Exploring and Contesting Curriculum

Chapter one: what is curriculum?

Society: the dynamic collection of relations between individuals, and between individuals
and their material surroundings, not a pre-formed entity
Culture: the contextually specific, dynamic and human practises of making meaning and
organising the human and non-human world, giving rise to beliefs, customs and symbols
Politics: the different views and interests people and groups have about how to govern.
Politics involves debates about what policies, programs and laws governements should
implement and why.
Pedagogy: the ways (strategies and approaches) and philosophy of teaching
The curriculum
- Critical questions about the curriculum
 Who decides what is included in the curriculum and how is this decided?
 What ideas, views and knowledge are selected and omitted?
 Whose view of the world is represented and whose view is marginalised?
 Upon what values, beliefs and truths is the official curriculum based?
 Are all things in the curriculum equal value?
- Variables that affect how educators interpret the curriculum
 Resources available to educators and learners
 An educators knowledge of and beliefs about their learners
 Theories of learning which the educators subscribe
 The confidence an educator has in what they’re teaching
 Events that occur unexpectedly in the classroom or learning centre
 Expectations of parents, community, principal or learning centre manager
Funds of knowledge: the knowledge, info and skills a child acquires as part of household and
community life. These include general knowledge, cultural knowledge, ways of thinking, and
skills such as cleaning, shopping and cooking
- Types of curriculum
 Intended/ official curriculum: educators intend for learners to learn,
associated with formal curriculum
 Enacted curriculum: what is enacted of the intended curriculum, product of
educators interpretation of official interpretation
 Null curriculum: what is not naught, avoided and omitted from learning
 Negotiated curriculum: teachers work with learners and communities to
develop learning programs
 Emergent curriculum: early years, curriculum is developed by what is
interesting, relevant and meaningful to children, open ended and responsive,
decisions made minute by minute basis
 Hidden curriculum: what children implicitly learn in learning setting
 Lived curriculum: entire learning experience in the learning setting

