The Centrality of Curriculum and the Function of Standards: The Curriculum is a Mind-altering Device
In this episode I unpack Eisner’s (2002) publication titled “The centrality of curriculum and the function of standards: The curriculum is a mind-altering device,” which problematizes curricula and standards by discussing how both can deprofessionalize the field of education.
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Curricula and standards can provide
guidance to Educators but I don't often
see them being critiqued or discussed in
the field do we even need them if so
when and when not the chapter titled the
centrality of curriculum and the
function of Standards the curriculum is
a mind-altering device explores this a
little bit this chapter is written by
Elliot Eisner in this episode I'm going
to relate this to Computer Science
Education my name is Jared O'Leary and I
have a background in music education and
computer science education and a variety
of teaching contexts all the way from
kindergarten through doctoral students
this episode going to kind of build off
of some of the things I talked about
last week in episode 174. you can find a
direct link to it in the show notes at
jaredoleery.com where there are a
hundreds if not thousands of free
computer science education resources as
well as over 1300 hours of drumming
content and a bunch of gaming content as
well because I'm a nerd now the title of
this chapter is a bit provocative but
here's a quote from page 148 that kind
of elaborates a little bit more quote
when policy makers and educational
theorists Define a curriculum for a
school or a classroom they are also
defining the forms of thinking that are
likely to be promoted in the school they
are in effect laying out an agenda for
the development of Mind end quote and as
we've talked about in other episodes
they are laying out an agenda for what
they want people to value and understand
and behave in society how do we do that
well I mean if we think about it from
like a behavioral standpoint if we
reward certain behaviors and punish
other behaviors or certain ways of
knowing or being as opposed to others
that makes us a different axiologies
ontology disease epistemologies Etc are
valued more than others which inherently
makes it so that some cultures are
valued more than others from an equity
standpoint this can be problematic which
is why many educators are talking about
decolonization so instead of having one
way of thinking or doing or being in a
classroom we instead are focusing on
having many but people who were in the
dominant culture that was promoted view
this as an Erasure so Eisner goes on a
little bit further to say that
curriculum can come in many different
forms so as somebody who previously
developed curriculum and designed
professional development full-time I can
say that yeah there's a lot of things
that need to be discussed I've talked
about this in other episodes but there
are like different layers of curricula
so as a former curriculum developer what
I designed or intended for people to do
is like one layer the next one is what
is actually taught then is what is
actually like experienced by the
students in the classroom and then how
they actually embody that so Ellie
Eisner is going to talk about some of
these in this opening section of the
chapter now because I've talked about
this more in other episodes that I will
include in the show notes I'm going to
go through this section fairly quickly
but I want to read a quote here from
page 149 quote but there's always a
distance between the intentions of
curriculum designers and actual teaching
practices the curriculum in Vivo as
contrasted with in vitro consists in the
actual activities employed in classrooms
no professional curriculum designer can
know the details or specifics of
individual classrooms or the needs of
particular children end quote I totally
agree with that as a former curriculum
developer I can say that what I designed
was intended to be customized for the
students that the teacher was working
with because I don't know what your
classroom context is like I don't know
what students are interested in I want
you to be able to modify the lessons and
the projects and the resources Etc to
align with the kids that you're working
with I can't just say hey this is going
to work for everybody even though I know
many kids will enjoy the projects that I
created as they were originally designed
however they could be even better if
they were customized a little bit or
maybe a lot of it for the students that
you're working with and this doesn't
mean just for customization for all
right I'm going to make a project that
matches the 30 kids that I work with but
instead saying how can I make it so that
we have 30 different projects that match
to the 30 Unique Individuals that I'm
working with so if you are a curriculum
designer I highly recommend thinking of
this when you are creating your content
whether it's your resources your lessons
your projects whatever try and think of
them as like a platform or a springboard
for further ideas to be remixed and
expanded upon rather than like immutable
lessons and projects that need to be
left intact from how you originally
designed it yeah what you design may
have worked great for the kids that you
were thinking of when you're creating it
but it might not work for I don't know
outside of that context and that's okay
and that should be expected but if we
dive a little bit deeper into that idea
that doesn't just apply to curriculum
designers professional development
designers Etc this also applies to
teachers so if you are picking up any
kind of a lesson plan I strongly
recommend that you customize it in some
way to better match the kids that you're
working even if you feel like you are
brand new to a domain like computer
science and you don't have a lot of
experience in it try and find ways to
customize it for the kids you're working
with and one way that you can easily do
that is just ask kids how they might
modify this so if you're working on like
a project in scratch great instead of
having everybody recreate the exact same
project ask kids at the beginning to
think of how they might take the model
project the example project idea and
change it so that it is more relevant to
their own interests and needs and
desires Etc this approach kind of
contrasts with what was introduced in
the 60s as Elliott Eisner discusses so
in the 60s they talked about teacher
proof curricula quote that is designing
curriculum materials that were so
prescriptive and detailed that they
could not fail to be effective that
illusory aspiration has long passed and
most people today recognize that
