I didn’t read the Dewey chapter for my initial post, so I
referred to it for an additional perspective for my final post. Two things to
say about The Child and the Curriculum. First is that just yesterday I was
working with our education service center. The presenter talked about how this
particular curriculum included the Performance Indicator (test of sorts) in
each lesson so that teachers could keep “the end in mind” so that lesson
delivery can build toward that end. And so it has been from the beginning of
this curriculum endeavor. The Performance Indicators are always listed at the
beginning of the instructional focus documents and the exemplar lesson. I’m
going to have to ask one day if they are following Dewey’s model. The second is
that I like how Dewey emphasizes that a child has an interest in what is being
taught to him. “Appealing to the interest upon the present plane means
excitation…” (p. 112). I have served as a new-teacher mentor several times, and
one of the points I make to my new teachers is that student learning has to be
meaningful in order for them to engage. This is not an original idea of mine. I
heard it at one of a hundred professional development sessions, but it made so
much sense to me that I pass it along every chance I have. “They must operate,
and how they operate will depend almost entirely upon the stimuli which
surround them…” (p.114). I do believe it is up to teachers to take the
curriculum and find the stimuli that will both meet the curriculum requirements
and hold real meaning for the student.
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