Running head: EPIPHANY OF LEARNING REFLECTION NARRATIVE

Epiphany of Learning Reflection Narrative Curriculum Development EDCI 803 Anissa Bigler Kansas State University July 5, 2010

EPIPHANY OF LEARNING REFLECTION NARRATIVE

It happens with almost every class I take. The first day of class I go in with a fair amount of confidence. I have taught for twelve years, taken a number of college classes, and feel like I have a fairly good grasp on this thing called education. After looking at the syllabus and checking out the textbook, I realize that there is much I have left to learn. I wish I could say I approached this class differently, but I didnt. Curriculum DevelopmenthmmmI already know how to write effective lesson plans, and I am pretty good at getting the content taught to my students. I sure hope I learn something new. Well, I have learned a great deal. I have been mentally stretched; I have been challenged to examine current methods I use in my classroom; I have been encouraged to see all sides of my students; I have learned that curriculum is so much more than I originally thought; and I am only half way through the class. The epiphany moments, though varied, have all challenged me in one way or another to become, as Robert one of my group members would say, someone who has mastered the art of education. From chapter one of Curriculum Alternative Approaches, Ongoing Issues, my eyes began to open to the complexity of curriculum. I began to recognize it for what it was; something organic, evolving, and ever changing (Dr. Kim, email). I first became intrigued with the wide variety of definitions for curriculum. It had never occurred to me that curriculum did not have a cookie cutter definition which all districts and schools used to decide what would be taught. As I explained in one of my posts, Before reading this chapter, I am embarrassed to say, I might have given you what the book defined as a syllabus, a listing of content to be taught in a single course, although sometimes (would be) supplemented with a small number of general aims and objectives and some preferences for particular types of student activities (Marsh and Willis, 2007, p. 14). My curriculum would encompass the state objectives, the district outcomes for my

EPIPHANY OF LEARNING REFLECTION NARRATIVE grade levels, and whatever else I might have time for. How good curriculum was defined, who developed it, or where it originated had never really entered my thinking. Learning that good curriculum should have three focal points: nature of subject matter, nature of society, and nature of the individual (p. 25-26) was my next ah-ha moment. This makes complete sense and also explains why teachers, even within the same department, often disagree about what should be taught and how it should be experienced by the students. I now understand that it is NOT that one teacher has the best method; it is that they are each focusing on the curriculum with a different focal point emphasized. Before learning the three focal points, I did not even understand I was doing this. I have a natural tendency, when uncheckedwhich was because of my ignorance, to focus heavily on the nature of society. This new information has made an impact on me. One major change for me in the classroom will be to try to consistently implement a balance of all three when helping my students experience the curriculum I am expected to teach them. A good deal of my thought process has been focused on the unmotivated, struggling, oppressed (at least that is how they feel) student. These students are the ones that I have an extra soft spot in my heart for; and much of our reading has given me new insight into possible reasons for their behavior, as well as, new ways I can truly make an impact on their education and future lives. Jackson (1990) tells us that before focusing on what they do in the classroom, we must examine how students feel about school (p. 122). I do this by listening to and dialoguing (Freire, 1993) with them. This takes time and an intentional building of a relationship between teacher and student. My first instinct might be to show them a better way of life through all of the stuff I have to teach them, but Freire (1993) shouts a loud warning that to indoctrinate them and adjust