Chapter four: educators’ philosophies: encountering and weaving images

Ecological identity: an individuals connections with the attitudes towards the natural
environment, and a premise for custodianship of the land and its inhabitants
Pedagogical documentation: a research tool born within the educational project of Reggio
Emilia and explored in early childhood educational contexts internationally. It can also be
defined as ‘visible listening’ and a ‘democratic attitude’.
Connoisseurship: ‘the art of appreciation’. Often associated with aesthetic disciplines,
Connoisseurship indicated the capacity to experience delight, to make something new
familiar and loved by virtue of joyful encounters
“Nature now belongs to the children, it is no longer dangerous and feared- and so they
belong to nature”
- Begin to notice the nature around them
- This is a negotiated curriculum
- The chapter discussed
 Images of childhood
 Teaching and learning settings
 Purpose of education
- Key questions in this chapter
 What are your expectations of curriculum?
 What is your image of the child?
 What is your image of the educator?
 What is your image of learning settings?
 2 key notions
 Each question is separately posed, they’re all interconnected, as beliefs
intersect and stand on each other’s shoulders
 They are posed with the understanding that educating should cease to be a
project of loneliness, governed by instruments of measurement of individual
performance, but rather it should be recognised as a project of collaborative
democracy and collegial research- an endeavour of encounter
- Educators philosophies are constructed in encounters with people, places, times,
values and cultures
Chapter five: reflective practise: what is it and why is it needed now?
Critically reflective practise (CRP): a willingness to question taken-for-granted policies and
practises with which teachers and education systems have become so comfortable
- Key questions
 What is critically reflective practise
 Why is it needed now?
 What are the benefits?
 How does it work?
- Purpose is to engage young people in learning
- Why do we need CRP
 Deficit thinking
 Technical views of teaching
 Student disengagement
- Deficit thinking
 Problem students are labelled with a. range of individual deficits and
pathologies
 To fix it: behaviour management, teacher quality, teacher training and school
leadership
  Neoliberalism: the way in which we think about how we should govern,
refers to the use of markets and competition to organise and govern society
and its institutions. Neoliberals assert there is no society, only the economy
and that everyone is responsible for their own destiny. Private schooling and
the use of markets in education are examples of neoliberalism
- Technical views of teaching
 Use of imagination and play in teaching, is disappearing in early childhood
and primary years
 Method of using “what works has erased discussion of broader political and
ideological nature of teaching and diminished the complexity of teaching and
social context of it
 Using only what works ignored philosophical, moral and democratic purposes
of teaching
 Emancipatory approaches to teaching: freeing something or someone form
restraint and control by another in teaching
- Student disengagement
 Doing the same teaching as always isn’t keeping troubled students engaged
- What makes thinking critical?
 Criticalist: a researcher, teacher or theorist who attempts to use her or his
work as a form of social or cultural criticism, especially regarding how power
produces and reproduces privilege and disadvantage
- Knowledge workers research interpret and produce their kwon knowledge, these
teachers ask a series of questions about what’s taught and what should constitute
the goals of school
- According to Kincheloe these teacher-scholars:
 Take into account the democratic, moral, ethical and cognitive context
 Push students to understand were content came from, means it was
produced, how its validated as knowledge worthy of inclusion in curriculum,
 Induce students to use contextual; understandings to reflect, research and
evaluate info
 Cultivate skills that can be used after the confrontation with content to
enable them to learn new content in novel situations
 Prepare students to produce new content in relation to the context
 Importance of critical self-reflection (Brookfield, 1995)
 Those that mask the ways in which the variable of power affects and often
distorts educational interactions
 Those that seem congenial but actually work against our own best interest
Theory (Scott and Marshall, 2005 p. 662): an account of the world which goes beyond what
we can see and measure. It embraces a set of interrelated definitions and relationships that
organise our concepts of and understanding of the empirical world in a systematic way
- Beneifts of CRP (Brookfield, 1995)
 We realise the ideological basis of teaching
 We learn to minimise risk
 We see ourselves as being in continual formation
 Our teaching becomes a connective activity
 We try to create classrooms that are more democratic
 We discover our voice
- Pinpoints five major reasons why CRP is useful for teachers (Brookfield, 1995)
 Helps us take informed actions
 Helps us develop a rationale for practise
 Helps us avoid self-laceration
 It grounds us emotionally
 It enlivens our classroom
 It increases democratic trust
- Four step approach to implementing CRP
1. Describing
 “what are my practises?”
 Bounded instances of practise that reflect: regularities, contradictions,
significant events, non-significant events (who, what, when)
2. Informing
 “what theories are expressed in my practises?”
 Descriptions are revisited with a view to identifying relationships
between elements and on the basis of this, to make a series of
statements of the following “it looks as if…”
3. Confronting
 “what are the causes?”
 Assumptions, values, belief
 Where do they come from?
 What social practices do they express?
 What maintains mt theories?
hat constrains my theories?
 Connection between the personal and social?
 Whose interests are served?
4. Reconstructing
 “how might I change?”
 What would I do differently?
 What do I consider to be important pedagogically?
 What do I have to work on to effect these changes?
- Step 1: Describing: “what are my practices?”
 Keep a journal of situational specifics of their teaching, keeping a detailed
account of what’s happening in the classroom
- Step 2: informing: “what theories are expressed in my practices?”
 Create theories “it looks as if…” about what’s happening in the classroom
- Step 3: confronting: “what are the causes?”
 Ask questions such as:
 What do my teaching practices say about my assumptions, values and beliefs
about teaching?
 What social practices are expressed in these ideas?
 What causes me to maintain my theories?
 What constrains my views of what is possible in teaching?
- Step 4: reconstructing: “how might I change?”
 Key thematic features arising out of this kind of work (Smyth, 2011)
  Asking questions as the major method by which teachers probe their
teaching
 Challenging passivity
 Searching for interrelationships between narrated, storied accounts of
teaching and the deeper meanings of teaching
 Critiquing the everyday practice of teaching as well as envisaging what
alternatives might look like
 Asking how teaching becomes unwittingly implicated in maintaining status
quo
 Pursuing a number of moments or phrases embracing elements of describing,
informing, confronting and reconstructing teaching
Chapter 16: the third teacher
- The layout of equipment and materials tell children and adults about the values of
the setting and how participants are expected to behave
