Metaphor of Curriculum:

To me curriculum is like a meandering river. A meander is a loop in a river channel. The meandering river winds back and forth. It does not follow a straight course. Curriculum is very much like that. It winds, it bends, it loops and turns in a variety of directions. When you explore its complexities and use it creatively to spark students love of learning and engage students its directions are endless.

While in the past, curriculum to me has felt rigid and inflexible. The “new curriculum” allows students to explore learning processes and curiosity, make connections and take ownership for their learning. Like curriculum, a meander is produced by a stream or river swinging from side to side, eroding the sediments from the outer banks. The old curriculum is washed away with checklists of PLOs, making room for Big Ideas, learning outcomes and opportunities to engage in cross curricular learning.

The meander allows the stream to shift its channel, similar to curriculum where the journey and process of learning is more important than the final destination. This is the “how” rather than the “what” of curriculum.  This is something I have personally struggled with, as so much focus on learning has been on creating the finished product, rather than the process or learning journey itself.

Curriculum is like a meandering river in that it guides the directionality of student exploration. It motivates the students to take ownership in their learning journey, by selecting the path or stream they will take. Teachers provide students with encouragement to choose their learning path and act more as facilitators to support them through their steams of knowledge.

The concept of the medicine wheel illustrates the knowledge needed to create a space that is culturally relevant, the pedagogy and environment for embedding indigenous education and the four directions which represent the importance and appreciation for the interconnectedness and interrelatedness of all things. The medicine wheel can be a helpful tool, similar to a compass, to support students as they navigate through the meander, this curriculum which guides the pedagogy for teaching, learning and exploring the world around us.

https://www.edcan.ca/articles/teaching-by-the-medicine-wheel/

My Teaching Context:

I work at Pineridge Elementary School in the small community of Prince Rupert, where I currently work as a Learning Service Teacher with a small administrative piece. This upcoming school year I will be returning to teach grade 4/5. Previously most of my teaching experience has been spent in the Special Education. I have enjoyed engaging with what we consider the “new curriculum”, although I don’t really see it as being anything new. Much of what has been considered “new” isn’t really… it’s what many of us have been doing for a quite some time.

While I do appreciate the sentiments discussed in class, academically, I think I am always exploring things with a critical lens, in particularly looking for the practicality of what I am learning. I design my lessons around how I can make things engaging, meaningful and applicable in the world in which we live.

Exploring Egan & Blade:

Looking at Egan’s article What is Curriculum, he argues the importance of creating parameters that will in turn prepare our students for the future. Egan argues that it is up educator(s) to determine the “what” of curriculum, as well as the “how”. (Egan, 1978). While I can appreciate this focus, I do question how much student involvement or choice Egan would say should guide the “how”? What kind of autonomy would Egan suggest is given to the student to guide the curriculum?

Egan is concerned that by including the what and how, curriculum becomes too broad and suggests the focus should be primarily on the “what”. I say this because his ideas and references are rooted in Western education and theory. Historically, we have seen curriculum become very compartmentalized, lacking personalization. This fits with our understanding of colonization, wanting students to learn in the same way, the same information so that they may be productive members of society.

While I can agree that focusing on the “what” within curriculum is vastly important, coming from a Special Education background makes me shift my focus more to what students need to learn, how they learn and how to keep lessons engaging and accessible for all types of learning. Curriculum is something that needs careful examination not just with regards to content, but also with regards to delivery and accessibility.

David Blades’ (2016) Recovering Beauty Through STEM Science Education: A Letter to a Junior Colleague speaks to the importance of teacher voice with regards to curriculum design and delivery.

” Teachers’ view and approaches to teaching matter in curriculum change. Any attempt to circumvent teaching in the change process will invariably find that teachers modify, adapt and sometimes completely deviate from what the curriculum designers expected.” (p. 26)

While I see that provincially the curriculum is developed and designed with consultation from numerous stake holders, the “how” of curriculum delivery and exploration should be left to the discretion of teachers and students who choose to be active participants in their learning journey.

I believe that as educators, we should have the professional autonomy to choose how we navigate through the meandering river we call the curriculum.

References:

Blades, D. W. (2016). Recovering Beauty Through STEM Science Education: A Letter to a Junior Colleague. Journal for Activist Science and Technology Education, 7 (1).

Egan, K. (1978). What Is Curriculum? In Curriculum Inquiry (1st ed., Vol. 8, pp.66-72). Blackwell.