professional direction is needed in
teaching just that it is in virtually
every other professional field if
recipes for teaching were adequate
teacher education programs would be
unnecessary end quote and that is from
page 149 and 150 and that is such a good
quote if all we needed to do was design
like the perfect lesson plan then why
would we even need to have teaching
professionals we could just hire
paraprofessionals or random people from
off the street to pay the minimum wage
and just say hey make sure kids aren't
throwing things and let the curriculum
do the work for you but that's not how
teaching works as somebody who is taught
every grade kindergarten through
doctoral student I could say that I've
always had to modify things because some
kids are just not interested in a
subject area other kids might be really
interested in it some kids are having a
bad day because maybe they fractured
their foot jumping off the swing set
like I did when I was a kid and other
kids are experiencing racism in the
schools and it's going unchecked and
unnoticed by adults there are so many
factors that influence how kids come
into the classroom and experience the
the intended or designed learning we
need to take these into account just
like we take into account prior
experience so we're supposed to be able
to modify and adjust based on how
experienced or less experienced students
are but everybody's going to come in at
a different level great credit the scale
might be shorter for some groups or
classes where it's like okay well the
student's likability level between 100
let's say it's like between 40 and 50
and they all come in within that range
but other times it might be between like
computer science classes that I've
taught who have literally never seen or
touched a computer before so as an 8th
grader that I'm thinking of and then
other students who go home and program
on their weeknights and weekends Etc
that kind of a spread in a computer
science class is something we have to be
able to account for and so modifying
lessons is important but not only do we
need to think of what is being taught
but how we are teaching it so one of the
lessons that I learned when I was in
Drumline just from Glenn Crosby who is a
phenomenal educator he was talking about
how when he consulted a variety of drum
lines across the country that it wasn't
just what you say but how you say it and
when you say it so it's very important
to not just be correct with the the
facts that you are giving when it comes
to correcting like a mistake or showing
you how to fix something but also
figuring out what could you say in that
moment that would help that student or
maybe not say anything at all and let
them kind of figure it out for
themselves so knowing the when and the
how is extremely important to consider
so my computer lab was set up like an
oval so there were computers facing all
of the walls around the edges and then
there was two tables that were facing
towards the center in the middle so when
I walked around the room I could walk
around and assist students one-on-one so
I'd be asking questions and kind of like
guiding them many times when I would be
asking them the questions I would kind
of like notice that they had like a bug
with a program whether it was scratch or
Ruby or JavaScript or Swift or whatever
language or platform they were working
on and I would kind of like use a
guiding question to help them think
through where they might be able to
figure out a solution for this and then
I'd walk away and I'd often walk back
and kind of just kind of like look at
their screen and see if they've made any
progress and whatnot or see like what
their body language is did they look
like they're frustrated they look like
they're thinking really hard or do they
look like they're bored Etc I would use
all this information and to figure out
what do I need to do next or maybe not
do maybe I just continue another circle
around the room and assist other
students maybe they don't actually need
my Assistance or maybe they do one
simple way to kind of figure that out is
just ask hey how's it going since I last
checked in this was a form of assessment
but there's also a valuation that is
often occurring in different classrooms
so we need to think of how these all
kind of like work together to kind of
create an experience for students how
they assessed how they are evaluated how
you teach what they are actually
learning Etc all kind of have an impact
on how they experience this classroom I
talked about that in the episode last
week number 174 which was titled
educational aims objectives and other
aspirations now here's a quote for page
curriculum activity events are planned
that have an impact on students as
thought processes thus how curriculum
activities are designed the models of
cognition that are evoked the forms of
representation that are presented or
which students are given permission to
use all affect what students are likely
to think about end quote some people
when they hear that they go great we
should really Define what exactly we
value and what we want students to think
about as I've talked about in other
episodes this might be curriculum as
social reconstruction but another way of
thinking of it is curriculum as cultural
reproduction I've talked about these
more in episode 125 titled images of
curriculum and I'll include a link to
that in the show notes at
jaredoleery.com whatever image of
curriculum you end up using the
curriculum or standards objectives Etc
all kind of are used to help guide or
provide some kind of direction or a
framework for thinking through the
educational experiences that students
will engage in across their K-12 or even
higher education tenure but what that
looks like differs for every educator or
curriculum developer out there or even
an administrator some people want to
know in advance like in September what
will students be doing in February
others look at it and go well I don't
actually know what students are going to
learn or how fast they're going to learn
and what direction they want to go in so
we're going to kind of unpack this a
little bit more in the following pages
but to be honest most of what I have
seen in education is the first one so
most of them have like here's the
curriculum for the entire quarter or
semester or year planned out like the
very first district that I taught in
they literally handed us a series of
notebooks that was every single lesson
plan that you teach kindergarten all the
way through sixth grade this made it so
that I technically didn't have to write
any lesson plans because they're all
written out but are supposed to rewrite
them and add in transition sentences
