Curriculum must speak a language that reaches the individual student. It must be able to be applicable to all learning styles. It must not evade or banish the creative mind and spirit. It must assist in the transcendence of thought and interpretation. There is not a wrong or right curriculum. However, there is a lethal debasing of humanity when curriculum is constantly pimped out to be something that it’s not. No one person should ever decide how a curriculum should look. This is why many districts have curriculum teams. Input from various sources allows for a diversity of teaching and learning styles to blend and coexist. Unfortunately in this day and age in which the basic 3R’s have become too advanced for many of our students, someone has felt the need to redefine curriculum.
Is curriculum cultural? Is curriculum gender based? Does curriculum fluctuate in rigor based on economic and geographic standing? I have been in the Normandy School District since February 2006. I have seen many “curricula” experts come and go..very quickly. I have seen 7 different lesson planning templates. I have experienced all types of teaching and learning communities. I have heard all the great speeches about what worked in this classroom or given the hallelujah speech regarding DOK...my goodness DOK!
For the Fine Arts Curriculum, I am still finding this second class citizenry demoralizing and detrimental to the needs of the students for which we serve. Every curriculum should be in a constant state of proving and assuring its validity. But when it comes to the Arts in the Normandy School District, we don’t even have an invitation to the curriculum table. Every so called professional development has included the phrase, “Oh, and you too Fine Arts.”
Yet, the Fine Arts is a prevailing force in this district. The Fine Arts constantly brings positive press and success to the students. Students are learning and gaining skills that will benefit them in their academic process. The Fine Arts are able to easily achieve this type of learning. Through projects such as plays, musicals, concerts and the like, students apply skills that allow for them to constantly reach the highest level of rigor. Speaking, listening and interpreting are norms in the FA Curriculum. However, when pondering on the question of curriculum, most educators tend to focus on what a student should learn instead of how a student learns.
If Normandy wants to solve the problem of our students’ approach to curriculum and learning, we must readily include the instructional elements of the Fine Arts curriculum to improve teaching. The district must be courageous enough to accept the fact that the majority of our students respond to the aesthetic nature of arts. Our children wear earphones not to be defiant, but because there is a connecting force to the side of their brain that thrives when rhythm and patterns are audible. Our children love to move and dance because they enjoy rhythm and patterns and are allowed to interpret those elements with their bodies. Our children love to sing because they are able to take rhythms, patterns and melody and create harmony when joining another student.
No comments:
Post a Comment