 Organised and clean environment communicates that the people who use it
are valued
 Environment with elements of the cultures that use the setting suggest these
cultures are welcomes and valued
 Presence of accessible and open-ended equipment and materials suggest
that active learning is valued
 Spaces for learning in groups suggest that learning occurs in social context
- Froebel (1782-1852) emphasis on first-hand experiences with materials, nature and
people (Bruce 2012)
 Outdoor environment (garden) had special wooden blocks called gifts
designed by Froebel to promote children’s connectedness with universe,
play, autonomous thought and self-discipline (Bruce 2012)
- Montessori (1870-1952) ideas still significant in early childhood education
 Emphasis on role of environment, seeing it as a component of a 3 part
relationship with teacher and the child
 Order in environment would promote calm, engagement ad intellectual
activity
 Arrangement of materials and space as ‘prepared environment’ children
completed a range of activities independently
 Designed didactic materials (child sized furniture) for the classroom
- Dewy (1859-1952)
 Advocated for democracy
 Emphasised the role of experience as a basis for learning
 Believed ‘primary responsibility for educators is that they not only be aware
of the general principle of the shaping of actual experience by environing
conditions, but that they also recognise in the concrete what surroundings
are conductive to having experiences that lead to growth
 Pointed out limitations of desks, blackboards and small schoolyards
 Educators must be able to select things in a range of existing experience that
have the promise and potentiality of presenting new problems
 Piaget (1952)
 Accommodation
 Assimilation
  Children develop through stages by accommodation and assimilation
 Knowledge is constructed from children’s continuous active inquiry in their
environment= environment is critical for problem-solving and critical thinking
- Vygotsky (1896-1934)
 Culture and social interaction is fundamental to cognition
 Child’s cultural development appears twice; first on social level then on
individual level
 It is imperative that educational environments facilitate social interaction and
opportunities to talk to others
 Material turn: the capacity of objects and materials to influence thinking
- Characteristics of an educational environment
 Overall softness: settings that have indeterminate spaces (can be used in a
variety of ways) have an inviting feel, Generalised impression of softness
draws attention to the tangible sense of sereneness, amiability a liveability
 Relation: a whole made up of different identifies, with a recognisable feel, in
harmony with values and references that guide choices and research. In this
space, the aesthetic quality depends on quality of connections
 Aesthetics: not so much about how something looks, but rather, how things
reflect the values that are important to us
 Osmosis: schools welcome a flow of ideas, materials and people between the
community and the school, the school must be able to permeate into its
surroundings too
 Multisensorial: is rich in sensory stimuli, long periods of time in either a bland
or overstimulating setting can cause stress for children, varying the elements
through senses can avoid stress
Texture
Colour
Light
Smell
Sound
 epigenesis: the ability for an egg to develop into an animal, metaphor for
flexibility and manipulability of spaces
 community: a welcoming environment that reflects a sense of shared values
and fosters encounters and participation
 constructiveness: environments should support an active social construction
of knowledge, rather than passive receiving of knowledge
 rich normality: creating environments that are rich and stimulating bur which
also combine many different elements in a harmonious way
 narration: telling a story of what happens in the school aka exhibiting work
 elements of democracy
 transperancy
Love the place where you belong- ecological identity in early childhood
- pre service teachers asked to recall memories for their sustainability course
 memories involved, family, friends and the environment
 all had a sense of trust
- article discusses the significance of place and ecological identity for early childhood
students
 - in early childhood children shape attitudes and values so environment is essential in
curriculum
- common themes as they reflected in childhood experiences of being free to explore
local places (Sobel, 1990)
 children valued time away from adults to discover their own special places
 these places were secret
 they felt they had ownership of that space
 they felt safe
 they were organised spaces
 making a special place made them children feel special people ad this feeling
stayed with them through adulthood
- developing an ecological identity may be one way to increase teachers and children’s
awareness of place
- examples from literature that demonstrate teacher commitment to knowledge of
pace and sharing with children within the everyday curriculum
 geographical features of place
 histories and stories of place
 children belonging to place
- conclusion
 loving our place is key to wanting to find more sustainable ways o live
 teachers should encourage children on their quest to love the place where
they belong
Chapter 14: Learner diversity and school practices
Normalisation: when particular acts and ideas become so entrenched in society that other
ways of acting and thinking become abnormal
- two main goals for education in Australia
1. Australian schooling promotes equity and excellence
2. All young Australians become: successful learners, confident and creative
individuals, active and informed citizens (MCEETYA, 2008, p. 7)
- Factors that benefit some students but disadvantage ithers
 Gender
 Sexuality
 Race and ethnicity
 Socio-economic status and class
- Meritocracy: people get out of life what they put in fails to take into account those
disenfranchised from society
- Social class: a social hierarchy based on divisions by economic status, power, culture
and so on
 Social class plays a role in determining school participation and success
(Connell, Ashden, Kessler & Dowsett, 1982)
Cultural capitalism: a term coined by Pierre Bourdieu, referring to the non-fictional social
assets that people drew upon in order to participate in society and which promote social
mobility. Examples can include education and possession of dominant cultural knowledge,
aka styles of speech and dress
- Socioeconomic status and poverty
  Those from lower economic status do worse in school on average than other
students starts at primary school and contuse or gets worse in high school p.
357
- Gender
 Australia was ranked 24th on the global index measuring gender equality in
2013, in 2006 Australia was 15th
 Manifests through the old idea of biological essentialism: males and female
bodies work differently, resulting in differential skill sets, abilities and
interests
 Rules of intelligibility: social norms that end up becoming the generally
accepted code of thinking and behaving
- Sexuality
- Race and ethnicity
 Educational and formal schooling is a way social norms are reinforced
- Social justice and equity
 Concerned with removing the barriers and structures that constrain students’
lives and their capacity to participate in the social world
 It is up to the education policy makers and those working in schools to work
within and against a system, hat does not privilege certain forms of cultural
capital p. 367
- Conclusion
 Chapter discusses factors that result in students being “silenced, normalised
or excluded” from schooling or achieving in schools

