Bishop, P., Downes, J, Engaging Curriculum for the Middle Years, in Curriculum Matters 4: 2008, Wellington, NZCER press ,pp.52-68.
Summary
The authors present a number of studies that show student engagement in years 7-10 is declining, especially amongst Maori boys. They suggest there is a mismatch between many middle school students’ learning needs and the schooling they experience. The school environment, they claim, doesn’t fit the socioemotional changes happening to adolescents. This looks like increased teacher control, stern disciplinary consequences, and a decrease in positive relationships and opportunity for student decision making in the classroom. Bishop and Downes argue that the new focus on middle years as a specific learning pathway in the new curriculum provides a rich opportunity to systematically revaluate what schools need in order to engage year 7-10 students more. They propose 3 essential characteristics necessary to achieve this goal:
Relevance
This characteristic requires students “tackling challenging problems based on their interests and concerns”. It is suggested that “a curriculum of topics and activities designed by committees of adults and implemented by adults” is not likely to enable the development of the Key Competencies, particularly Managing Self, Relating to Others and Participating and Contributing.
Negotiation
Negotiation is much more than simply ‘co-constructing success criteria’. Instead, it means that teachers draw on and understand students’ genuine needs, concerns and questions as the basis of curriculum decision making and preparation. Negotiation assumes that teachers know their subject well enough to have the confidence to go with the flows of genuine student interest and concern while still maintaining coherence and introducing new ideas...
Integration
Integration is described as the logical conclusion to relevance and negotiation. The authors define integration as “seiz[ing] on the non-linear development of knowledge typical of real world problem solving and participatory action. Information is learnt as knowledge-in-action as opposed to the knowledge-out-of-context found in most subject-centred designs”. It should be noted that integration is defined as much more than organising subjects around general themes. The authors also emphasis that for integration to be successful and not fall on the shoulders of individual teachers or teaching teams, systems, expectations and curriculum need to be honed with a coherent vision in mind.
Finally, Bishop and Downes recommend place-based education and service learning as useful frameworks to achieving a more engaging curriculum for students in years 7-10.
Some possible implications for the average secondary school
We wouldn’t teach ‘topics’ in quite the same way. The statement “what topic are we doing next” wouldn’t make sense if we took these ideas on board.
All teachers would need to be able to articulate what an engaging curriculum could look like; this can only happen when we reach a critical mass of teachers that realised that education was, as Jim Neyland describes, “autotelic” –worthwhile in and of itself and not intended for some future-oriented goal of passing NCEA or getting a job.
Potential Problems
We would need strategies for teachers for developing units around genuine needs concerns and questions of years 9 and 10 students.
Faculties would need to be open to fitting the curriculum standards to class interests, rather than trying to generate a class interest from an AO.
We would need a much more organic approach to resources. It is unlikely we would work through a text book or PPT. These would be used only as stimulus material or in response to a common question.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Teaching History for the Common Good
Barton, K.C, Levstik., L, Teaching History for the Common Good, Laurence ErlBaum, Associates, MahWah, 2004.
1) What is the book’s main idea?
The purpose of history education in United States schools is to use the past to provide a context for deliberating the Common Good, defined as a pluralist, participatory democracy, whereby students are equipped to take action in the present.
2) What is significant about this book for teachers?
This book forced me to think about why I do anything in the classroom. (Pity it took so long for that to happen - but again in the current system the why? is far less important than the how?) For example, I was going to send students off to research the history of a memorial. Reason: “it’s inquiry”. This isn’t enough. It has to be, according to Levstik and Barton for the common good. (See upcoming posting on History Memorial Project for ideas about this).
The Common Good (CG) helped me see how history concepts can add complexity to my social studies teaching. One problem with Photovoice projects done with young people (see posting on Photovoice project) is that students' basic theory of change is that “awareness raising” will change a situation. Some researchers have found that when students fail to make any difference on an issue they have attempted to change or improve they become even more apathetic and unengaged in society. CG talked about the importance of teaching about agency. Perhaps if social studies teachers attempting to help students engage in social action spend some time unpacking that "awarenes raising" (or fund raising) alone is unlikely to make much difference when there are deep structural conditions preventing change, students will have a more realistic understanding of what it takes to seriously enact change. Perhaps teachers could use historical examples of groups such as the women suffragists or slave abolitionists to explore what they were up against and what kind of commitment it took to create the climate for real, structural change.
