Concluding Post: An Open Letter to My Students

To My Students-

            Julia Child a famous American cook once said "This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!" I chose a quote from Julia Child to begin this letter because she emulates so many things I hope to be, not only in my kitchen, but because her attitude, as articulated through this quote, demonstrates the curiosity, joy, and boldness I hope to inspire every year in you, my students. After more than six years of experience in the classroom and more than a decade of cooking, I have finally discovered the innate similarities between two things I adore: cooking and teaching. I hope that throughout this letter I can draw upon two of my favorite things and give you a glimpse into our classroom as it has evolved throughout the years.

All cooks do not go to Le Cordon Bleu – I decided to start here because I think it’s essential to realize that not every cook learns to cook by going to one of the finest cooking schools in the world. In fact, many of us learn how to cook out of necessity or from our parents and families. It’s no different for me. I didn’t go to culinary school to learn how to cook. I learned by watching my parents, trying things out, and because I was really hungry once I left my parents’ house and went to college! But that doesn’t mean that I can’t cook or that I have nothing to offer my fellow cooks. I have learned from all of you that school is very similar. Not everyone went to a pre-school with a college prep-curriculum. Many of you went to Head Start or daycare, or even your grandmother’s house before you entered the classroom. All that means is that we are all at different points in our journey. Some of you might come into the classroom knowing how to read, while others might still be working on developing reading skills. The point is that each of us can benefit from one another’s strengths and weaknesses. Some of you might be developing reading skills while working with someone who is a great reader, while the great reader is learning something about patience and compassion, as well as how to show and not just tell. Each are important lessons and part of the journey we take on our road to discovering our true passions and interests.

The kitchen promotes community - In cultures across the world, people come together in kitchens to prepare and enjoy food. Mothers and fathers teach their children how to prepare favorite family recipes. I remember sitting on a large brown stool in our kitchen growing up watching my mother make oatmeal, peanut butter, and chocolate chip cookies or helping my dad making red beans and rice.  They shared stories about cooking with their own parents and tricks that they learned from practicing and modifying recipes. Now in my own kitchen, I show Mr. Robertson how to mix the batter so his cookies are fluffy and delicious. Cooking for me makes me think of my family, friends, and community. I’m certain I would not love cooking as much if I always had to do it alone or if I didn’t have the opportunity to cook for those I love. Being in the kitchen with my husband, parents, and friends makes me enjoy the process of cooking all the more. This sense of community, family, and friendship is ever-present in our classroom too. At the beginning of each year, we start building a community where everyone is free to take risks and make mistakes, learn and share, discover and explore. Instead of food bringing us together, learning brings us together. In the classroom, I have seen the sense of community come alive when you do reader’s theater together, or when you make science observation about force, motion, life cycles, and more.

            We work hard at the beginning of the year to develop our classroom community, and we reap the benefits throughout the year as we question, encourage, celebrate, and collaborate with each other. After years of trial and error, I realized that in order to create a cohesive sense of community in the classroom, I have to model, observe, and most of all, get to know you and share who I am both in the classroom and out of the classroom. I think learning is the most meaningful when it really connects with who students are and sparks their curiosity.

Cooks love variety – I love cooking with different ingredients and trying new things. Normally, I find that new ingredients or even new cooking tools can add something to my cooking. In the kitchen, being willing to try new things or use new tools can be scary but can have wonderful outcomes! The various choices available when you’re cooking make it even more exciting and fun. I think it’s the same in the classroom. Each year, I have a variety of new students, and together we have to learn how to integrate new tools, whether that be new curriculum, new technology (like the SmartBoard this year!), or new staff members. Each adds to the variety in the classroom and school community. I think the variety in the classroom helps engage us as learners. Some of you will have strengths in math, while others might have strengths in reading, music, art, science, or something else. But this variety allows us to learn and share with one another. Hopefully, the variety in our classroom makes you excited to come into our classroom time and time again and helps you discover topics, ideas, or information that you dying to learn more about!

Cookbooks as curriculum - If you walk into any bookstore and look in the cooking section you will discover a variety of cookbooks. Some for beginning cooks, others for more advanced cooks, some for people with limited time or resources, while others are for someone looking for a specific type of cuisine. The cookbooks in the bookstore are like the curriculums in our classroom. Some of the curriculum caters to a specific subject matter, while other curriculum targets specific types of students (For example, Donovan from the Otterman article.), English as a Second Language learners, students with a strength or weakness in the subject, even curriculums based on the age appropriateness as it relates to the classroom.