where I literally script out what I was
going to say word for word in each one
of the lesson plans as a new educator
this made it so that I had content to
work with and I didn't have to stress
out every single week trying to come up
with lessons for each of the kids that I
work with while that might sound great
for the educator it doesn't mean that
was a great experience for the students
there were so many sixth graders who
like why do we need to sing this
childish song and I was like I don't
know I didn't write the curriculum this
is just what we have to do then there
are so many classes that I worked with
that did not speak English and we were
forcing them to sing a song that they
did not understand in English so on one
hand it made my life easier and not
having to plan things but on the other
hand it made the educational experience
worse for the student but with the other
approach where things are much more
flexible quote the teacher's task is to
be sensitive to the flow of events and
to the students engagement in those
events in order to make appropriate
adjustments and indeed to invent
activities that are appropriate for the
students this model suggests that
curriculum activities grow out of or
emerge from events that immediately
precede them the teacher is less
concerned with arriving at a
predetermined destination on time than
with getting students engaged in
activities that are emotionally
satisfying and intellectually productive
sequence grows out of the links that the
teachers help Forge between his or her
more mature knowledge of a field of
activity and the work that students
engage in to be able to make educational
gold out of emerging activities in the
classroom requires a high degree of
artistry in teaching Artistry and
teaching is more likely to occur when
the classroom provides a context for
improvisation and where unpredictability
rather than predictability of activities
and consequences is acknowledged when
plans are tightly organized when
objectives are highly specified where a
timeline is prescriptive in its detail
routine is given a place of privilege
efficiency and Effectiveness are seen as
more likely when the tracks are smooth
and where all students are expected to
move down those tracks toward a common
goal end quote from page 152 then this
following quote is really going to
resonate with all the podcast episodes
that I've done on rhizomatic learning
which again I'll include links to those
in the show notes at jaredeliry.com but
quote the more teachers open the door
for the suggestions of students the more
opportunities they provide for genuine
individualization what such a curriculum
promotes are individualized outcomes and
individualized activities end quote and
this is something that I talked about in
a panel session at the crossroads Summit
like a couple of weeks ago we were asked
to kind of Define what Equity means to
us or Equitable Computer Science
Education and what I talked about is
individualized learning within a group
context and so I've unpacked this more
in some of the other episodes on
individual lies learning or interest
driven learning Etc so I'll include
links to those in the show notes but
this kind of shows you some of the
people who had a profound influence on
the way that I thought of classroom
experiences and lesson plans Etc but
here's an important quote that's from
page 152 and 153 quote many students
find it difficult to cope with the
opportunity to Define their own goals it
takes practice to do so well and a
willingness to accept such an
opportunity as an appropriate part of
One's Own education when birds have led
their life in a cage it is not difficult
to understand that when the door is open
they might not have a desire to leave
end quote that is such an important
quote I had so many students who come to
my classroom and be like wait so we can
learn whatever we want we can create
whatever we want on like several
different programming languages and
platforms and be like yes and be like
overwhelmed with the amount of choice so
I'd provide some like guiding questions
like some things to help prompt their
understanding for thinking through what
they might explore all right just sit
down with them one-on-one and be like
what are you interested in all right
cool you're interested in racing how can
we explore that in coding or whatever
platform that we're working on and kind
of give them the tools and the ways of
thinking to be able to do that because
after years if not Decades of schooling
practices that spoon feed projects and
actions and like little activities for
students to engage in without thinking
of creating their own they might need
some support in how to do that here's a
quote from page 153 that talks about
that quote even when students have a
hand in framing their own purposes and
informing their own curriculum
activities the teacher has a
considerable role to play such an
approach to curriculum makes greater
demands on the teacher than one that is
packaged by a curriculum production
company more is required if the teacher
is to work more or less individually
with students to enable them to think
through and to plan what they are going
to address in their art program in
addition the teacher has a key role to
play in calling the students attention
to qualities in the work they produce
that need attention of one kind or
another a little bit further down
calling this students has attention to
such matters addresses other many
curricular activities that invite
students to think about the content of
their work in new ways and to experiment
with ways to strengthen what needs
attention thus curriculum and teaching
merge within a dynamic context end quote
now this is a really important quote and
a really important point to consider in
computer science education especially at
the elementary level there's often a
focus on this teacher-proof curriculum
hey we've designed this platform that
does all of the teaching all of the
assessment everything you absolutely
need all you need to do is just like
make sure kids are working why did
curriculum developers design it this way
because many elementary teachers Etc do
not have a background in computer
science or programming well likely
well-intentioned this creates a Reliance
on the curriculum itself but because
these platforms are designed in a way to
take the teacher out of it the teacher
does not end up learning the content
knowledge or learning the pedagogical
knowledge to be able to teach computer
science and to be able to move beyond
that platform it makes it so that you
have to continue you to subscribe or
continue to revisit the website or
continue to buy the next unit of