3) What surprised you about this book?
That socio-cultural theory could be so important to a teacher’s daily practice. That this is surprising is no doubt a result of the hyper-behaviourist classrooms I was educated in at school and university. However, how society uses and remembers the past is pretty crucial to the kind of society we are (or are not). A couple of quotes are instructive:
"An assumption of sociocultural theory is that human thought and action are embedded in social contexts that extend beyond the individual”
and
“We need to pay attention to the kinds of history they encounter not only at school but in other settings that contribute to their ideas about the past. We need to know how history is represented in the museums and historic sites they visit, in the television programs and movies they watch, and in the historical literature they read outside school; we also need to know what kinds of historical information relatives pass along”. (p.17)
If I want to know why and how students think about the past and to mediate those thought and ideas towards deliberation of the Common Good, everything matters! What they watch on TV, how much time they spend with their grandparents, what their interests are, where they live, gender, politics, ethnicity, class, but also the level of contact they have with cultural tools - abstract ones such as “narrative” or concrete ones such as museums, songs, monuments, plaques, Che Guevara T Shirts, street signs, heritage trails, Labour Day, Waitangi Day, the media, Memorial halls, parks, swimming pools... Whenever we are teaching, considerably more time needs to be spent on attending to the knowledge and assumptions that students bring with them. This is pretty basic stuff really. It's a pity the assessment system does little to encourage this kind of teaching to take place with its focus on shunting students through NCEA so they emerge with their so-called certificates of achievement.
4) What don’t you agree with in this book, why?
I wonder if a socioecological analysis would have revealed something different, especially in regards to why history teachers fail so dismally to get beyond coverage and control.
Lack of personal teaching examples from the classroom, by the authors, also made them seem distant but it didn't really matter.
This book was all about time; in an academic climate of interdisciplinary collaboration, and explorations of non-western approaches to the traditional assumptions of academic disciplines, what about space? And unfortunately the book didn’t go into how other subjects that might complement history such as geography, anthropology, archaeology could contribute to the Common Good.
It was very logically structured but also a little clunky with the 4 stances, each with 3 parts, and 6 tools which were conceptually slightly different. This is not a very well substantiated comment but there was something about the structure that didn't quite flow for me.
My main critique is that while I would hope participatory democracy and the Common Good can be experienced in our nation's classrooms, for most of the time that is not where it happens. It happens, as the authors point out, in our churches, committees, clubs, local government, etc... History educators could take a more place-based approach to our teaching to really make our teaching democratic. Students could be doing and using history in places and with people outside of a classroom. But all the examples and evidence that I could see in CG came from inside classrooms. Perhaps a book called Teaching History for the Commons" might have been more apt had the authors gone down this line.
5) What questions does this book raise for you?
What narratives do we tell ourselves about the nation and the past in New Zealand? What evidence, or lack of evidence are these based on?
What is the difference between social studies and history?
Is the purpose of science and maths education the same as history? If so, what would a book like this one for those subjects look like?
If someone wrote a book like this with the focus on New Zealand, what would its conclusions be?
What role does history teaching have in place-based education? What are the purposes of each literature base? Where do they overlap? What can they offer each other?
Buber and Freire are said to embody different types of humanism. Interesting given a critique of Friere is that he appropriated so much of Buber. What is the story here?
Why did we not get a section in the New Zealand Curriculum on the Nature of History like the Science teachers got?
6) If you could ask the author of the book a question what would it be?
What is the most interesting critique of this book that you have read?
What chance does the New Zealand history curriculum have of helping teacher’s help students deliberate the Common Good?
The NZ curriculum has a focus on “significance to New Zealanders” which seems to be interpreted from a content level. Teachers are being encouraged to show how overseas topics can be related to New Zealand. Does this focus make it difficult for teachers to justify teaching topics about the Roman Empire or Medieval days, which could be a useful tool for understanding how we think today?
7) What books would you like to read that came from this one?