EPIPHANY OF LEARNING REFLECTION NARRATIVE them to a reality which must remain untouched (p. 150) is to not really help them at all. My role/job then as I posted on the message board is to take them (students) from where they are, help them understand it, and move them towards freedom from the oppression. If I can get students to this point, then the possibilities the world offers does not have to remain untouched. In fact I have helped them move to a place where touching the possibilities becomes a reality. To get to the place where touching the possibilities becomes a reality takes a great deal of hard work, relationship building, and instruction into the hidden curriculum. Jackson (1990) tells us that the characteristics of school lifeare not commonly mentioned by studentor apparent to the casual observer. They comprise three facts of life with which even the youngest student must learn to deal withcrowds, praise, and power (p. 119). All three of these characteristics when examined carefully make up many components of the hidden curriculum. This hidden curriculum can cause struggling students to sink even further into the pool of educational failure. A teacher when examining a student who is unmotivated and not trying will find that it often boils down to a failure to comply with institutional expectations, a failure to master the hidden curriculum (p. 121). Their lack of success often has nothing to do with their academic abilities. I do believe there is hidden curriculum that is valuable and vital for a student to learn if they want to succeed in and make changes in society once they graduate. Examples of some of these skills would be turning in work promptly, working effectively with others, engaging with authority figures in an appropriate manner, etc. Other parts of the hidden curriculum caused me to think a little deeper. Often students are asked to learn to subjugate his own desires to the will of the teacher, to subdue his own actions in the interest of the common good, to be passive and to acquiesce to the network of rules, to accept the plans of higher authorities even when their rationale is unexplained or

EPIPHANY OF LEARNING REFLECTION NARRATIVE meaning is unclear (p. 121). All of these hidden expectations can ride the fence between positive and negative. Learning to obey the teacher is a positive thing; to blindly obey and give up the essence of who you are is not. Learning to subdue actions in the interest of the common good can be admirable; repressing action to the point of crushing the spirit inside is not. I hope you get my point. As I look at the possible damage unexamined hidden curriculum by individual teachers can cause, I began to think how this applies to those struggling students as well. Some bow their back against the authority they see as demeaning and disrespectful to them. Others turn inward, seldom speaking, and never contributing to the classroom environment. I have learned that hidden curriculum can exert a more subtle but far greater influence over what students learn than does the official curriculum itself (Marsh and Willis, 2007, p. 13). The idea of the unmotivated students continued to play in my mind during my groups discussion of different stages of attention. We discussed extensively how to progress students to the reflective attention stage. The progression from spontaneous attention to reflective attention is obviously what teachers desire for every student in their classroom. We want all of our students to become self-motivated and ask questions on their own and be actively engaged in seeking and selecting relevant material with which to answer it (Dewey, 1915, p. 94). However, our group agreed it is hard to get students to this level of attention; a level where they find pleasure in learning for the sake of learning. Janette, one of my group members, said, I believe we dont see this because honestly, in my opinion, I feel that sometimes we just feed students information, not caring about their own interests or whether the material is relevant to their lives. Doesnt this all tie into hidden curriculum? We want students to be curious and inquisitive, to think outside of the box, to be free-thinker, but so much of the hidden curriculum demands conformity. The curious person typically engages in a kind of probing, poking, and

EPIPHANY OF LEARNING REFLECTION NARRATIVE exploring that is almost antithetical to the attitude of the passive conformistin short, intellectual mastery calls for sublimited forms of aggression rather than for submission to constraints (Jackson, 1990, p. 121-122), yet we spend a great deal of time squashing the curiosity, exploring, and probing because it does not fit in with the objectives we have to get coveredand then we wonder why so many kids are unable/unwilling to step out and pay attention at the reflective level. Our subtle message (if we are not careful) can be sit down and do your worksheet; I dont have time for your ideas right now. We can actually discourage this curiosity, exploring, and probing without even realizing it. Montessori (n.d.) says this quite strongly, and powerfully catches the impact educators can actually have on students. She states that public school children are repressed in the spontaneous expression of their personality till they are almost like dead being. In such a school the children, (can be) like butterflies mounted on pins...spreading the useless wings of barren and meaningless knowledge which they have acquired (p. 28). Now I dont think most educators do this on purpose. But so many educators are feeling the breath of state assessments and NCLB breathing down their necks that we sacrifice deep, meaningful learning for just meeting the objectives. We as teachers sometimes forget to slow down and pay reflective attention to what is around us because we are pushing to get through the curriculum. Dr. Kim said in her email that learning is more holistic, open-ended, focusing on the quality (rather than quantity) of students learning experiences. People, like myself, who believe in Eisners approach think that current standardization and accountability movement under NCLB doesnt allow teachers to be creative and imaginative, rather, it renders them to be mere technicians who just follow what is told to them. Teachers in turn dont allow students to be creative and imaginativeand students are told to just follow what is told to them.