Chapter 1: young people and school

- People who experience socio-economic hardship or marginalisation in society
perform less well or leave school earlier
- School works better for some people over others based on interests and abilities,
some contextual factors are
 Wellbeing
 Experience of schooling
- Bad schooling outcomes are linked to
 Whether their from affluent families
 Whether they’re living in poverty
 Whether they’re indigenous or not
Ethnography: a combination of research design, fieldwork and various methods of inquiry to
produce historically, politically and personally situated accounts, descriptions,
interpretations and representations of human lives
- Oscar Lewis (1959) did a ethnographic study on 5 Mexican families, dd a description
of 5 days in their lives
 They are deficient in resources, values and attitudes that contribute to
success
- Martin Forsey (2007) went to Warraville and found that the teachers at the school
saw Warraville as a ‘rough’ and ‘dangerous’ suburb because of the low income
families, they said it got better as house prices went up and more affluent families
came to the area
- Dorothy Bottrell (2007)
  Interviewed two aboriginal women that left school
 One claimed “they didn’t fit the image”
 Teachers and students spoke down to them
 Were taught differently because of where you live and who they spend their
time with
 The school only cared about the academic achievers
 It was all about social aspects rather than the work
Normalisation of culture: the process by which the features of one’s culture are taken for
granted and privileged over other cultures, which results in silencing f other cultures,
because their language, social structures, values and narratives are not recognised or valued
- Lisa Delpit (1995) identifies how ‘the culture of power’ operates in the classroom
1. Issues of power are enacted in the classroom
2. There are codes/ rules for participating in power: that is, there is a ‘culture of
power’
3. The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture
who have the power
4. If you’re not a participation in the culture of power, being told explicitly he
rules of the culture makes acquiring power easier
5. Those with the power are frequently least are of, or least willing to
acknowledge, its existence, those with less power are most aware
- This chapter discussed the ways in which school works better for some people over
others
Chapter 15: the virtual schoolbag and pedagogies of engagement
Schooling disengagement: on a continuum, refers to a lack of interest in or participation in
learning to the point of dropping out
- Reasons why students from specific groups may experience schooling
disengagement
 Families in economic difficulty: higher levels of residential and school mobility
which could impact on the ability to maintain continuity in studies and
establishing networks of support among peers
 People in an unstable or unsupportive/ neglective environment: find it
difficult to comply with cultural expectations of schools
Marginalised: to be socially positioned on the edges of society either physically or
metaphorically in terms of power, influence and access to the goods and wealth of that
society
- Marginalisation may have serious impacts for those who are marginalised
(Savelsberg and martin-Giles, 2008)
- Interacting social, cultural and economic factor that cause disengagement (Mills and
McGregor, 2014; Thomson, 2002)
 Poverty
 Gender
 Indigeneity
 Family conflict/ lack of support
 Residential mobility
 Substance abuse
 Homelessness
 Caring responsibilities
  Trauma
 Mental health issues
 School refusal/ anxiety
 Poor literacy or numeracy skills
 Behavioural issues
 Disability
- Inside school factors that contribute to student disengagement (Hayes, Mills, Christie
& Lingard, 2006; Mills & McGregor, 2014)
 School practices not aligning with complex lives of young people
 Curricula viewed a disconnected from problems students face
 Pedagogical practices that don’t engage students
Emotional labour: work that requires good interpersonal skills, empathy, respect and
understanding
Connectedness: making explicit the links between students’ background knowledge and the
curriculum, and demonstrating the relevance of the curriculum to the world beyond the
classroom
Problem-based learning: identified by lessons in which students are presented with a.
specific, real, practical or hypothetical problem to solve
- Students need a challenge to be engaged and motivated to do work
- Needs to be achievable otherwise they will disengage to hide the fact the work is too
difficult
Scaffolding: the provision of appropriate amounts of support to enable students to
complete tasks and reach levels of attainment that they would not be able to achieve
without assistance
Student voice: the incorporation of student perspectives and the relative influence and
power that students may have an educational institution
Constructivist learning: a theory from Lev Vygotsky that claims leaning is shaped by
language and students construct their own knowledge by testing ideas based on prior
knowledge an applying ideas to new situations- integrating new knowledge with old.
Learning is most effective when students work together with more knowledgeable other, be
teachers or peers
Collaborative learning: activities requiring students to work together to solve problems ad
achieve common learning goals
- Giving people “immediate, tangible benefits” is important to stop marginalised
people from alienating themselves from schooling and to decrease disengagement
which may inhibit developing long term goals
- In order to engage students with the curriculum content what is offered and why it is
offered should be considered
Critical thinking: higher-order thinking skills of comprehension, analysis and evaluation
Meaningful learning: learning experiences that are rich in terms of relevance to students’
current contexts and interests, as well as building capacity for possible futures
Powerful knowledge: knowledge that is often based on curricula available primarily to the
rich and powerful. It is knowledge that is culturally valuable in that it allows some groups to
be socially mobile and/ or entrench their existing privileges
- Michael young (2008) says it is imperative that disadvantaged students have access
to powerful knowledge
- Conclusion
  Formal schooling creates social and economic inequalities
 Disadvantages students lack cultural capital in their virtual school bag which
makes them unable to understand curricula as easily as other students
 There are both inside and outside school contributing factors that go towards
disengaged students
Chapter 8: The trap of binary thinking: problematising gender and social disadvantage
Key terms
 Advantage/ disadvantage
 binaries/ binary thinking
 Deficit
 Dichotomy
 False dichotomy
 Myths
 Normative
 Norms
 Performativity
 Problematisation
 Standpoint curriculum
- Discussing the binary pariing of male/female and advantage/ disadvantage binary
Binaries: sets of paired concepts that are related to each other but nderstood as opposites
e.g. hot/ cold, male/ female
Binary thinking: considers things in an either/ or way, ignoring alternatives
Dichotomy: a pair of opposite or mutually exclusive concepts e.g. on/ off
- Can only be one or the other
False dichotomy: where it is falsely assumed that there are only two was to understand a
situation or make a distinction
- Gender is said to be a false dichotomy
Norms: widely accepted (and often unquestioned) sets of social rules or established
behaviours. Norms are the effect of the specific exercise of power. They are often produced
through the practices of producing knowledge. Norms change across time and culture.
Performativity: where behaviours or actions such as ‘being’ male or female are ‘performed’
by individuals as if scripted by the norms of the society
- Davies (1989) suggests that a binary classification system ‘rejects… any notion of
gender fluidity’ p. 16
- Bem (1993) observes that a ‘male-female difference is superimposed on so man
aspects of the social world that a cultural connection is thereby forged between sex
and virtually every other aspect of human experience’ p. 2
Gender polarisation: male/ female distinction has a rather tenacious hold on the way we
understand ourselves and continues to inform the way we understand and organise our
social world
Normative: relating to or based on what is thought to be the norm
Problematisation: the process of seeing a particular idea or concept as a problem or
something to analyse or critique, rather than something to be taken for granted or accepted
uncritically
- CEDA report explores key reasons for the continuing ‘entrenched disadvantage’ in
Australia
 Being indigenous
  Coming from a non-English speaking background
 Living in poverty
 Living in rural areas
- Bauman (2013) claims following reasons that determines the child’s future rather
than intelligence, efforts or dedication
 Social circumstances
 Place of birth
 Parents place in society
- Lamb, Jackson, Walstab and Huo (2015) found that not only SES as the most
important factor affecting children’s readiness for school but also where children
begin school
 They measured children’s readiness across the domains; physical health and
wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive
skills, and communication and general knowledge
Deficit: A perceived inadequacy, lack or limitation that prevents an individual from being
able to engage successfully in schooling. This perspective assumes that the problem rests
with the individual and by making this assumption, ignores the institutional structures and
practices that create the impression of a deficit
- It is a myth that educational achievement is the result of hard work, natural
intelligence and dedication
- According to Smyth and Wringly (2013) on blind spots?
1. Listen to people and try to understand the life experiences of those who are
different from us
2. Consider the official curriculum, reflects a particular set of ideologies that
might not be inclusive of non-mainstream ideas/ perspectives
- Conclusion
 New ways of seeing and thinking that go against the grain of what seems to
be common sense
 Binary and deficit thinking are problems that all teachers need to control and
think about critically
 Being able to problematise what sems self-evident and normal is the first
step of moving toward achieving more socially just outcomes for all learners

