Making Connections
In our course "Integrated Planning, Instruction, and Assessment", we have been asked to read some articles to gain a better understanding of conceptions of curriculum. As I was reading the first two articles, my brain started firing and making connections to my life as a student and a teacher, and to the books I've recently read. I wanted to share these connections with my classmates.
From my personal and professional experience, I felt a strong affiliation with some of the conceptions and a resistance towards others. The one I felt most drawn towards was "self-actualization/curriculum as consummatory experience" (Eisner). As a student, I craved classes and teachers that valued me as an autonomous student and helped make the material relevant to my life. I brought this desire to my own classrooms when I started teaching. I often created lessons that helped the students be creative, autonomous, and better able to discover their own strengths and weaknesses. "Curriculum as technology" was the conception I resisted the most (Eisner). This conception made the students sound like a passive audience, a group of people with no unique characteristics. The emphasis is on "input" and creating a beautiful lesson, regardless of who is on the receiving end of that lesson. In fact, how that student interacts with the lesson or material is irrelevant. As both a student and a teacher, this conception does not sit well with me.
The article that really got me thinking was McNeil's Contemporary curriculum in thought and action, particularly the chapter on the humanistic curriculum. In the humanistic curriculum, the students are essential. Their emotions, thoughts, ideas, and needs are all equally important. Teachers are encouraged to nurture the emotions of their students and build trust. They are authentic and respect their students. The relationship teachers build with their students is incredibly important. While I was reading this, I kept nodding my head in agreement, "Yes, totally! Absolutely! I agree 100%!". I remember going to teach my first class and feeling incredibly nervous. Instead of pretending I wasn't, I told the class this was my first time teaching and I was really anxious. They were incredibly supportive and made the experience so much more enjoyable.
We are all human and we all have emotions that change from moment to moment, day to day. To pretend this is not true is to create a lie that is so obvious that most people will feel it but will not be able to point to it and say "you are lying!". This is what Linda Kohanov in The Tao of Equus refers to as emotional incongruency. Horses are able to identify someone else's emotions quite easily. For example, if someone is working with a horse and they are really upset or angry but they haven't yet acknowledged those emotions, they are being what Linda Kohanov refers to as emotionally incongruent. Some horses may become uncomfortable with this incongruency because to them the person is lying.
This brings us to a very important question that affects us all on a personal and professional level: what is the quickest way to destroy trust? Lying. If we are essentially lying when we are being emotionally incongruent, then that means we could be destroying trust on a daily basis, both in our personal and professional relationships. This is why the human value courses mentioned in McNeil's article are so vital. At C. Everett Koop Institute, the students were encouraged to express their emotions. They were encouraged to cry or leave if they so desired. Learning how to confidently identify, express, and process our own emotions is so important. Everyone should learn how to successfully do this, especially teachers and doctors. If a teacher or doctor can confidently express their emotions, they can avoid disintegrating the trust they absolutely require from their students or patients.
Have you ever been around a close friend or family member and you just knew that they were upset or angry about something? You felt it even though they didn't express it. When you asked what was wrong, they said "Nothing". How did you feel? Did you feel comfortable? Did you feel like you could trust them in that moment?
Eisner, E., & Vallance, E. (Eds.). (1974). Five conceptions of the curriculum: Their roots and implications for curriculum planning. In E. Eisner & E. Vallance (Eds.), Conflicting conceptions of curriculum (pp. 1-18). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan Publishing.
McNeil, J. D. (2006). Contemporary curriculum in thought and action (6th ed., pp. 1-13, 24-34, 44-51, 60-73). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