EPIPHANY OF LEARNING REFLECTION NARRATIVE Every teacher desires for h/her students to reach an awareness that learning is really for pleasure and advancement, not just an activity which by filling in the right blanks or answering the questions correctly will earn them a grade. As Noddings (2003) challenges, every teacher should want h/her students to find happiness in learning and in life. Perhaps the secret is for me as an educator to slow down, focus on quality over quantity, and model for my students what reflective attention and intrinsically motivated learning looks like. I can let students see me (and help me) question ideas further, seek out answers to questions which arise, and tap into what we already know but also stretch to encompass new ideas. Can this be done in the shadow of NCLB and state assessments? I think it can. The modeling can be done under the context of what needs to be taught to meet curriculum requirements, but it is just going to take an intentional effort on my part to slow down and make it happen. My final epiphany comes directly from my favorite article, The Aims of Education, by Nel Noddings. I agreed with almost everything this article said; it seemed to put into a succinct, articulate form thought I have had bouncing around in my head but could never quite get organized. Our educational system is set up under the misconception that for students to be treated equal they must be taught the same material and evaluated in the same manner. The use of democratic language suggests that the same education for all is a generous and properly democratic measure when, in fact, it may be both undemocratic and ineffective. It will be ineffective if Plato was right when he said that people will care for (and do well at) work they love. Many will fail in schools because they are forced to do work they hate and are deprived of work they might love (Noddings, 2003, p. 429). Our educational system sets up a series of round holes and begins to pound students through them. For some students this works well; they are round shaped and fit perfectly through the holes. Other students (often the unmotivated and

EPIPHANY OF LEARNING REFLECTION NARRATIVE struggling student) are square shaped. Fitting through the hole is not only difficult, but almost impossible. I agree with Noddings (2003) when he said, I strongly defend different forms of education for children with different interests and talents (p. 430). Schools would say they already do this, but the unspoken understanding is that Those who work with their minds (are) thought to be superior to those who work with their bodies (p. 429), or in other words, those that take academically-focused classes (round shaped students) are superiors to those that take more vocationally-focused classes (square shaped students). In a small group discussion, Robert shared the wide variety of electives his school offers. He then said he "believes that most schools do a good job of offerings course offerings that match a wide variety of interests." It dawned on memine doesnt. Here was my response, I have to tell you, in my opinion, my school is found lacking. We do a great job of offering AP classes, dual credit college class, etc, but we fall short in our offering of vocational/industrial classes. We no longer have any kind of auto mechanics, our woods classes are almost nonexistent, and agricultural classes are starting to dwindle. We do a good job of equipping those that are college bound but are sorely lacking in exposing students to classes that would help them in a more vocational career. We are sending the exact message Noddings (2003) says we need to be so cautious of. This was a big epiphany moment for me. All students should have the opportunity to take rigorous and interesting courses centered on students interests and talentsthe school should show the society that a democracy honors all of its honest workers, not just those who finish college and make a lot of money (p. 432). I am not sure yet how to use this revelation to better the education for students, but I do know I can be sure my attitude in my classroom conveys a clear message that I see all occupational options as valuable and important to society.

EPIPHANY OF LEARNING REFLECTION NARRATIVE Curriculum is the avenue that effective, good teachers use to take the students on a journey down the road that was created by the curriculum, then (are) able to fluidly create educational experiences that appealed to ALL of their students"(Robert, small group member). My reply was as follows: This is so powerful to me because it reminds me that a person who has mastered the art of teaching is not hampered by the "restraints" of NCLB, AYP, or state assessments. A teacher who has mastered h/her profession takes whatever curriculum or outcomes the district presents h/her with and makes them valuable and beneficial to students. Good curriculum cannot make any teacher great, but a good teacher can make any curriculum great. I want to be a good teacher. One who is a master of her profession and meets the needs of every student who steps foot into my classroom.