            Once you leave the bookstore and step into the kitchen of a cook however, you find the hidden secrets of their recipes written in the margins of their personal cookbooks. You can discover which recipes they return to over and over and which recipes they haven’t yet tried or are not interesting in trying. In the classroom, when you look in the “margins” of the intended curriculum you can find what Elliot Eisner refers to as the hidden curriculum, the things I might teach unintentionally. Sometimes you can even see the teaching notes on how to enhance or improve specific lessons or topics.

            The variety and volume of cookbooks you would find in a bookstore or in someone’s kitchen is just like the variety and volume of curriculums that you find depending on the classroom, the students, the district, state, and more. In the end, as your teacher, I have many different curriculums available but I have to find what works for us. I have to ask myself questions like, What parts of the prescribed curriculum will have the greatest impact on you and how do I balance that with all of the lessons that we will learn outside of the assigned curriculum? How can I ensure that I am teaching the explicit curriculum while still being vigilant and aware of the implied curriculum? What curriculum will best meet your needs as a learner in any situation you encounter? What I have come to realize is that each year I have to ask myself these questions and more, because our classroom is constantly evolving just as the curriculum is constantly evolving. I have a responsibility to use the curriculum as a guide, not as the end all, be all.

           

Good cooks modify, make substitutions, and know tricks – I always used to think, “How does my mom know that adding a little sugar to the tomato sauce will make it less acidic?” Or “How did dad make that taste so good even though he didn’t have any butter?” After learning how to cook myself though, I started to learn these tricks and secrets. The best part of knowing the tricks and secrets is that an experienced cook can substitute and modify because they know the tricks and secrets. Teaching is similar. As I have gained more experience in the classroom, I learned some of the “tricks of the trade” if you will. I learned that there will be times when we encounter something unexpected, but with a little extra effort and thought, there is normally a reasonable modification that can be made. In the education world, we often call this differentiating instruction. Being able to differentiate a lesson or assignment for a student is much like making a substitution in cooking. Just as we add or take away ingredients that we don’t like or to accommodate a specific want or need I have to be willing and able to do that in the classroom. If I have a student that requires more time with a specific concept or re-teaching, then I have to be able to adapt the schedule or plan in order to accommodate that need.

            But every cook, myself included, has to admit that there have been times when they have tried to make a substitution and it just didn’t work out. That happens in the classroom, too. Nonetheless a good cook and a good teacher learn from these experiences and makes improvements for next time.

Cooking creates aromas beyond the kitchen – If you walk into the house when your mom is baking cookies, the aroma of the melting chocolate and sugary dough wafts through the air. The smells that are created while cooking spread far beyond the kitchen. This reminds me of the work that we do throughout the school year, because it extends far beyond the four walls of our classroom. It extends to who you are and who you who will become throughout your life. Every year, we work on learning facts and information. But most importantly, we learn skills that I hope you will carry with you throughout school and your lives. That’s my big goal, to help you learn and develop skills and strategies that you can use throughout your life, not just in first grade. I think it’s imperative to realize that learning is an ongoing process; I am still learning, your parents and families members are still learning, just as you will learn throughout your lives. What you learn in our classroom and beyond will be with you as you discover and rediscover who you are throughout the years, just as the aromas from what you’re cooking carry throughout your home.

I think it’s best to end this letter much the same way that I began. Julia Child in her infinite wisdom also said, "Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it." That’s what my ultimate hope is for you, that you can find something you’re interested in, just as I have. Cooking is one of my passions. I hope that throughout your year or years in our classroom as a pre-kindergartner, kindergartner, or first grader I can help you or did help you discover something that you’re passionate about and want to know more about. After all that’s what education and learning are all about, finding your interests and passions, your hope and dream. By tapping into those hopes, dream, interests, and passions, you will eventually discover yourself.  So best of luck on this journey… I feel lucky to have been or to be a part of it!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Robertson

Cycle Five : What Constitutes a Successful Curriculum?