Innocent children, dangerous families and homophobic panic

it also regurgitated the same three core protest themes that were apparent in the Play School
panic. It selectively ran with the conservative politicians' accusations that left-wing, gay adult
propaganda had been forced on children. It took the angle that the inclusion of same-sex
family stories in public educational institutions contravened parents' censorship rights. And it
promoted the interpretation of non-heterosexual family representations as the equivalent of
age-inappropriate sex education. In a two-day media blitz on this issue, these recurring
themes were p 213

Interestingly, in the rush to advocate for censorship of the ABC in the name of protecting
children's rights, none of these politicians seemed to be at all concerned with the rights of the
children from same-sex families to have their families represented along with all the others.
Nor did they seem at all concerned about the impact that the fallout from the scandals might
have on these children. This alone seems to suggest that it was the political opportunities that
were of immediate concern here p 215

"It's a disgrace ... kids at this age are innocent until you start putting these ideas into their
heads ... [the books are] homosexual propaganda aimed at brainwashing children at such a
sensitive age."- Fred Nile P 215

- Two issues
- Issues aimed to normalise same sex couple families: domestic and ot overly sxual
 Daily Telegraph "gaycare" scandal over the use of the 'Learn to Include
 Play shool two mums segment
- The Telegraph's "gaycare" scandal broke just before the Federal Government
signalled its intention to veto the ACT civil unions legislation. The 'Learn to include’

- The moments in which these panics erupted seem particularly significant. The Play
SchooL two mums controversy only flared up in May 2004 on its second airing.
When the same episode was broadcast earlier in the year, it attracted no media
attention. The May airing coincided with the Federal Government's introduction of a
bill to amend the Marriage Act 1961 to exclude the possibility of gay marriage

- Kevin Donnelly (chief of staff for Federal Employment Minister) evoked and
mobilised when he made the claim that the Play School two mums segment "[was]
promoting a lesbian lifestyle" and that "the Play School producers [were] engaging in
a battle to normalise what many parents would consider unnatural behaviour" p 217