instruction Etc this is why when I
previously designed professional
development experiences we approached it
from the idea of rather than giving a
person a fish or in this case a
curriculum or lessons or projects Etc we
wanted to teach a person how to fish so
how you design the curriculum how you
design the professional development and
how you support the learning of teachers
over time will have a profound impact on
whether or not they actually become
sustainable or not now I have witnessed
many districts move away from
sustainability because of a variety of
factors the biggest one being not
attending professional development not
giving time for teachers to be able to
learn computer science Concepts
practices skills understandings Etc and
the pedagogical knowledge so yeah it's
great you might be providing
professional development but if you
don't provide the time for teachers to
attend the PD or to continue their
learning outside of PD and actually try
and Implement in their classroom in a
meaningful and sustained and consistent
way in terms of how frequently you do it
it's going to have drastically different
results but going back to eisner's quote
you need to have content knowledge to be
able to know where students are going or
what potential directions they might
head in order to be able to guide them
in this way if you do not have that
content knowledge and you are just like
one lesson ahead then you'll be like the
high school programming teacher that I
had who was literally like reading the
chapter right before we were actually
going to learn that particular concept
or whatever and apply it in other
projects that we're created so we were
handed A month's worth of projects most
of the kids would finish it in a week or
two including myself and then we'd
literally just play video games on the
computers because we had nothing else to
do the teacher could not guide us any
further and when we got stuck the
teacher did not know how to help us all
that to say again my background is in
music education when I first went into
the classroom and started teaching
Computer Science Education there were
many times students came up to me and I
was like I don't know how to solve that
bug or that problem or do that thing
that you want to do let me go home and
research it I'll come back tomorrow I'll
talk to you about how I researched it
the processes that I took it's kind of
to some kind of a solution and then
we'll work through it together this
approach made it so that I was
constantly learning constantly doing new
languages figuring out new bugs to solve
new ways to create things Etc so it's
okay to not have the answer right away
but you need to be willing to learn that
answer and again not be Reliant upon
curriculum developers or providers to
create and solve the problems for you
and again that's easier said than done
and you need the support from
administrators to be able to do that
because I have the luxury of not having
children at home that needed to be taken
care of I could spend my weeknights and
weekends figuring these things out and
learning how to do this but most
teachers do not have that luxury they
need time during the work hours to
actually be able to learn this content
and pedagogical knowledge but I'll end
my rant there the next subsection of
this particular chapter talks about
integrated arts curricula and so this is
really relevant to the integration
discussions that I had in previous
episodes on integration of Computer
Science Education there are many ways
that you can integrate one domain into
another and I talk about them in other
episodes that I link to jaredelary.com
in the show notes for this episode now
Eisner talks about how there's a
tendency especially in Elementary
classes to do integrated activities
where you might try and merge the Arts
with social studies so he talks about an
example of teachers who have kids create
like a Japanese style fish on plates
that might be painted quote such an
activity produces japanese-like images
and is designed to give students the
flavor of Japanese culture of course it
is very easy to convert art programs
into handmaidens for learning the social
studies or history without providing
youngsters with occasions for developing
artistic judgment or securing aesthetic
forms of experience that make effective
art education it is possible to dilute
art programs and to delude oneself that
art is being taught when in fact there
is little in the way of artistic
activity going on in quotes from page
this form of integration is really just
kind of taking artistic processes
without actually create getting artistic
thinking or artistic ways of being into
the activity you're using art in what
might be described as like a subservient
way to focus on the social studies
Without Really focusing on the art this
is often done by social studies teachers
who do not have a background in art and
don't necessarily feel comfortable
teaching those Concepts and practices
which is why I've talked about how in
other podcasts that you can work with or
collaborate with other Educators who are
more experienced so if you have a
computer science person and you are
going to integrate with a science
activity cool partner with the science
teacher find ways to integrate in
meaningful ways that are both meaningful
for Science Education and computer
science education don't just integrate
computer science into the science class
and skin the surface of basic vocabulary
of computer science Concepts actually
get kids creating things with those
Concepts and understandings ideally
things that solve problems that are
relevant to the students that you work
with here's a quote from page 154 and
effort need to be devoted to enable
willing students to attend to their work
aesthetically as is paid to the social
studies or history material they are
studying a little bit further down an
integrated curriculum makes more not
fewer demands upon the teacher end quote
that right there is such a key quote to
really think about in computer science
education far too often we integrate
within other domains in order to save
time I understand General classroom
teachers especially at the elementary
level have a lot of things that they
need to teach they might be teaching
several subject areas in a day and to
now have mandatory standards for
Computer Science Education it's just one
more thing that they have to cram into a
day and it's not actually being tested
upon it's not a standardized test which
makes it so that many people are trying
to integrate computer science into
something that is tested like Science
Education or mathematics education or
English and language arts but this is
often done in a way that dilutes
