Ecs210 week 4

What does it mean to be a "good" student according to the commonsense? 

From my understanding of the reading, a “Good student” is one that does not question authority. They simply follow what is said, do not offer their opinions, and continue with their life like a little ball of “moldable clay” without any distinct shape or opinion to themselves. A “Good student” follows the grain, and in lack of a better term, the “Good student” is a sheep to educators to indoctrinate. However, that’s just my opinion. 

Which students are privileged by this definition of the good student? 

    The good kids that sit and listen patiently, participate in group discussion, hand all work to the best of their abilities and place themselves where they know they can succeed are the kids we all envision when we think of school. While those students very much so exists, they are also the students that thrive the most in school. Any students that suffer from a social anxiety would be less enthused with group discussion, or students who have their own opinions that don’t mirror the majority would definitely suffer in other subjects such as History or Social Studies. 

What is made impossible to see/understand/believe because of these commonsense ideas?

    In my experience, I’ve never been the “Good Student” and it’s always caused issues for me. I never applied myself, and never had any enthusiasm for things unless it shadowed my own interests. I know this is hard for teachers to understand, and they don’t want to believe their student is struggling with things everyone else was thriving in. It’s impossible to truly understand things you yourself are not struggling with and I think thats the main takeaway. Teachers and educators need to have more understanding for those not-so-rare cases, and not just label kids “problematic” because they don’t see the world you see.

Ecs210 week 2

What are the four models of curriculum described in the article, and what are the main benefits and/or drawbacks of each?

The four models to curriculum I found were

• Curriculum as a body of knowledge to be transmitted
• Curriculum as a product
• Curriculum as a process
• Curriculum as a praxis

I personally found that curriculum as a syllabus to be transmitted to be the most common of the four simply because of the emphasis on vocal education. While it can definitely help knock out all the important bits in a class, not all students learn in a lecture setting and this area is very heavy in the one sided discussions that are lectures. “Basically it means a concise statement or table of the heads of a discourse, the contents of a treatise, the subjects of a series of lectures.” (Smith, 2) Something that should also be said or brought to light is that “A syllabus will not generally indicate the relative importance of its topics or the order in which they are to be studied.” (Smith, 2)

    Curriculum as a product is definitely not one of my favourites as it makes children out to be tiny robots you just need to program and let go. “Objectives are set, a plan drawn up, then applied, and the outcomes (products) measured.” (Smith, 3) I will however admit that it produces results. This was one of the more prominent areas of curriculum I faced in my early years at school.

     Curriculum as a process follows a similar dynamic as what I stated above, however I feel there’s more room for the individual rather than the hive. Though these differences are small, they are still slightly different. Smith states this best, “Another way of looking at curriculum theory and practice is via process. In this sense curriculum is not a physical thing, but rather the interaction of teachers, students and knowledge. In other words, curriculum is what actually happens in the classroom and what people do to prepare and evaluate.” (Smith, 4) However, this also falls into mandatory testing, which I personally despise, as I feel it doesn’t truly show anyone how much a student knows, it just how much they can regurgitate. I witness quite a bit of this in my elementary school years as well.

    Finally we have curriculum as a praxis. This one is definitely my favourite as it does focus on the individual, not the collective “While the process model is driven by general principles and places an emphasis on judgment and meaning making, it does not make explicit statements about the interests it serves.” (Smith, 11) However, this could lead to some kids being put on hold. It forces action and not all people may be okay with that. I never really experienced this as a child. http://infed.org/mobi/curriculum-theory-and-practice/

Ecs210 week 3

Death/ghosts and the curriculum

     I chose Death/ghosts and the curriculum as my topic. This topic looks interesting, and I really don't know how this could even be in a curriculum so that's why I chose it. In the reading last week Smith stated, "As a minimum, a curriculum should provide a basis for planning a course, studying it empirically and considering the grounds of its justification." and I just cannot wrap my head around how this applies to curriculum outside of a catholic school system. Of course that's only if I take it literally and I highly doubt anyone other than me would do such a thing.

While searching for articles on this topic I found one called The Death of Curriculum Studies and Its Ghosts. In the article they discuss how curriculum is never changing and cannot support all of American youth. Using this idea, I've knocked off step one of the assignment.

I would like to find another article that helps support the idea of Death and Ghosts for discussing old images of the curriculum and start by drawing parallels between the two articles, while hopefully keeping my personal opinion about it under wraps. I think it's important to remain impartial to certain things.

Below is a citation for the article in MLA.

Snaza, Nathan. "The Death of Curriculum Studies and Its Ghosts." Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy 11.2 (2014): 154-73. Web.

Ecs210 Week 1

How does Kumashiro define 'commonsense?' Why is it so important to pay attention to the 'commonsense’?

    Kunashiro claims common sense is what is taught to us in our society, which I can agree with. Not all societies have the same ideas that North America seems to have when it comes to “common sense”. They brought about this point while discussing their time teaching in Nepal, where they realized (shocking) that a less developed society does not hold the same values or ‘rituals’ that America seems to hold. It boils down to values, and which society holds what higher. American teachers hold expression and fun fairly high, while in Nepal, the opposite seems to be true.

    The idea of common sense being unique to society also applies to family, or household. It’s common sense to vote (in my opinion), for example, however not everyone would agree. Kunashiro talked about oppression, perhaps that falls under what I allow to oppress me. In other words, what may be common sense to me, may not be common sense to you.

I do believe the text itself was common sense, how could nobody already know these things? There are cultural differences in every aspect of life, not just common sense. Everyone should already be aware of these things.

I do not know what else to say on this topic.