Where do I begin describing a “successful curriculum”? As educators we all know that the curriculum that we teach is not limited to the grade level expectations and curriculum maps that spell out the objectives for us. In the seven plus hours that our students spend with us each day we hopefully spend time not only teaching them reading, math, science, and social studies but much more. We teach them how to interact and relate to their peers, we teach them how to problem solve, we expose them to things they have never encountered, and hopefully encourage them to continue searching for the things that interest them the most. So, where does that leave us with regard to answering this week’s guiding question, What constitutes a successful curriculum?

For me the Cycle Five reading offered snapshots into some of the possible ways to explore designing a successful curriculum. Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone is quite obviously trying to find ways to help disadvantaged students close the achievement gap between their more advantaged peers. The Harlem Children’s Zone has designed specific programs that aim at intervening early and providing ongoing support for students and their families. While the Meier article discussed Central Park East Secondary Schools and their approach to community building (I linked to a specific article here but, overall the entire Responsive Classroom website is really interesting.) within their schools to provide students with intervention and support. Neither model differs that drastically from the other in their desired outcome, helping students be successful in school and throughout their lives.

The Eisner article and Noddings article reminded me of things that we must keep in mind as we develop curriculum, design schools, and most importantly educate students. I thought Kyle’s description of Noddings as a “happy skeptic of all things standardized” could not have been put more accurately. Noddings proposes that happiness should be one of the aims of curriculum but is often neglected. I think that her assessment is fair and agree that we should not be designing curriculum that is “one-size fits all”. Students need to be able to express choice and interest in their courses of study. I think that while students need a broad understanding of many subjects, I am not sure that every student should have to take a specific math class because that it what comes next or because that’s what every post K-12 institution is looking for. Perhaps, as Noddings points out, we should be more focused on our students goals and interests, the things that will make them happy throughout their lives and not just assign those things we think are best for them.

One of the most important points that Elliot Eisner made for me as I consider successful curriculum is summed up in the following quote. What connections are students helped to make between what they study in class and the world outside of school? A major aim of education has to do with what psychologist refer to as "transfer of learning." Can students apply what they have learned or what they have learned how to learn? Can they engage in the kind of learning they will need in order to deal with problems and issues outside of the classroom? If what students are learning is simply used as a means to increase their scores on the next test, we may win the battle and lose the war. I think that Noddings and Eisner go hand in hand. If we engage our students in learning that is interesting and provide them with some amount of happiness they will be more likely to “transfer their learning”.

After reading all four articles, I am left questioning; does the Harlem Children’s Zone strive for and successfully integrate the “transfer of learning” that Eisner discusses? Does Central Park East Secondary Schools, KIPP, or a traditional public school? I am not questioning that all four of the aforementioned options have noble intentions, but I wonder if one of the structures has really successfully integrated “transfer of learning” as one of the centerpieces of a successful curriculum. Personally, I thought that a structure like the one at CPESS had the best design for implementing a successful curriculum that acknowledges the importance of student interests and goals. It seemed to me that they have very strategically created intimate communities within their schools to not only foster teacher-student relationships, but also student-student relationships and teacher-teacher relationships. I think a model like the one used a CPESS allows staff and students to get to know one another. As a teacher this knowledge would allow you to access your students interests and aspirations and use that as the basis for your curriculum.

As a former kindergarten teacher, I would agree that you really get to know your students because so much of kindergarten has to be individualized to meet the individual students’ needs. In getting to know your students, I think you naturally learn about their interests and goals. In discovering these interests and goals, I think that we not only find what makes students happy, but also what allows them to take their learning beyond the boundaries of the classroom. As educators we hope that our students will take what they have learned in our classrooms with them throughout their educations and lives. We need to start asking ourselves how we can achieve such an ambitious goal not only for our own classrooms, but also in a way that is replicable in classrooms everywhere. 

Cycle Four: How should curriculum be generated?

Cycle four and the related readings have brought a lot of issues to the surface for me as an educator. I am not sure that it’s as easy to answer how should curriculum be generated? as one might think after reading the Tyler piece. Nor do I think that many people outside of the realm of education understand the politics that play into curricular decisions as exposed by Shorto.  Nonetheless, as an educator, it’s easy to see Ralph Tyler’s influence on education today, as well the almost unfathomable amount of political maneuvering involved in designing curriculum.