computer science it makes it easier for
the teachers to teach the subjectory
without having to have an understanding
of computer science and computer science
education by instead focusing on
vocabulary and very basic applications
of understanding like creative
rudimentary program where everybody's
doing the exact same thing and so yeah
it makes it so that people are
technically doing computer science but
at what cost like I have a drum kit
right behind me while I'm recording this
if you can't see it in the audio that
you're listening to on and if somebody
told me that they have a integrated
music and percussion program for their I
don't know mathematics class where
students are going to do basic math
problems by clapping their hands and
like doing body percussion where they
like stomp their feet and Pat on their
shoulders Etc to be able to solve a math
problem while that technically is a form
of percussion it's one of thousands of
potential instruments it's just skimming
the surface of understanding that one
can have in the domain of percussion
like I could talk to you for hours about
the way that you hold your stick can
have an impact on how the stick vibrates
which changes the way that the stick
sounds and the instrument sounds
whichever one you're striking with it
Etc and that's just one of many
different topics let alone talking about
the motion that you use that impacts
that and how that relates to your
anatomy in terms of like your fingers
and your tendons and your muscles Etc so
while you might be clapping out some
rhythms to be able to solve a math
problem I'd argue that is a subservient
example of integration and it's the same
thing with Computer Science Education we
focus on definitions and terms used with
thinking or solving a problem but
honestly have little to do with cs
outside of metaphors and ways of
thinking as another example if you were
to tell me that you were making a
curriculum that taught kids to think
like a native Japanese speaker but they
wouldn't be able to read or write
Japanese as a result of engaging in this
curriculum I'd argue that students
aren't learning Japanese just ways of
thinking and it's the same thing for
computational thinking in particular
students are learning ways of thinking
but not necessarily computer science
depending on how and what is taught but
if you listen to episode 111 titled A
revaluation of computational thinking in
K-12 education colon move moving toward
computational literacies that episode
kind of unpacks that some more as well
as in episode 123 which is titled the
subservient co-equal effective and
social integration Styles and their
implications for computer science both
those episodes and more on integration
really kind of unpacked some of the
problems with this approach to
integrating computer science into other
domains yes it makes it easier for the
teacher but at the cost of actually
learning computer science Concepts and
practices in meaningful ways for
students and again often in a way that
makes it so that the teacher is Reliant
upon curriculum developers and the
lessons that they create rather than
actually teaching a person to fish
they're just providing the fish so
Eisner goes on to problematize how
things are very fragmented in terms of
you will engage in disciplines in ways
that often are disconnected from others
as in like silos and this can create
some problems and then instead of going
with this kind of approach and instead
of going with a one-size-fits-all
approach across an entire nation we need
to instead focus on more localized and
individualized instruction and learning
experiences now some of you might be
listening to this and going okay well I
want to know where we're headed and I
understand that perspective having
previously taught that way but if you
check out the rhizomatic learning
episodes like episode number 150 which
is titled fostering intersectional
identities with rhizomatic learning and
episode 75 rhizomatic learning with
Catherine bornhurst John Stapleton and
Katie Henry that can hopefully give you
some ideas of how you might engage in
this kind of a practice but after
spending some time talking about
curriculum and whatnot Eisner goes on to
say that the social norms and
expectations and cultures of schooling
itself are also things that we need to
think about in terms of having an impact
on how students think behave Etc here's
a quote from page 158 quote a
comprehensive understanding of what
students learn in school requires
considerably more than attention to
curriculum and teaching practices it
also requires attention to the hidden
messages values and ideas that are
conveyed tacitly if not explicitly by
fellow students and teachers in the
classroom in which students spend so
much time end quote so this is often
referred to as like the hidden
curriculum here are some questions from
page 158 and I'm going to rephrase them
from Arts to computer science quote what
is the place of computer science in the
curriculum or in the classrooms
curriculum how does it compare to
importance with other fields of study
how much time is allocated for computer
science in schools when is it taught is
it an elective or is it part of the Core
Curriculum are grades in computer
science taken into account by select
universities in calculating grade point
averages this is a school publicly
acknowledge as it does in athletics and
some of the Sciences students who are
excellent in computer science end quote
and again like rephrasing some of it for
computer science these are really
important questions to consider just
because we have mandatory standards and
whatnot it does not mean that it is on
the same hierarchy as other domains is
that a good thing is that a bad thing
should we have a hierarchy in general I
would argue no but I know many people
disagree with me on that and I'm happy
to chat with you about it on the podcast
there's a contact me button on my
website if you want to reach out and
then Isaac concludes this section
talking about the null curriculum one
which I've talked about before but that
is basically everything in a domain or
display land that is not taught even if
you had an entire year where students
are spending all of their time in class
just working on computer science you're
still going to leave stuff out I mean I
have a PhD in music education and
there's still so much related to music
and music education that I don't know or
understand that is the no curriculum
from the experiences that I had getting
three degrees in a subject area now the
next sub section in here is on
curriculum objectives so starting on
page 159 I'm actually going to not like
talk about this one just basically see
