CYCLE THREE: SHOULD THE CURRICULUM ADDRESS CONTROVERCIAL ISSUES?

This particular cycle topic has proven most difficult, and thus less conducive to witticisms and the like.  To me, this is not a question that I can answer as a graduate student, a professional educator or a coach.  It is one that I have to address as a parent as well. 

First of all, since questions like this are often political in nature when addressed in the public strata, I should qualify myself as a political thinker.  I teach government, politics and law for a living.  I grew up as the son of a Republican small business owner and a free-thinking Democrat housewife who went door-to-door for Jack Kennedy.  Yes, they have a loving and stable marriage, thank you.  I was raised in an amalgam of both ends of the political spectrum and the blending that occurred in a two-parent home.  Thus, I am what some would call a “populist” though that is hardly an accurate label…I’m not a fan of labels for the record.  To define terms, generally I am fiscally liberal and socially conservative.  Even then, I am not consistently one or the other within those two sets of ideas.  I believe in traditional “family” values, but also believe that what happens within your life isn’t my concern, and I have no business commenting or opinionating about it.  I have several homosexual friends, and have never given their sexual orientation/preference any thought, because I firmly believe that being judgmental is not a “family” value.  Likewise, I am a man of faith who refuses to bludgeon others with what I believe.

Like I say when asked, “Who the hell am I?”

Ok, so I’m a highly tolerant person who keeps his beliefs and values to himself unless asked, out of humility and respect for the unique nature of humanity.  Then why is this topic such a challenge for me as an educator? 

Because I am a parent, and I will not be sending my daughter off to school to be parented, raised or reared.  That’s not the purpose of public schools, and over the ten years that I have been a public educator, I have come to despise that behavior in my peers.  My job is to teach government and politics, not my agenda or politics or faith or creed.

Like I say when asked, “Who the hell am I?”

I have a colleague who does much of what bothers me so much.  During class discussions about politics or religion, she tells students who disagree with her that they are wrong, going so far as to require that they redirect their opinion, or remain silent…during a scored discussion.  Eisner states “Critics of schooling point out, however, that rather than cultivate initiative, schools foster compliant behavior. One of the first things a student learns-and the lesson is taught throughout his or her school career-is to provide the teacher with what the teacher wants or expects.” 

It is reasonable to expect compliant behavior in public schools in order to assure the safety and security of our charges.  Does that mean that it is reasonable to expect complaint thought?  One of the things that I constantly have to remind law students is that the law does not govern though for a reason.  Our founders installed a form of government and system of laws designed to ensure individual freedoms, with none more important than liberty: the right to think and believe as one chooses.  I remind my highly-diverse A.P. Government class every year that a bigot has the right to believe whatever he or she chooses, and you have the right to believe that he/she is a piece of trash.  Neither of you has the right to do anything with those beliefs that would infringe upon the right of the other.  Period.  The law intervenes when thought becomes action.

So this begs a question: do schools need to teach one side of a controversial social issue to protect their charges?  In other words, is it the school’s job to decide what is correct or incorrect for their students to believe?  Or, is it the job to ensure that, no matter what the personal beliefs of their students are, nobody is treated in an unacceptable manor by their peers?  I, for one, do not try to change what my kids believe in.  It’s a danger of teaching government: you a have a ready audience to indoctrinate if you wish to, and that isn’t my job.  I do, however, believe that it is my job to maintain a safe (physically and intellectually) environment where respect is not an option.  Like I tell my kids all of the time: “I don’t care in the least whether you agree with anyone in here, but you will respect them as they, and as I, respect you.”  I just can’t bring myself to move beyond that as part of a curriculum.  I work for the State, and I can’t find a Benchmark or GLCE for “morality” or “values”.

I provide my own counterpoint here, by the way.

I work in an urban school, with young men with absent fathers, and I actively teach them things like:

·         “Right and wrong”

·         “Manhood”

·         “Honor”

·         “Faith”

·         “Respect for women”

·         “EMPATHY”

Yes, I know what you will say…”Coach, you blankity-blank hypocrite, you are doing exactly what you can’t stand in others”.

Yup, and I admit it too.  I’m not going to stand by and allow the same cycle of ignorance, violence, and vile behavior continue in my community because little boys are procreating and making more little boys.  I’m not going to allow the gang to raise these little boys. I’m not going to allow any more little boys to grow up and accidentally shoot other little boys like we’ve seen of late in Detroit.  Sorry, not going to happen.  Am I re-parenting, or likely parenting in the first place, other people’s kids?  Yes.  Is that my job as a public school teacher?  No.  If my community has a problem with what I am doing, and believe me, I am quite public about it, there is always a recourse.

Fire me.

That still hasn’t happened yet, and for a reason that maybe applies here.  I don’t teach that as part of my course curriculum.  I make the extra effort, spend the extra time, burn the extra calories to teach these things on my own to as many young men as I can, but not during instructional time. 