Tom Holt’s “Thinking historically”, James Percocco’s “A Passion for the Past”, David Kobrin’s “Beyond the text book”, Monica Edinger’s “Seeking History”. Peter Stearn’s “Meaning over Memory”.
1) What is the book’s main idea?
The purpose of history education in United States schools is to use the past to provide a context for deliberating the Common Good, defined as a pluralist, participatory democracy, whereby students are equipped to take action in the present.
2) What is significant about this book for teachers?
This book forced me to think about why I do anything in the classroom. (Pity it took so long for that to happen - but again in the current system the why? is far less important than the how?) For example, I was going to send students off to research the history of a memorial. Reason: “it’s inquiry”. This isn’t enough. It has to be, according to Levstik and Barton for the common good. (See upcoming posting on History Memorial Project for ideas about this).
The Common Good (CG) helped me see how history concepts can add complexity to my social studies teaching. One problem with Photovoice projects done with young people (see posting on Photovoice project) is that students' basic theory of change is that “awareness raising” will change a situation. Some researchers have found that when students fail to make any difference on an issue they have attempted to change or improve they become even more apathetic and unengaged in society. CG talked about the importance of teaching about agency. Perhaps if social studies teachers attempting to help students engage in social action spend some time unpacking that "awarenes raising" (or fund raising) alone is unlikely to make much difference when there are deep structural conditions preventing change, students will have a more realistic understanding of what it takes to seriously enact change. Perhaps teachers could use historical examples of groups such as the women suffragists or slave abolitionists to explore what they were up against and what kind of commitment it took to create the climate for real, structural change.
3) What surprised you about this book?
That socio-cultural theory could be so important to a teacher’s daily practice. That this is surprising is no doubt a result of the hyper-behaviourist classrooms I was educated in at school and university. However, how society uses and remembers the past is pretty crucial to the kind of society we are (or are not). A couple of quotes are instructive:
"An assumption of sociocultural theory is that human thought and action are embedded in social contexts that extend beyond the individual”
and
“We need to pay attention to the kinds of history they encounter not only at school but in other settings that contribute to their ideas about the past. We need to know how history is represented in the museums and historic sites they visit, in the television programs and movies they watch, and in the historical literature they read outside school; we also need to know what kinds of historical information relatives pass along”. (p.17)
If I want to know why and how students think about the past and to mediate those thought and ideas towards deliberation of the Common Good, everything matters! What they watch on TV, how much time they spend with their grandparents, what their interests are, where they live, gender, politics, ethnicity, class, but also the level of contact they have with cultural tools - abstract ones such as “narrative” or concrete ones such as museums, songs, monuments, plaques, Che Guevara T Shirts, street signs, heritage trails, Labour Day, Waitangi Day, the media, Memorial halls, parks, swimming pools... Whenever we are teaching, considerably more time needs to be spent on attending to the knowledge and assumptions that students bring with them. This is pretty basic stuff really. It's a pity the assessment system does little to encourage this kind of teaching to take place with its focus on shunting students through NCEA so they emerge with their so-called certificates of achievement.
4) What don’t you agree with in this book, why?
I wonder if a socioecological analysis would have revealed something different, especially in regards to why history teachers fail so dismally to get beyond coverage and control.
Lack of personal teaching examples from the classroom, by the authors, also made them seem distant but it didn't really matter.
This book was all about time; in an academic climate of interdisciplinary collaboration, and explorations of non-western approaches to the traditional assumptions of academic disciplines, what about space? And unfortunately the book didn’t go into how other subjects that might complement history such as geography, anthropology, archaeology could contribute to the Common Good.
It was very logically structured but also a little clunky with the 4 stances, each with 3 parts, and 6 tools which were conceptually slightly different. This is not a very well substantiated comment but there was something about the structure that didn't quite flow for me.
My main critique is that while I would hope participatory democracy and the Common Good can be experienced in our nation's classrooms, for most of the time that is not where it happens. It happens, as the authors point out, in our churches, committees, clubs, local government, etc... History educators could take a more place-based approach to our teaching to really make our teaching democratic. Students could be doing and using history in places and with people outside of a classroom. But all the examples and evidence that I could see in CG came from inside classrooms. Perhaps a book called Teaching History for the Commons" might have been more apt had the authors gone down this line.