the previous podcast episode number 174
titled educational aims objectives and
other aspirations so instead I'm going
to go on to the next section titled
standards and this is found page 161. so
Eisner talks about how standards are
often used to kind of Define the
expectations of students but also what
the teachers are going to teach
standards are often associated with
different reform movements Etc and are
often born out of like National
curriculum Frameworks kind of like the
K-12 CS framework which I'll include a
link to in the show notes here's a quote
from page 162. quote the belief is that
establishing clear standards is the
first and most important step in school
Improvement in addition it is assumed
that the presence of One National set of
standards for each subject will
contribute to educational Equity since
all students will be given about the
same curricular fare and will be working
toward the same aims Furthermore with
the same aims the same content and the
same standards it will be possible to
identify failing schools and
unproductive teachers and where
necessary make a change the process is
called accountability standards are also
claimed to have other virtues using a
uniform array of Standards will enable
teachers to talk to one another more
productively they will be able to learn
from one another what works and to
implement what works in their classroom
but most important the public will know
what to expect and when standards are
operationalized supplemented by
standardized tests it will at last be
possible for teachers to be held truly
accountable for their students's
performance end quote but here's some
interesting questions to consider on
page 163 quote why does a nation as
diverse as ours need a common curriculum
is there only one defensible conception
of a good curriculum a good school or a
good teacher in a nation that boasts
that one of its strengths is its
diversity our differences in the ways
the subjects are conceptualized Exempted
from that diversity end quote a little
bit further down Eisen talks about how
what teachers are supposed to teach
through the standards are clearly
defined for them but how they are taught
is supposed to be up to them but from
eisner's perspective this is the
deprofessionalization of teachers and
disenfranchises the communities they
work with here's a quote from page 164.
quote one of these problems is the
belief that it is possible to predict
what a class will study and at what pace
over the course of the school year what
we do know is that political economic
and social events do affect schools and
that students interests develop that
provide teachers with especially
teachable opportunities opportunities
during which sticking to the lesson plan
is the surest road to a pedagogical
Waterloo what is needed in such
circumstances is pedagogical
improvisation in the service of
meaningful teaching and learning it is
here especially that teaches
professional judgment must come into
play so that they can exploit those
moments in the class classroom end quote
a little bit further down on page 164
quote during the course of the work
students and teachers alike encounter
the unexpected students in images and
qualities that they could not have
foreseen but that beckon in One
Direction rather than another and
teachers in surprises that unscripted
students create the joys of teaching are
often found in these unpredictable
events just what do such events have to
do with standards only this to the
extent that standards dampen the desire
to treat the content and aims of
teaching flexibly they impede Artistry
in teaching and therefore impede moments
in learning that can be among the most
meaningful for students planning and
teaching profit from the flexibility
from attention to the changing colors of
the context assumptions and Concepts
that seek predictability of routine and
the security of Conformity militate
against it end quote now I've heard some
educational Scholars talk about how this
focus on standards and focus on teachers
teaching the exact same thing in the
exact same way is a form of
deprofessionalization but if we go
deeper into that kind of thinking one of
the things that is talked about is how
this can lead to a removal of qualified
educational Professionals in the field
and I've seen this in some districts
well instead of having a certified
educator teach computer science let's
just have a paraprofessional do it
they're much cheaper and we can just
have the curriculum teach it for us you
don't really need to have an
understanding of the content knowledge
and pedagogical knowledge Etc all we
need is somebody in the classroom to
make sure that students are engaged in
the platform that we have paid for now
maybe a few years ago I would have been
like ah I don't know about that that's
not necessarily deprofessionalization
but again I've seen districts do this
I've also lived in a state where a
principal determines whether or not you
are considered highly qualified you no
longer need a degree to be able to teach
in Arizona that's also the case in other
states like I believe it's Florida where
you just need to be a veteran and then
you can start teaching there are other
programs that claim to be able to teach
you in a couple of weeks or a couple of
months to be able to teach these
programs are trying to address the
teacher shortages that are going on but
to claim that in a couple of weeks or a
couple of months that somebody's going
to have the same understanding as
somebody who has earned a 4 four-year
degree in the subject area or has
multiple years of experience it just
doesn't cut it we have to acknowledge
that these are all Band-Aids to a
systemic problem it's well known that
teachers are overworked and underpaid
and undervalued in society but rather
than try and alleviate that or remedy
that we are instead finding individuals
with less experience less understanding
who are willing to take a smaller
paycheck fill those open positions and
unfortunately it's not up to people
within the field to be able to fix that
it's up to politicians to do that so the
power is out of our hands except in the
power to vote and to make our voices be
heard so if you have teacher
organizations or rallies or things that
are trying to advocate for the field
find ways to support because we're ahead
in an erection that is continuing to
de-professionalize and devalue our field
in my opinion a little bit further down
on page 166 Eisner talks about how quote
the idea that students will take the
same paths and learn the same things at
the same rate flies in the face of what
is known about human development end
quote he talks about how this approach