When I think about the question how should curriculum be generated? I automatically think about who should be involved in generating curriculum. For me, the Shorto article was an illustration not only of what to avoid when generating or creating curriculum standards, but also that there are a lot of people who want their views and opinions to be expressed through public education. I was angered that the Texas State School Board was so transparently biased. While I would never argue that making curriculum decisions can be completely devoid of bias, it concerns me that a politically slanted and narrow agenda is being endorsed by the most influential school board in the country.

I have had the opportunity to teach in Texas as well as in Michigan. Reading the Shorto article this week made me sad for public education across America. When I began teaching in Houston almost eight years ago, I didn’t realize the incredible possibilities there were relating to curriculum. I was simply handed teachers manuals for math, reading, science, and social studies and told to follow the manuals. It wasn’t until I moved to Michigan that I realized how flexible, responsive, and better curriculum could be when teachers, administrators, community members and even students are all an integral part of generating curriculum.

Unfortunately, I feel like the pendulum in Michigan is swinging more towards the direction that Texas has gone. Rather than people that actually work in the classroom being part of developing curriculum, individuals far removed from the realities of the classroom are making decisions without teacher input. Many school districts throughout mid-Michigan have been forced or strongly encouraged to become part of the MiBLSi (Michigan Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative) grant. This grant essentially forces districts to use a “Core Reading Program” as well as adopt some sort of literacy screener like the DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) or AIMSweb which offer little to no incite into how to meet student needs. While large publishing companies like Pearson say that their programs and “screeners” are “research based,” reading researchers like Richard Allington call these “screeners” examples of educational malpractice!

In the almost four years that I have been in Michigan, I have seen districts abandon their teaching for programs like Scott Foresman’s Reading Street or consider programs like Open Court, a scripted reading program used in many Houston public schools. I realize that there are numerous areas that are in dire need of improvement throughout education. I am incredibly concerned however when many states, Michigan included, are taking advice from a state like Texas. Perhaps in generating curriculum and in regenerating curriculum, we should realize we don’t necessarily need to abandon everything. But instead, we should look at the weaknesses as well as the strengths in our current curriculums and use our strengths to help improve our areas of weakness.

In the end, I am not sure that I agree with everything Ralph Tyler said throughout the chapters we read. I wouldn’t say that I disagree with Tyler, as much as I would say that I think that Tyler was writing about curriculum development at a time when testing hadn’t yet become such a driving force, when teachers felt a greater sense of autonomy in their classrooms, and when students were coming to school with a different skill set.

Ultimately, I thought Tyler was arguing that the curriculum should develop thinking skills, social attitude, interests, and help students acquire information. With that in mind, I think the most effective way to achieve these goals is to develop curriculum at a more local or district level.  If we strictly create national curriculums that cannot possibly tap into every student’s various experiences and needs, there will be many children left behind. As the Shorto article highlights, when people far removed from the classroom make curricular decisions, the results can be devastating not only for one state’s students, but potentially for many students across the country. I think that it is teachers in the classroom and community member that interact with students in their everyday lives that are ultimately the ones that are most capable of designing curriculum that aligns with core standards and meets student needs. 

Cycle 3: Controversial Curriculum

It wasn’t so long ago that having integrated schools as opposed to segregated schools was controversial.  I considered this reality as I read through this week’s articles and thought about the guiding question, should the curriculum address controversial issues? I found myself quick to respond.  Absolutely, without a doubt, curriculum should address controversial issues. If we look at our country’s history or even the history of other parts of the world, we will find that controversial issues are continually being addressed within society. For example, slavery, women’s suffrage, Jim Crow laws, rock n’ roll, eugenics, medical marijuana, sex education vs abstinence education, homosexuality, Islam, the list is endless!

One could argue that many of these controversial issues are already being addressed by way of the excluded curriculum. But, is that really how we want to address controversy in our classrooms? I think excluding controversial issues from our classrooms makes them taboo or can make them seem unimportant or irrelevant. As educators, anytime we make something unimportant or irrelevant in our classrooms, we run the risk of making our students feel unimportant or irrelevant. Perhaps they are gay, lesbian, or bisexual or have a family member who is. Maybe they have AIDS, HIV, or some other illness. Maybe they are Muslim, Jewish, Jehovah’s Witness, or atheist.

