Reports, front ends and curricula

So, I am just working on the schemes for the entire department. We teach five levels of General Science, four of Horticultural Science, and two levels of each of Chemistry, Physics and Biology. I have to check that all the schemes and units have been revised or devised with reference to the Revised New Zealand Curriculum.

This is something I enjoy doing. I have an inordinate passion for curriculum. I take the widest view of curriculum, defining it, in my head, as the total set of learning experiences within a school. It includes both the explicit curriculum, the null curriculum and the relationships and environment in classrooms and in the playground.

In my school right now, we're working on cultural capital. I think this is awesome. Unpacking teacher expectations and the ways we communicate those expectations is vitally important. However, it's not something easy to do, partly because beliefs and values about gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality and disability are so pervasive and entrenched.

Here is an example that's really annoying me right now:



Okay, spot the only Maori in the ad.

He's driving the car. None of the clerical workers are Maori. The boss certainly isn't Maori. The only Maori shown is a (presumably) unskilled warehouse/driver/labourer.

This wouldn't be so bad if it was an isolated example. I opened up a textbook - one in which I like the explanations and questions - and turned to the first page with pictures of people. There were seven people on the page. One was clearly not Pakeha, and another was not clearly Pakeha or Maori, but the rest were clearly Pakeha or could pass as Pakeha. There was only one woman pictured. That woman was on a boat with two men - one of those men was getting ready to dive, the other was at the wheel. The implication was that the woman was a mere passenger.

I wish that was an isolated incident in that textbook. It's not.

Curriculum is the sum of all learning experiences. The textbooks we use, the examples we give, the analogies we draw: these are all learning experiences. That's how we encode our expectations, even beyond the verbal assurances we give to students that we value them.

That encoding is not okay. I want to do better. We should all do better, or we're condemning all our students to repeating the inequities we face now.

This differentiated, self-directed stuff is hard for us all

Today's class saw a bunch of students going "but what do we doooooooo?" and flapping their hands over their freedom. I was so tempted to flap my hands back and reply, "I don't knoooow!"

Part of the problem is that they have never done anything like this. When I rewrite the Y 7 & 8 units, I will be sure to include the babysteps version of this unit. Part of it is that they don't really believe that they are allowed to be self-directed, and another part is that they are unsure of exactly what the parameters of their self-direction are. So, right now, we are compromising. All students have lists of the materials they need and should have them by Wednesday, ready to start experimenting and refining their methods.

I still need to finish off my exemplar. Finding time for this sort of thing is like pulling teeth in this place.