to Uniformed standards and learning and
everybody going the same way resembles
an assembly line which is very
problematic and again listen to last
week's episode to learn more about that
I'm going to skip to a later section
titled do standards have a constructive
role to play in arts education reads as
follows I'm going to change it so that
it's talking about computer science
rather than Arts so this is from page
respect to standards in computer science
education does the analysis I have
provided mean that having well-stated
aims or objectives is useless am I
saying that reflection on what one wants
to accomplish as a teacher or curriculum
developer is irrelevant to better
practice am I advocating a policy for
Computer Science Education that has no
Rudder I hope I am not interpreted that
way I believe standards can make a
contribution to Computer Science
Education if they do the following if
they represent in a meaningful and
non-rigid way the values we Embrace and
the general goals we seek to attain if
they provide those who plan curricula
with an opportunity to discuss and
debate what is considered important to
teach and learn and if they suggest
criteria that can be used to make
judgments about our Effectiveness
standards should be viewed as AIDS as
heuristics for debate and for planning
they should not be regarded as contracts
or prescriptions that override local
judgments my argument is an argument not
for mindlessness but for a recognition
of the virtues of diversity and of the
need for curriculum planners and
teachers to be sensitive to local
circumstances and individual efforts the
idea of using the process of formulating
standards as a heuristic is to me
especially appealing it provides a focus
for discussion deliberation debate
analysis and ultimately clarification
regarding the aims one wants to achieve
in a classroom a school or even a school
district it provides a practical Hub
around which conversations can take
place among teachers and others working
in a school or school district end quote
so again if you listen to the episode
once 150 fostering intersection
identities through razzmatic learning
John Stapleton and I talk about how you
can use standards as landmarks that you
can head toward that you can discuss
that you can even move away from from
they can all be viewed as optional but
it really depends on how you kind of
design and think through education and
educational experiences so I highly
recommend checking that episode out if
you want to learn more about that this
chapter concludes with the discussion on
what the public needs to understand one
of the suggestions that Eisner gives is
that instead of doing like an art walk
of artwork you could have an
educationally interpretive exhibition of
their artwork so students will actually
share what they learned and how they
created things I did this in one of the
like parent teacher nights where parents
would come into their classroom and when
the students were with them I would
encourage them to show the projects that
they created and talk about the things
that they've learned while doing that I
think this is a really good way to be
able to communicate the things that
students are learning within a
particular domain in this case it might
be Computer Science Education or
something else so I'm going to read for
you the closing from eisner's chapter
this is on page 177 quote I would urge
teachers to use standards as an
opportunity for discussion as
considerations for curriculum
development but not as prescriptions for
processes or even for goals what goals
or aims are appropriate for students is
not best defined by policy makers who
are not in contact with the students
schools as intended to serve localism in
this context is far preferable that is
the route I would urge teachers to take
with it Computer Science Education like
the rest of Education can be a kind of
Rainbow Coalition of teachers designing
programs and indeed adopting programs
when they suit the educational needs of
the students they teach end quote and
again I modified that to say Computer
Science Education rather than Arts
education so this leads into some of my
lingering questions and thoughts that I
have when I do these unpacking
scholarship episodes so one of them is
on individualized approach to education
does put more responsibility on teachers
I'd argue we could take away a lot of
the mundane responsibilities we have to
do in order to focus our time and energy
on teaching so like how many times did
you have like a duty before during or
after school I had multiple of those
depending on the district some had more
than others one of the responsibilities
that I had was just like standing in a
lunchroom and making sure that kids
weren't throwing their food another was
like standing at the bus line making
sure that kids got on the right bus
things like that these are all things
that you could have a minimum wage
employee work on but instead as a
certified educator I was doing these
things that we could have volunteers or
staff members who are getting minimum
wage to work on the reason why I bring
this up is because this is not to brag
or anything like this but I created for
a previous employer content that
received several million dollars worth
of funding so as a content creator I
have very high high value but rather
than spending time working on content
like that or like trying to improve as a
teacher or to design better educational
experiences for the kids that I was
working with ours instead spending a lot
of my time throughout the day working on
those things that you could have a staff
member do who is receiving minimum wage
I understand why we are treating
everybody the same way but to ignore the
expertise or even the pay scale of the
teachers that are in schools again
deprofessionalizes the teachers that are
working there and that's just in my
opinion as another example how many
endless meetings have you had that could
have been an email or mandatory PD
sessions where you might actually be an
expert on but you were required to
attend why can't we treat teachers as
professionals and like even with a PD
example why not make it so that all the
PD sessions are optional and there's a
variety of topics that you can pick from
why treat all teachers as the same as if
they're incompetent on a topic a
district PD person may have read a
single book on like I've mentioned
previously I had to attend attend a
first year teaching PD that went the
entire year and this was after I
finished my residency for a PhD in music
education and had already taught for
several years in the classroom but
because this was a new District that I
was moving to I was asked to attend this