Identity formation: consumerism and popular culture

Identity: the personality of an individual, expressed as a set of behavioural or personal

characteristics, Identity can also refer to how one perceives or understands ones self, often
called subjectivity. 243
Popular culture: culture that is enjoyed to people in contemporary society, reflecting
dominant or emerging discourses. 243
- Topics in this chapter. 243
 Role of pop culture in identity formation
 Power that commercial media and consumer forces have in shaping cultural
values
 The importance of providing opportunities for children and young people to
both enjoy and critique pop culture, to become aware of how dominant
discourses can be empowering and disempowering in various contexts
- High culture: artistic products; theatre, opera, ballet etc
Mass culture: cultural commodities that are mass produced for sale to audiences as
consumers
- Popular culture is the vulture ‘of the people’
Fashion: the clothes, hairstyles and accessories and makeup that are in style at a given time.
247
Consumerism: behaviours and attitudes that promote an ever-increasing acquisition of goods
and services
Popularity: being liked, admired or supported by others in a certain social context
 - In movies like mean girls, clueless and Zoolander it describes how wealth, weight and
body image are used to become/ remain being popular
Subcultures: cultural groups within the larger culture, whose beliefs or interests vary in some
way form the larger culture; at times taking up minority interests or promoting subversive
views
Critical literacies: The ability to read texts through a critical lens to reflect on and challenge
unequal power relationships, marginalised perspectives, cultural privilege and social injustice
- Educators that dismiss students interests in pop culture miss opportunities to draw on
their funds of knowledge
- Conclusion
 Considered relationship between culture and identity and the influence of pop
culture
 Mass culture overlaps with pop culture
 Consumerism impacts views on fashion and limits the cultural resources
available to us or representing and creating out identities. 259-260
 Discusses how to incorporate pop culture into the classroom
 Educators need to be careful not to implicitly endorse cultural messages and
consumer practices that limit identity formation
 Educators need to represent diverse cultural positions to avoid oversimplified
assumptions about the value of mass culture and homogenous nature of youth
pop culture

Understanding the techniques of colonialism: Indigenous educational justice

Key terms
 Anti-colonial
 Assimilate
 Colonisation
 De-colonial
 Deficit
 First nations
 Indigenous knowledge
 Indigenous epistemologies
 Individual racism
 Institutional racism
 Heterogeneity
 Homogenous
 Othering
 Segregation
 Self-determination
 Settler colonial
 Social construct
 Sovereignty
 Structural racism
 Unceded
 whiteness

Settler colonial: a type of colonial formation where the original colonists settled and created
a nation state without reference to or adequate negotiation with indigenous inhabitants
Unceded: pertaining to country/ land/ territory that was never given up or handed over
First nations: a term used by Indigenous people to indicate their sovereignty over land that
has been colonised
Sovereignty: having ownership and control over land and the capacity to practise culture
connected to land
Assimilate: to become similar to the dominant culture (often at the expense of practising
one’s own culture)
- Debate over whether the official curriculum should change to say “Australia was
invaded rather than settled” p 289
Indigenous epistemologies: Indigenous ways of knowing
Segregation: a policy agenda where Indigenous people were segregated from the white
population on church-run missions and government administered reserves
- Gunditjmara scholar Mark Rose: ‘silent apartheld’= reinforcement of Western history
and ways of knowing was used as a form of assimilation p292
Self-determination: the process by which people have control over their own lives
- Public history wars of the 1980-90’s: Australian history was constructed as either
p296-297
 Black armband: acknowledging Indigenous experiences of the violence and
colonisation
 White blindfold: focusing o the Anzac story and experiences of ‘mateship’,
which typically silenced Indigenous stories
Social construct: a concept produced and maintained through social processes
- Racializing people of colour as less than based on physical traits and heritage is a
myth, it’s because of social construct p298
Othering: to position something or someone as marginal to the dominant or mainstream; to
position them as peripheral, deficit and lacking
Homogenous: similar or alike in character and/ or content
Heterogeneity: diverse in character and/ or content
- Critical race theory
 Early mid 1990’s
 Racism is normal, its how society intentionally structured
 Interest convergence: anti-racist movements make process then it’s in the
interest of those in power
 Intersectionality: no person has a single unitary identity
 Centering voices of BIPOC folx: recognition that white voices have dominated
the discourse and centering the voices of BIPOC folx disrupts this practice
- Racism in schools
 An individuals racist assumptions, beliefs or behaviours
 Political, social, cultural and economic structures that we participate in
 Embedded in a particular institution; negative treatment based on their race
Deficit discourse: framing Indigenous people as less than
- There’s a focus on the individual at the expense of the collective, which reinforces
ideas connected to colonialism
1. Indigenous students wgo succeed are more assimilated or ‘developed’ while
those that fail are more traditional, more Aboriginal and less ‘assimilatable’
2. Reinforces generalisations that constrain Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people
3. A framework of competition focuses on the winners and losers, pitting people
against each other which tends to narrow what is counted as educational
success
- All tgese position individual to be the problem, rather than undertsainding the social,
cultural, historical and political forces that impact on an individuals life in
relationship with those around them
- Silencing
  Keeps non-indigenous people ignorant to the violence of colonialism
 People today often given info that prevents them from understanding the
catastrophe of colonisation
 Discussing colonisation as a settlement rather than an invasion
- Erasure
 Erasure of race or an attitude of ‘colour blindness’: when race is presumed t
not matter where the history of prejudice has still has consequences of this
who have been oppressed
 Help to hold racism in place; different forms of racism (individual, structural,
institutional) are seen as separate not interconnected
De-colonial approaches: practical options for confronting and disconnecting the power
operations of colonialism that oppress
Anti-colonial approaches: Options that work against, in opposition to and in resistance to
the dominance and normalisation created by colonialism
- Crtical race theory provides a framework for investigating the relationship between
race, power an the insitutions er fin outseles working within