5) What questions does this book raise for you?
What narratives do we tell ourselves about the nation and the past in New Zealand? What evidence, or lack of evidence are these based on?
What is the difference between social studies and history?
Is the purpose of science and maths education the same as history? If so, what would a book like this one for those subjects look like?
If someone wrote a book like this with the focus on New Zealand, what would its conclusions be?
What role does history teaching have in place-based education? What are the purposes of each literature base? Where do they overlap? What can they offer each other?
Buber and Freire are said to embody different types of humanism. Interesting given a critique of Friere is that he appropriated so much of Buber. What is the story here?
Why did we not get a section in the New Zealand Curriculum on the Nature of History like the Science teachers got?
6) If you could ask the author of the book a question what would it be?
What is the most interesting critique of this book that you have read?
What chance does the New Zealand history curriculum have of helping teacher’s help students deliberate the Common Good?
The NZ curriculum has a focus on “significance to New Zealanders” which seems to be interpreted from a content level. Teachers are being encouraged to show how overseas topics can be related to New Zealand. Does this focus make it difficult for teachers to justify teaching topics about the Roman Empire or Medieval days, which could be a useful tool for understanding how we think today?
7) What books would you like to read that came from this one?
Tom Holt’s “Thinking historically”, James Percocco’s “A Passion for the Past”, David Kobrin’s “Beyond the text book”, Monica Edinger’s “Seeking History”. Peter Stearn’s “Meaning over Memory”.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Jim Neyland
Education took a huge body blow last week with the passing of one of the best educators, and certainly one of the best people, I am likely to meet. Kelvin Smythe gave a fitting tribute at his funeral along with many others and there is a heart breaking but the same time heart warming exchange between the two of them over the last year and through Jim's illness on Kelvin's website. Until sitting in Jim's class I didn't realise it was possible for a teacher to have such an effect on a student. Who knows where my teaching and learning and thinking would be at now without the kinds of challenges he posed me and the patience he gave me. He spent three weeks teaching about outcomes-based education before I worked out why I was confused. It took that long before I realised what he was saying so clearly: Outcomes-based education does emphatically not have the last word on education. I had so totally absorbed the status quo that it was if he was trying to convince me I had a third arm.
I still regularly give out the first version of page of 1 of my Masters thesis to my students when we are doing writing. You can barely see my words from Jim's arrows, scribbles, asterisks, comments. It gradually got less and less. By page 7 he had pretty much given up. What better way to learn that writing is a process!
All teachers, but I think especially secondary teachers and above all maths teachers, need to be familiar with Jim's writing and his vision for education. His new book, "Rediscovering the spirit of education after scientific management theory" can only be described as essential reading. His message is particularly pertinent to those of us educated in New Zealand's schools since the reforms of the 1980s. We cannot afford to be naive of the historical context of the political climate that we find ourselves in and that has shaped education since the 1980s. Nor can we afford to be philosophically and theoretically uninformed about the nature and purpose of our subjects. No one is going to tell us about it - in fact, it seems like the system wants to actively dissuade us from exploring this. We need to actively seek out educators like Jim Neyland.
I still regularly give out the first version of page of 1 of my Masters thesis to my students when we are doing writing. You can barely see my words from Jim's arrows, scribbles, asterisks, comments. It gradually got less and less. By page 7 he had pretty much given up. What better way to learn that writing is a process!
All teachers, but I think especially secondary teachers and above all maths teachers, need to be familiar with Jim's writing and his vision for education. His new book, "Rediscovering the spirit of education after scientific management theory" can only be described as essential reading. His message is particularly pertinent to those of us educated in New Zealand's schools since the reforms of the 1980s. We cannot afford to be naive of the historical context of the political climate that we find ourselves in and that has shaped education since the 1980s. Nor can we afford to be philosophically and theoretically uninformed about the nature and purpose of our subjects. No one is going to tell us about it - in fact, it seems like the system wants to actively dissuade us from exploring this. We need to actively seek out educators like Jim Neyland.
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