So I suppose that all of this leads me to a simple answer to the cycle question:

 SHOULD THE CURRICULUM ADDRESS CONTROVERCIAL ISSUES?

I don’t know.  I’d like to say “no”, because parents should.  Except I live and work in a community that has a significant absence of parents.  So if not the schools, then whom?

Resources:

http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/starr/starr046.shtml

This article offers an interesting take on the notion of schools parenting kids.  I’m not suggesting that I agree or disagree, only that I found it to be interesting.

http://www.gangsorus.com/parents.html

This is just a reminder that the beginning of the battle for the streets of our cities begins at home.  But what if home is the problem?

Cycle 2: So...what should the CONTENT of curriculum be?

The esteemed John Dewey wrote that the "logically formulated material of a science or branch of learning, of a study, is no substitute for the having of individual experiences.”   In the Social Studies, this sounds almost exactly like the premise for Inquiry Learning...something that we have been trying to use, albeit with limit success, in BCPS for years.

Perhaps that is exactly what the content of curriculum should be...inquiry.  While working my way through the readings, I noticed that they tended to fit into one mold or another, either pedagogical theory or curriculum reform.  Both of these are valid topics, of course.  Yet for some reason, my mind always wanders towards a question that plagues me...if it was that simple, why hasn't it been done by everyone.  The reality is that the diverse nature of education, and within the field, the diverse nature of instructional content make theory difficult to apply.  Inquiry may be the exception, though not without failings. 

What if the content of all curriculum, State or local, learned or given, was experiential?  Obviously not all of it can be, at least not the way that it is most commonly done.  Yet I wonder what my Social Studies courses would be like if I could genuinely say that the content of my curriculum was not just a list of unit topics and lesson plans, but was inquiry and learning through problem-solving.  Most of us know the power of this sort of learning.  Instead of a teacher (me?) presenting to the students information regarding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the students are engaged in solving a historical problem: did President Roosevelt know that an attack was eminent?  Did he allow it to happen?  The work done to solve those quandaries results in meaningful, student-centered learning that transcends the classroom.  Dewey later writes that “nothing can be developed from nothing; nothing but the crude can be developed out of the crude- and this is what surely happens when we throw the child back upon his achieved self as a finality; and invite him to spin new truths of nature or of conduct out of that.”  Again, isn't this the purpose of inquiry-base curriculum?

Sounds nice.  Possibly awesome.  Maybe even...epic?  OK, "epic" is getting so over used...like "powerful".  If I hear one more person say "Oh, that was such a powerful quote" I'm going to powerfully gag...but I digress.

Our failings with Inquiry based learning in Battle Creek Public Schools has not been on the theoretical end, it has been in the application.  This may be the reason that the content of all curriculum isn't inquiry-based.  One would think that the sciences and mathematics would certainly be laden with it, given the problem-solving nature of those subjects, yet at Central it is not the case. Inquiry-based learning is seriously labor intensive, and the more challenging the environment, the more labor intensive it gets until it may not be sustainable.  Battle Creek Central is a stereotypical urban school, where one finds all of the stereotypical urban school problems.  Classroom management is easily the greatest of these.  When I was younger, more energetic, and apparently capable of doing all teacher-ish better than anyone else, I could manage a classroom with such ease as to feature a curriculum full of inquiry.  You know what...I have no idea whether I did that or not, or even how I did it if my evaluations are accurate.  Maybe I have changed, the culture of my building has changed, the kids have changed, the amount of flouride in the water has changed...I don't know.  What I do know is that I cannot seem to integrate as much inquiry into the curriculum of the courses that I teach.  I wish that I had an answer as to why.

In Cycle 1, I stated that curriculum is "a capsulated package of the knowledge that humanity has acheived, discovered, studies and published over time."  That is, as was noted, far to general of a statement, but one that is in line with my idealistic nature.  In Cycle 2, I have made the claim that the content of curriculum should be inquiry-based.  Perhaps what I should have said is that the content of curriculum should be authentic learning, reagardless of the discipline or subject.  Though not as idealistic, I do believe that statement is in line with the intentions of Dewey's theories, and the variety of curriculum reformers offered this cycle.


Sources
http://inquirylearning.ca/

For those new to inquiry-based learning, this is a nice introductory site that lays out the theory and application of this model.
http://www.saskschools.ca/~bestpractice/inquiry/index.html

This site, as is the case with the next one, are examples of inquiry-based learning in action in a couple of different venues, including our friends in Canada (eh?).  I find that I learn best when I learn from others who are doing, rather that just telling me how something should work in the land of theory.  I'd much rather take a look at the land of "SO THIS ACTUALLY WORKS IN YOUR ROOM".
http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/pd/instr/strats/inquiry/index.html