Student-centred approaches to planning in primary and secondary schools

- Main ideas. 445
 What does it mean to be an effective teacher?
 What is the importance of decision-making around curriculum?
 How do teachers create plans for teaching the intended curriculum?
- Discusses how teachers can enact curricula I a student-centred rather than curriculum-
centred way. 445
- Australian professional standards for teachers, describe what teachers should know,
understand and be able to do, at 4 career strands; graduate, proficient, highly
accomplished and lead. 448
- The education council New Zealand also has a set of graduate teacher standards that
teachers are measured on except these standards are more dedicated to understanding
how contextual factors may influence leaning and teaching. 449
- Both the Australian and New Zealand curricula aim for teachers to apply knowledge
and to personalise learning to meet the needs of students and the community. 449
 Both acknowledge the quality of teaching has the biggest impact on student
achievement other than socio-economic factors.
- Singapore who always scores at the top at the Program for International School
Assessment (PISA) changed their teaching strategy from an instructional regime to a
‘Teach Less, Learn More’. 450
 Prepares student for life rather than for tests and examinations
 Educators to teach better, engage students
 Richer interaction between teacher and student, touching heats and engaging
minds
Effect sizes: measure the strength of a phenomenon: a statistical method which compares
assessment results of different measured, times or groups on a scale
- Defining effective teaching (Poert and Brophy, 1998)
 Clearly communicate expectations to students
 Knowledgeable about the content
 Have clear instructional goals
 Reflective practitioners
- Meta-analysis to identify factors that improve student learning (Hattie, 2012). 450
 Student expectations
 Piagetian programs
 Teacher credibility
 Providing formative evaluation
 Classroom discussion
 Teacher clarity
 Feedback
 Quality of teaching
- The Teacher Capability Assessment Tool (TCAT) is an entry assessment trialled in
some Australian universities. 451
 Includes a cognitive and non-cognitive component
 This is done to improv he quality of graduate teachers by improving candidate
selection processes
- Students perspectives on effective teaching (Cook-Sather, 2016). 453
 There is collaboration in creating and maintaining a positive classroom
 Teacher has high expectations of students learning
 Teacher is encouraging
 Students have choice and responsibility in learning
 Teacher knows and respects students as individuals
- Australian student’s opinions on effective teachers (Kriewaldt, 2015). 453
 Listen to them
 Have personal qualities; honest, fun, creative
 High expectations on learning
 Utilise a variety of learning strategies; guide learning, help students learn
 Have a great relationship with students
 Are understanding and patient
- (Shavelson, 1973) described decision-making as a cognitive process explained by
decision theory. 453
- Decision theory positions the teacher in a situation with alternatives, they then make a
choice by taking into account their perceptions of student understanding and how the
responses may improve student understanding. 453
- Decisoons were based on prior experiences according to (Bishop, 1976), common
types; pre-lesson or within-lesson decisions and short-term or long-term decisions.
254
- When students are encouraged to make their own decisions about learning, positive
effects have been recorded on student achievement, behaviour, values, general
wellbeing and intrinsic motivation (Kohn, 1993). 455
- Planning is a cultural practice and a complex cognitive task that considers thr
sequencing and mapping of student learning across a period of time
- School level plans include strategic direction plans
- Classroom level plans include annual plans, term programs, weekly outlines, daily
plans and lesson plans
- Lesson plans usually start with objectives from the official curriculum and end in a
lesson evaluation or reflection
- Dominant model of lesson planning is comprised with several sequential steps. 457
1. Selecting a concept or area of content that will be covered in the lesson
 2. Establishing the aims and objectives or learning goals for the lesson; these are
statements of what the students should be able to do after the lesson, the lesson
is planned around the attainment of the aims, objectives or goals
3. Preparing student learning experiences and instructions and teaching strategies
and resources to accomplish the lesson objectives; often divided into chunks
 Introduction
 Teacher instruction
 Student activity
 Work time
 Conclusion
4. Determining the assessment to evaluate student learning and teacher practices
in the lesson against the original objectives
- This lesson plan uses the transmission model of teaching, teacher has knowledge and
teaches it to the student
- Lesson design structure of Madeline Hunter’s ‘Mastery of Learning’ model. 457
 An anticipatory set: aims to introduce and prompt interest in the topic or
concept
 The lesson objectives
 Input: modelling
 Checking for understanding
 Guided student practice
 Independent practice
 Lesson closure
- Dominant lesson plan doesn’t take into account where situations can change or
interrupt plans
- The organic or naturalistic model involves the teacher responding to students needs as
they emerge rather than pre-determining these (Egan, 1997). May start with activities
then base objectives on the ideas that flow from these. 459
- Interactional lesson plan: central concept doesn’t change but how it is learnt changes,
