I’m very excited to share this week about curriculum because writing curriculum is one of my greatest passions. I’ve written national curriculum for The Southern Poverty Law Center, Learning for Justice Magazine, Rethinking Schools Magazine, Orange County Human Relations, The Civil Rights Memorial Museum, The Simon Wiesthenthal Center, The Museum of Tolerance, and The Anti-Defamation League to name a few. My focus has been on Civil Rights, Holocaust education, and other social justice issues. Curriculum development has played a major role in my life as a teacher and my professional career as a professor and nationally known Curriculum Specialist/Writer. That’s why I am so excited to work with you on this topic.
You are becoming more and more aware that there is an important intersection going on in a classroom. There is society in general. Yikes. There are our families and communities. Out of these, then, there is our individual identities. And our individual identites are formed - and deformed - by the former. And that’s just getting to us - the teacher in the room!
Then there is the same dynamic for the student in the room with you. And, face it, there are going to be way more than one student in the room with you. Let’s say you have 35 students in the room with you.
1+35=36
That’s 36 people with literally hundreds and hundreds of different identities in the room. Some of which will intersect beautifully together…and some of which will hit conflict hard with each other.
Oh, but wait.
There’s more. There is the actual physical space, the room you are in. Don’t for a second think that it is a passive participant. It ain’t. The space you co-create with learners is active. Are chairs in straight rows? Or are chairs in small groups to encourage interaction and community? What does the space look like? Is it clean and well kept? Or is it dirty? Is it decorated to be inviting? Are the decorations store bought or are they things made by the hands of students?
Everything matters. Everything speaks.
What about the curriculum?
Oh yeah! That!
Certainly you can now see that WHOEVER wrote the curriculum brings their multiple identities to it, whether they have been formed or deformed, as well.
Let’s begin by reading this piece in Learning for Justice Magazine. It is titled Ending Curriculum Violence and it is by Stephanie P. Jones.
Being aware of your own identities, your students’ identities, and the nature of curriculum is important. For those of you getting your masters, you’ll dig way deeper into analyzing curriculum in your master's classes you’ll take in our program.
The point, though, is that there are LOTS of aspects of the field of education where we will need to be sharp and critical. Let’s look a bit more at this by reading Wayne Au’s Decolonizing the Classroom: Lessons in Multicultural Education. It’s important that you have an understanding and definition of what it means to decolonize the curriculum.
As I said before, our daughter Helena is currently in 10th-grade. As a super nerdy family, we have been closely watching her curriculum over the years. We’ve actually been collecting her assignments and products and have started helping her see how her curriculum has been colonized.
Well, I am just super proud to have you read an article she wrote about how she has systematically and thoughtfully decolonized her own elementary school education. <Dad brag> She is really something and I just am sure that you’re going to love what she has written!
Brave and Didn’t Know It: A 12-Year-Old Decolonizes Her Elementary Education - she starts on page 6 and goes to page 90 (and you will so want to read her Journal of Juan Ponce de Leon, I promise!).
What exactly does it mean to be an activist educator? Let’s check that out a bit by reading We Are Victorious: Educator Activism as a Shared Struggle for Human Being.
Now go to the Blog and share some thoughts about this week’s focus on curriculum. Answer the Curriculum Blog post.