, what I think and how this education food chain can be altered is a topic for later discussion, of which I will get to.

                The question, what justifies the Texas Board of Education as being a key game MAKER of our education system? The only answer I can come up with is money. Money talks, so sad that this happens when a child’s education is at stake. Now, I know what you are thinking…since not all states are given equal government funding one state is going to be more influential than the others. This state is the one that textbook companies will court, changing their identity so as to find a suitable match for their schools. The other states will have to follow, this time in reverse, adapting their objectives to match the books that will be instrumental tools in their schools.

                Now, I understand the main concern of the Texas Board of Education is that many people on the board are not teachers and although deem themselves “expects” in a field of study, they are not practiced educators. Maybe if it was filled with educators this board would be less scrutinized, even when they voice their own views. The fact is, no matter what state was in charge or who was on the leading board of education the outcome would be the same. As long as people are free thinkers, they will hold that power to influence others. If you think your voice is the correct one, you will use that to get others to see it your way. Can you really blame them?

               The only way that each state can get passed that would be to negate using textbooks that do not have their own states content. Well, that is what they could have done before the time of Common Core.

Now, onto Tyler’s book, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. This was an interesting read when thinking about how to determine what should be taught and identifying areas students are lacking in. At one point Tyler mentions that, “It is unnecessary for the school to duplicate educational experiences already adequately provided outside the school,” which got me thinking, how is adequately truly defined or accessed? (pg 8). I suppose this could later be paired with later chapters where Tyler mentions surveying students or providing them with written assessments as a tool for determining students’ knowledge. I think about the way a progressive educationalist is defined in this book and realize that I am not them. They say that “the primary basis for educational objectives is the interests of the learners themselves” (p 10). I think about this and believe that this is how lessons should be planned, not objectives created. The learner’s interests can play a key role when thinking about the multiple intelligences to influence lessons. However, if you only followed a students’ interests, especially in the earlier grades when the exposure to information is minimal, it seems like new interests would be hard to develop to teach a student everything they should know. Now, I completely agree with the second argument Tyler brought up about the way to analyze contemporary life to suggest educational objectives (p 17). Tyler suggests that you prepare students in the ability to analyze situations and adapt to them basically, to be critical thinkers so as to be prepared for the life of tomorrow. This basically means making the objectives more rigorous which could be done by using verbage found in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Students can still be exposed to the same material, however they need to be able to think critically about it.

One way Tyler explained objectives could be made is through public opinion polls. The belief is that by polling citizens, you could see “the areas in which citizens have little information and have ineffective attitudes as a basis for their attack upon important social problems of today” (p 22). I’ll be honest, this just made me chuckle. My note next to the text was as followed, “hahahaha, this is so pro-government. Clearly I should be getting paid more by the government so I can better influence my students,” this statement was then followed by the words, “V for Vendetta?”

A good point that made me question our new Common Core was the idea of just how diverse our nation is in terms of geographical spans and even rural or urban environments. Are we wasting our students’ time by teaching them things that they have already been exposed to? Will polling students be accurate enough to tell us what they already know? Does Common Core favor one demographic more than the other?

One thing I know is that curriculum should be created with the learner in mind. I know what you are thinking; the student was at the bottom of my previous classification list that I had written above (when ordering educational influence and power in our country). This is why it is so important for teachers to be thoughtful and mindful of their pupils. When I say keep the learner in your mind I mean create lessons with differentiation, use students’ multiple intelligences to create lesson plans, create units that allow students to reach the objective by following their own interests.

                

          There are so many more things I want to say about this reading and I am afraid I am running out of room. Instead, I am going to quote the text and include my commentary. Please read if you are interested or only comment on the written portion above! Thanks.

1.           “A smaller number of consistent highly important objectives need to be selected” (33). Agreed! How long before this occurs? How are objectives inconsistent of each other?
2.      "Another question with which the school’s philosophy will need to deal can be states, ‘Should there be a different education for different classes of society?’” (36) All I can say to this one is, HELLO CHINA and how can you agree with this and be pro general education?
3.      “Since the real purpose of education is not to have the instructor perform certain activities but to bring about significant changes in the students’ patterns of behavior” (44) Does this mean that objectives are not for knowledge change but for ones moral, attitude change? Or, is the key word here instructor performance versus student performance?