is studied and applied, is used, leading to different interpretations of and
improvisation around the concept
- Planning involves visualisation, plans need to be flexible and responsive to the
students, anticipating what might happen. 459
- Planning should respond to individual and groups of students; what they already
know, their interests, how they learn and how curriculum can be enacted
- Mata analysis showed that positive student-teacher relationships with student-centred
learning and teaching approaches are associated with positive student outcomes
(Cornelius-White, 2007). 462
- Student-centred learning provides opportunities for students to engage in meaningful
learning, provide input into their learning and provide feedback on how they’re
learning. 464
- Student centred approaches improve outcomes from culturally and linguistically
diverse background (White-Clark, 2005)
- Educators must be knowledgeable in the content and official curriculum and how this
is relevant to students lives this renders teachers more responsive, adaptable
- Teachers are then able to learn from teaching, teach from their learning and therefore
respond to complexities and challenges of teaching today
Planning, programming and embedding curriculum
Pedagogista: A pedagogue- an experienced teacher with an expertise in children’s learning
and the ways in which adult roles support children’s curiosity, creativity and investigation
- ‘we are all learners’
- Chapter focus
 Curriculum as experienced in early childhood settings
 Associated implications for teacher decision making
Socially constructivism: an educational philosophy that foregrounds the importance of the
people building knowledge and understandings through their relationships and interactions
- Barnes summarised that the curriculum is about 2 things
1. What should children learn
2. How children should learn what we want them to learn
- Barnes pointed out caution should be taken not to imagine a ‘universal child’,
assuming that one rule/pedagogy/educational concept isn’t applicable/useful in all
circumstances
- Overall early childhood: National Quality Framework (NQF) (ACECQA, 2012)
 The national law and regulations related to compliance factors or standards in
children’s services
 National Quality Standard (NQS) which consolidates those standards to which
profession aspires
 As part of the ‘quality rating system’ the NQS includes 7 areas of concern in
early years settings
1. Educational programs and practices
2. Childrens health and safety
3. Physical enviornments
4. Staffing arrangements
5. Relationships with children
6. Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
7. Leadership and service management
- Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF)
 Isn’t a curriculum but informs the curriculum
 Builds on the vision that “ all children experience leaning that is negaging and
builds success for life” (DEEWR, 2009. P. 7)
 5 broad outcome areas
1. Having a strong sense of identity
2. Being connected with and contributing to their world
3. Having a strong sense of wellbeing
4. Being confident and involved learners
5. Being effective communicators
 These outcomes ‘are designed t capture the integrated and complex learning
and development of all children across the biryj to five age range’(DEEWR,
2009. P. 19)
- Belonging, being and becoming
 Was built on community collaboration
 Is a reflection of the way in which curriculum and planning must be
responsive to context
Bureaucratic territorialism: when states and territories become protective of their own
frameworks/ approaches to curriculum requirements rather than embracing agreed national
frameworks
Assessment: can be considered under the umbrella of evaluating learning. Assessment may be
ongoing or summative, and approached through many strategies including narrative
recording, dated work samples and both formal and informal testing of concepts, skills and
understanding
- Pedagogical documentation is a way of being thoughtful and responsive alongside the
children, families and other educators in your site, not just a form of recording
- Foundational questions of ped doc
 Who is the documentation for?
 Who contributes to the processes involved?
 When are decisions made that affect the shape and content of the
documentation?
 What is the pedagogy of the documentation?
Dispositions: orientations or inner drives to pursue/engage in such things as persistence,
resilience and learning. Increasingly, these are becoming curriculum goals at all levels of
schooling
- Key ideas emerging from discussion of planning, programming and documentation.
436
1. There isn’t a template to be followed as each learning situation mist be
considered in context of philosophical and knowledge of socio-cultural
frameworks
2. Work needs to be relevant and useful for the purpose for which it is being
done
3. Thoughtful analysis is essential, framed within current theories and
professional literature, but primarily responsive to relationships with children
4. Authentic engagement is core to effective pedagogy; without children’s voices
and perspectives the work is unlikely to be valuable as pedagogical
documentation
- ‘the planning cycle’: the cycle of observation, interpretation, implication, action and
reflection which characterises teacher practice. 437
- ‘speaking out or taking action in the presence of unethical practice is an essential
professional responsibility- Australian early Childhood Code of Ethics
- These are aspects of the curriculum that must be considered alongside any templates
which may previously have been the focus of the curriculum conversation