Self Evaluation Intro to Curriculum

Eisner, Noddings, hooks, and Duckworth are the four authors chosen for this project. Each of these authors inspired me to reflect on my teaching practices and gave me a new perspective and knowledge of curriculum development.

Barbara Washington

Eisner solidified and gave me confidence in knowing that adding artistic forms of learning to different subject matter can stimulate a student’s cognitive abilities. Eisner did a nice job of pointing out the need for the emphasis on math and science that schools have historically focused on. He also pointed out that to have depth and construct meaning in our educational endeavors is to be able to integrate the arts alongside the sciences. This will enable us to look at the world and all of its experiences through our senses, emotions, logic and an aesthetic lens.

Noddings opened my eyes to the importance of global democracy and preparing students for a cooperative world. She raised the point of abandoning or reassessing 20th century ideas in education. I needed to reflect on practices that may not be a good fit for 21st century education. There is also a need to reflect on my own education and what I believed to be beneficial, such as vocational education. Is there a place for it? Curriculum is geared toward standardization and testing as a measurement of educational worth. Noddings questions this approach and looks at creativity and ecological education for an effective change in democracy in our schools. The connection of educational aims of curricula to student’s personal lives, civic duties and work aspirations was also emphasized. Noddings awakened my thoughts about the why and how of teaching and the provision of choice for students.

Duckworth’s title of her book, The Having of Wonderful Ideas is very fitting. She focuses on educators allowing themselves to be open minded enough to allow students to construct their own ideas. She writes that curriculum, assessment and teacher education programs must seek out and take advantage of the diversity of ways that people find understanding. Observing, listening, and asking the right questions while children construct and explain their thinking is referred to by Duckworth as critical exploration in the classroom. Implementing the constructivist approach will need an allotment of time available for students to explore the tasks at hand. Understanding students through observation and questioning without leading will take practice for some teachers. Teachers will still need to teach and provide instruction of the subject matter however the subject matter should be the focus. This approach can enable students to be confident in their thinking and ability to build better connections with the world in which they live.

Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom by bell hooks is a cultural road map, a treasure and wealth of teaching and life experiences. Just as Noddings tackled equality and democratic education so does hooks integrated with a reflection of race, class, and gender from her point of view. It has been politically correct in education to be color or culture blind; some teachers do not acknowledge seeing a student’s race and strive to teach students from different cultural backgrounds just like everyone else. Students should feel safe and comfortable to be themselves in their classrooms and know that they are valued for whom they are and encouraged to share what makes them unique, as well as having the opportunity to find understandings of their peers differences and teachers if need be. In this book hooks discusses thirty-two issues related to teaching the above issues. hooks writes that we learn best when there is an interactive relationship between student and teacher and I would like to add the student’s family and any specialists involved in a child’s educational success. The statement that resonated with me the most from hook’s writing is, “envisioning a future of global peace and justice, we must all realize that collaboration is the practice that will most effectively enable everyone to dialogue together, to create a new language of community and mutual partnership”.

INTRO TO CURRICULUMSELF EVALUATION

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