Even if our students manage to elude controversy in their own lives, in all likelihood there will come a time when our students encounter someone with HIV or AIDS, or someone who has two moms or two dads, perhaps even someone who is lesbian, gay, or bisexual themselves. If we don’t address these issues in the classroom, our students will be left to navigate these encounters on their own, sometimes with devastating consequences.

So, for me the question this week was not so much should we address controversial issues but how should we or how can we address controversial issues with our students? I think that the excerpt out of John Silin’s book Sex, Death, and the Education of Children: Our Passion for Ignorance in the Age of AIDS as well as the Thornton article, Silence on Gays and Lesbians in Social Studies Curriculum really helped me think about this question. My personal opinion is that as teachers we need to be prepared to have discussions with our students about controversial issues. But, we need to be able to have these discussions within the context of other aspects of their learning.

If there are times when the Social Studies lesson for the day could also include a discussion about homosexuality or religious freedom, teachers should consider these opportunities teachable moments. As a first grade teacher, my discussion would obviously be very different from that of a middle or high school teacher. Rather than being a discussion on the role of homosexuality in Greek art, my age-appropriate lesson might be a discussion about similarities and differences, which would allow me to focus on different types of families, or different traditions and customs and being tolerant of different types of families or different traditions and customs.

Nonetheless, I think that teachers often avoid controversial or difficult topics in their classrooms. It’s understandable when you consider that teachers are supposed to remain unbiased or neutral. They must consider the ramifications of dealing with such issues not only for students, but also for parents, families, administration, and themselves. For me, I know that when I talk about anything that could be controversial, even something like presidential elections, I worry my students will make assumptions about my beliefs. In the end, my goal is only to expose them to the fact that there is a world beyond their community, not to tell them who is the better candidate, or what kind of family is the best, or what religion they should be, or who they should love. I hope my students leave my classroom feeling respected and confident about who they are in a way that allows them to respect others who may be different.

Within the past seven years, I have taught in three vastly different schools, one urban and low-income, one suburban higher-income, and now in a school that is rural with both low and high income students. Having taught in these different environments has reiterated the importance of making learning relevant to student lives. That does not mean that I don’t expose them to things outside of their communities. It just means that I have found that my students are most open as learners if I can relate the learning to their lives and experiences. If we prescribe curriculum to teach children about things like homosexuality, illness, death, religion, politics, or any other controversial issues, I think we run the risk of neglecting our students’ experiences and backgrounds. Instead, I think that when teaching anything, especially when teaching about issues that can be polarizing, it is within the context of our students’ unique experiences and backgrounds that they are best able to form new or better understandings.

Cycle 2: What should the content of curriculum be?

I’d first like to say that I have really enjoyed that our reading has been a mix of philosophical / scholarly work coupled with at least one article that brings the guiding questions back into the reality in which many of us work.  The Donovan article during Cycle One and the Quest to Learn article this week have really allowed me to consider my own teaching experiences and how they relate to each topic.

As we’ve just begun to consider what curriculum is, it is undoubtedly important to think and consider what the content of curriculum should be.  What should we be teaching our students? Should we determine specific skills at each grade level? Should these skills be standardized, locally, statewide, or nationally? How should we go about teaching the curriculum? I think these are already questions that good educators think about, but reading this week’s articles encouraged me to look at the content of curriculum in a new light.

It seems like we read about two different extremes in curriculum and education overall. E.D. Hirsch’s ideas concern me in many ways. Although I think there are basic skills, ideas, and concepts that students should know, I am not sure that books like What Your ____ Needs to Know can articulate all of those things in effective ways. Does every child, regardless of their cultural background or community need to learn the same things? I looked into E.D. Hirsch more after reading the chapter from his book and quickly found that he seems to be a strong proponent of initiatives to create common core standards based on his development of The Core Knowledge Foundation .  While I think that initiatives like this have good intentions, I worry that they promote a “one-size fits all” mentality when it comes to education. That being said, I do applaud Hirsch for stating that he felt like, although there should be common goals, there should be differences in the ways in which we meet those goals.