thing year round but fortunately I was
teaching a college class at that time so
I only had to attend like the first and
last session of that year because I had
a prior conflict but to put somebody
like myself who has a lot of experience
in education and put them in the same
room and treat them the exact same way
of somebody who is fresh out of their
undergraduate degree and to say that we
are on the same level again
deprofessionalizes things that for me is
one of like the lingering thoughts that
I have about this is like the amount of
deprofessionalization that has been
going on the amount of time that is
wasted for educators when they could be
spent learning content Knowledge
Learning pedagogical knowledge and just
like learning how to better improve the
educational experiences of the kids that
work with but instead they are forced to
participate in mindless activities or
attend PD sessions that they might not
need to attend another like broader
takeaway for me is I might have paid
more attention in other subject areas if
I could have explored it in ways that
were actually meaningful to me and I've
talked about this in other episodes I
left computer science before I ever
really got started because my teacher
could not push me he was unable to help
me to move Beyond where we were in the
class I really wanted to learn a lot but
I was not being challenged the reason
why I jumped back into computer science
is because one of the very last classes
that I took from my doctorate I audited
a course that was just called electronic
music and in it we actually were
creating music apps through a graphical
programming language and the professor
encouraged us to create a wide variety
of apps that were individually
meaningful to each of the students who
were participating in this class the
content itself was not the issue I
really enjoyed the content in both
classes but how it was taught and the
expertise of the person teaching it had
a profoundly positive or negative impact
on the exact same content area so again
we need to really focus on on developing
the content and pedagogical knowledge of
teachers within the field in order to
make it so that they can teach in ways
that are meaningful we can't just rely
on curriculum developers and PD
providers to do that for us and we can't
just integrate in ways that are not
meaningful again if you're just skimming
on the surface you're not going to
develop the expertise as an educator and
students aren't going to develop the
expertise as a student every subject
area is beautiful in its own way the
people who really understand that often
are the ones who end up teaching that
particular subject area however how we
teach that subject can have a profoundly
positive or negative impact on whether
or not people will find that beauty or
not but just because everything can be
beautiful it does not mean that everyone
needs to explore or understand that
beauty we have to accept that even if we
try to cover everything there will
always be a null curriculum so why do we
pretend like we have to make sure
everyone walks out with the same
incomplete understanding which leads me
to again Ask as I have in many episodes
why do we even need to have mandatory
classes in general but I won't rant
about that on this episode if you join
into this conversation please consider
sharing with somebody else or leaving a
review on whatever platform you're
listening to the song stay tuned next
week for another episode until then I
hope you're all staying safe and are
having a wonderful week
Article
Eisner, E. W. (2002). The centrality of curriculum and the function of standards: The curriculum is a mind-altering device. In The Arts and the Creation of Mind. Yale University Press, 148-177.
My One Sentence Summary
This chapter problematizes curricula and standards by discussing how both can deprofessionalize the field of education.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
While an individualized approach to educaiton does put more responsibility on teachers, I’d argue we could take away a lot of the mundane responsibilities we have to do in order to focus our time and energy on teaching
I might have paid more attention in other subject areas if I could have explored it in ways that were actually meaningful to me
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
A Revaluation of Computational Thinking in K–12 Education: Moving Toward Computational Literacies
In this episode I unpack Kafai and Proctor’s (2021) publication titled “A revaluation of computational thinking in K–12 education: Moving toward computational literacies,” which summarizes three key framings of computational thinking and proposes computational literacies in place of computational thinking.
Contemporary Venues of Curriculum Inquiry
In this episode I unpack an excerpt from Schubert’s (2008) publication titled “Curriculum inquiry,” which describes different venues or types of curriculum that educators and education researchers should consider.
Educational Aims, Objectives, and Other Aspirations
In this episode I unpack Eisner’s (2002) publication titled “Educational aims, objectives, and other aspirations,” which problematizes behavioral education objectives and discuss two alternative approaches.
Fostering Intersectional Identities through Rhizomatic Learning
In this episode, Jon Stapleton and I read our (2022) publication titled “Fostering intersectional identities through rhizomatic learning,” which uses mapping as a metaphor for individualized learning.
In this episode I unpack an excerpt from Schubert’s (1986) book titled “Curriculum: Perspective, paradigm, and possibility,” which describes different examples, intents, and criticisms of “images” or “characterizations” of curriculum.
Rhizomatic Learning with Catherine Bornhorst, Jon Stapleton, and Katie Henry
In this panel discussion with Catherine Bornhorst, Jon Stapleton, and Katie Henry, we discuss what rhizomatic learning is and looks like in formalized educational spaces, affordances and constraints of rhizomatic learning, how to support individual students within a group setting, standards and rhizomatic learning, why few people know and use rhizomatic learning approaches, how to advocate for and learn more about rhizomatic learning, and much more.
In this episode I unpack Bresler’s (1995) publication titled “The subservient, co-equal, affective, and social integration styles and their implications for the arts,” which “examines the different manifestations of arts integration in the operational, day-to-day curriculum in ordinary schools, focusing on the how, the what, and the toward what” (p. 33).
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