Walking out of class last week, I had what might be my biggest educational epiphany to date. Having handled curriculum documents in class, looking at each aspect of the curriculum and looking forward, where we will be working with the documents themselves, I realized that it was the first time I’ve ever held a curriculum document or even looked at one.
How is it possible to get through 12 years of public school education and multiple years of university education without ever having the perspective of the teacher on what the government insists upon student’s learning? We’re constantly instructed that the reason why we are learning x is because of y on the curriculum. Never once however, was I invited after one of these discussions in school, to look at the curriculum itself. In many ways it became a buzzword, the man behind the curtain, a regulating figure which worked without regulating anything at all, all that you needed was to hear the reason was curriculum related and you were expected to accept it as an element of grand importance. As I dwelt on this after class I couldn’t help but wonder. Maybe it was different for other schools? Maybe my schooling was the odd situation here, maybe everyone else was completely in the loop with regard to how the curriculum dictated the form their education took. Even how the curriculum itself looked!
But here’s the thing. I don’t think I’m the odd one out.
Take for instance, the Ontario Ministry of Education site. Now yes, it’s a formal government site and the last thing I was expecting to find on it were cartoons or visual aids to entice children to learn about education curriculum as I am not so far removed to not understand that kids probably aren’t interested in the curriculum. Although all of the government documentation is posted on the Ministry of Education website, these will read like dry political treatises to the majority of students. But does this mean they should not be informed of the curriculum at all?
While the Ministry site was not the most student friendly experience, I was awestruck by how many of the instructions appeared geared entirely towards an adult audience. Take for example, this screenshot of the “Frequently Asked Questions” section which is placed after all the PDFs for the curriculums.
There’s nothing out of the ordinary about it, I admit, a rather average FAQ helping individuals understand and navigate the material offered by the website. However, upon a closer look, it can be seen that this site is not really intended for the student at all, for instance, examine the questions, all of which integral to an understanding of the curriculum.
Notice the language? Notice the way in which the questions even care more about the parent’s opinion than the students? These are not questions which would ever help a child understand the way in which classroom learning adheres to this seemingly fantastical but influential document. So why the complication? Why do we keep this documentation strictly among the adults? It is the student who must abide by the curriculum so why is there not a section for explaining it at the beginning of each year?
So that poses the question, what would the good in curriculum transparency for children be?
Not every child needs it. Not by a long shot. But for those inquiring minds, would it not be better to actually teach them the reasons why learning is structured a certain way instead of just dismissing it behind that word curriculum? Why, when the very job is to teach is this the one sector where further requests for information were generally refuted in my experience? I believe that the curriculum is, to a certain extent seen as the power in the student-teacher relationship, however, a more respectful relationship would be sure to result if children were actually involved in understanding what it is they’re learning and why, and would be less likely to resist cries of “Because it’s in the curriculum” if they too understood these documents, at least in broader strokes.
If a student like me who has wanted to be a teacher for many years even found themselves questioning the teacher over why the curriculum was structured in such a specific way, I can’t be the only one. So why aren’t we dealing with this? Instead of transparency, we breed loyalty to a document that appears to us clear as day but that must appear to the student like the man behind the curtain. Maybe it’s time he was seen by both sides. Students may not need to read a curriculum document from back to front but perhaps more detail is needed than grades and rubrics with regard to expectations. If we stripped away the grades what would we want them to learn? Why aren’t they being made aware of this? There is no reason not to humour inquiries on curriculum documentation and I see no reason why this mystery must continue in the long run. The curriculum needs to be accessible from a student perspective. After all, it’s ultimately their curriculum and their education.
A. Gallacher
A. Gallacher