With that idea in mind, it seemed to me that based on the NY Times article, Quest to Learn is on the opposite end of the spectrum. The curriculum that the school uses seems to be based on methods that indulge the interests of the students regardless of whether that is the most effective and/or appropriate way of educating students. Hirsch’s ideas concern me because I am not sure that anyone or any group of people could determine what every child in America needs to know and whether all knowledge is relevant to every community throughout the country. However, the concept of a school like Quest to Learn concerns me because I believe that as much as we want our students to enjoy school and love learning, there are times when they will be accountable for tasks and assignments that are not based on games or things they like to do.

Everyone has a favorite subject and frequently a least favorite subject. Unfortunately, you often have do things you don’t enjoy, in order to be able to continue to do the things you do enjoy. School athletics is a perfect example. There are plenty of high school students that love sports over math, science, social studies, English, etc. but those students can’t just say, I think I’ll go to my football practice but not to my chemistry class. Those students must show some degree of proficiency in their academics in order to play extracurricular sports. Is Quest to Learn really teaching their students how to navigate these challenges or are they instead showing their students how to avoid these challenges?

As I said before, as an educator, I want my students to love school, love learning, and be engaged in their learning. However, I recognize that there will be times in their lives when they might not get to select the type of project they will complete, and I want them to be adequately prepared in such situations. As I read the NY Times article, I questioned, Is writing a video review of your classmates game design the best opportunity to teach children how to write? I think schools like Quest to Learn are so focused on engaging students in activities that they enjoy that students are not learning about how to be successful in environments that don’t cater to their every whim.

I am certainly not saying that I am completely opposed to using game based play in order to engage my students in learning goals. I just question if there is a better, more appropriate form of technology integration that could meet the same goals in a more effective and appropriate way than video games?

For me, John Dewey, seems to encourage finding a balance between the two aforementioned extremes. I think Dewey wants children to learn in a way that allows them to relate their knowledge to the real world and I agree with Dewey: children must have content presented in ways that allow them to relate to the topic. As a first grade teacher, I find incredible joy in those moments when my students say things like, “Mrs. Robertson, this book reminds me of a time when I was playing out in the snow just like Peter is playing in the snow during The Snowy Day. When I was playing in the snow I made a snow angel. Maybe Peter will make a snow angel too!” Those moments show me that my students are seeing the parallels between what they are learning and their world outside of the classroom. In reading, these parallels allow them to make predictions, connections, inferences, and so much more.

The bottom-line is that Dewey, Hirsch and Quest to Learn all have pros and cons. How can we ensure that students are mastering basic skills, while still letting them be active members in their learning all the while having fun? As educators, I think we must find a balance between engaging our students in their learning of the content while at the same time preparing them for the world. I am not sure that Dewey, Hirsch, or the faculty at Quest to Learn would agree, but my ultimate goal as an educator is to prepare my students not only for the next grade, but for the world in which we all live. I personally think this is done in environments where students are actively involved in their learning, learning about things that interest them, and sometimes learning how to successfully cope with learning content that may not be a easy or enjoyable for them.

Cycle One Post

What is curriculum? What is its purpose?

This is an interesting time to discuss curriculum and its meaning. My school district and many/all school districts in Michigan are looking at aligning their current curriculum with the Common Core Standards that have been adopted by many states, Michigan included. I think that for school districts it’s difficult to discuss the Common Core Standards without thinking about the curriculums that the district has in place or the curriculums that may need to be replaced as a result of redefining the standards and expectations for each grade level.

A simple definition of curriculum would be the methods and techniques we use to get students from point A to point B. Methods and techniques are part of curriculum but a larger, more important aspect of curriculum is content. What should I teach? Why should I teach it? How should I teach it? And when should I teach it? Every state, school district, etc. has goals for what the students will learn at key stages in their education, I see curriculum as a tool to help students meet those milestones. One district might use EveryDay Mathematics to get their students to master the grade level math objectives while another district might opt to use Math Trailblazers. I think that curriculum guides educators in how to teach and scaffold skills for students.  

However, that’s just a simple definition for a very simple concept, basic curriculum. Curriculum becomes harder to define when you consider things like implied curriculum, intended curriculum, excluded curriculum, etc. Although I do think that it is important to consider and reflect on the lessons that we are teaching our students with the supported curriculum, I think it’s equally, if not more, important to think about the lessons we are teaching our students based off of the excluded curriculum or the hidden curriculum that we may be teaching unintentionally.  

Although I teach in a general education classroom, I have a number of students in my classroom that have identified special needs, including one student with autism.

For me, any discussion of curriculum leads me to think about that student and several others. The answers to the questions I posed above change when I consider my autistic student or my other students who are cognitively impaired, otherwise health impaired, or even speech and language impaired.  The Donovan article this week reinforced those thoughts and feelings for me. What was most striking for me with regard to the Donovan article was my sense that the article was not only exposing the world of educating individuals with multiple impairments but asking questions like, What should we teach these students? How can we measure mastery? Should we involve families as we develop not only IEPs but also curriculum?  Although I think it would be fantastic to have parents involved in curriculum decisions for their child or children, my classroom experience leads me the other direction. How can we involve parents and families in those decisions and still meet the needs of all students? The Donovan article demonstrated quite clearly that one parent might feel that their child would benefit from a more “academic” curriculum while another parent might feel a more “functional” curriculum would be the best use of time for their child.

If we extend the discussion to general education students who are “typically developing,” the question remains difficult to answer. Is it possible to involve parents in meaningful ways when some parents think a product-based classroom is more important than a classroom that attempts to create more authentic learning opportunities? As a classroom teacher, I also ask myself how do we hold teachers accountable to curriculum when it may look different for every student in the classroom. I think that teachers already struggle to learn and adapt their curriculums as necessary based on who their students are as learners. If you add parents to the mix of students, administrators, state guidelines, and more, I think that teachers will feel even more overwhelmed.

In the end, as a first grade teacher I am acutely aware that children learn just as much, if not more, by watching and observing those around them.  Children also make connections and inferences based on what they observe or fail to observe. For these reasons I think that it is imperative that educators think about what curriculum they are teaching both intentionally and unintentionally. If I tell my students I am really excited about a certain book, math concept, or topic they too become excited. Conversely, if I tell my students that I think a certain book, topic, or concept is irrelevant or unimportant; they will put little stock into it. What I am trying to say is that as educators we teach our students many things outside of the prescribed curriculum. I personally think that many of these lessons are good lessons however; I do think there are some lessons that we teach unintentionally that cause our children to leave our classrooms with false notions, stereotypes, misinformation, and perhaps most devastatingly a lesser sense of self-worth.  So needless to say, having a discussion about what curriculum is and who should be involved in developing curriculum for students is important and will continue to be important in the future, regardless of government mandates and Common Core Standards.

Welcome to My Blog!

Hi Everyone!

My name is Karla Robertson. I am really excited about TE818. I have taken other classes at MSU through Angel and none of them have included creating a blog so this should be new and exciting!

A Little Bit About Me...

I graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Political Science and French. I originally went to the University of Vermont to study early childhood education but subsequently changed my major and university. Little did I know where I would be less than ten years later!

After completing my undergraduate degree, I thought about graduate school but then was asked to apply to Teach for America. I applied and was accepted to  started teaching almost seven years ago as a Teach for America corps member. I taught in inner-city Houston, Texas for three years. For two of those years I taught kindergarten and one in Pre-Kindergarten. Although Teach for America is only a two year commitment I quickly discovered that I loved teaching especially young learners.

While in Houston, I met my husband Josh (who is also in this class). After three years, we decided to move from Houston to Michigan to be closer to family. Josh went to high school in Michigan and attended MSU for his undergraduate degree and I am originally from the northern suburbs of Chicago so Michigan was substantially closer to both of our families.

During our first year in Michigan I had to substitute teach but the following year I got a job teaching first grade in Haslett. After teaching for a year I was laid off as a result of budget cuts, but I was able to get a job teaching kindergarten in Mason. After a year teaching kindergarten I had the opportunity to move with half of my students to first grade.

I love teaching in Mason. The school where I teach is literally in the middle of a cornfield which is very different from the school where I taught in Houston. Nonetheless, Mason still gives me the opportunity to teach low income and at-risk students which is something I think is really important and an opportunity I missed while teaching in Haslett.

Since my husband is also a teacher we both spend a lot of time in our classrooms. Outside of the classroom I really like cooking/baking. As a graduate student at MSU I am hoping to learn more about teaching and specifically teaching literacy. Right now I would say my area of teaching expertise is early childhood education. Having taught Pre-K, K, and 1 has allowed me to learn a lot about young children. However, I still have a lot to learn about teaching and am looking forward to what this class has to offer.