Student Centered Curriculum

As I was preparing activities for my English course, I came across a collection of textbooks in one of the filing cabinets.  They were Writing & Literature textbooks.  The first chapter had a poem in Shakespearean English.  The textbook included lessons of writing different genres and grammar.

For a minute, I was overwhelmed by a wave of self-doubt.  I wondered, what if my syllabus is all wrong?  What if it is wrong for me to incorporate such a heavy load of internet-based activities.  What if I am doing too much fun stuff in the classroom?  What is the parents complain that I am just fooling around, and not really teaching their kids the two R’s?

For a moment, I considered dropping everything and just following the textbook that I held in my hands.  The prescribed readings, with their accompanying activities and comprehension questions were right there, enticing me.  It could be so easy.  I asked myself: but some of this material looks quite difficult; what if it is too advanced for my students?  I answered myself: well, I will just work with them to complete the assignments; if need be, I will provide them with the answers.

Hmm.

I got my groove back.

I reminded myself that a boring, prescriptive, one-size-fits-all textbook approach to educating the students was exactly what the Quebec Reform was trying to get away from.  The pedagogy advised by the textbook I held was the old paradigm.

I am lucky to be teaching in a province that is in the infancy of a reform whose tenets mirror my own.  I have been charged with the task of teaching a student-centered curriculum; it is a philosophy that in which I believe; I should try to set my doubts aside and embrace it.

Let students select their own research topics.  Let students choose their own novels.  Write their own stories.  Wherever possible, let them choose how to communicate in their own way.

Certainly, I will have doubts about my program, my activities, and my methods.  The textbook method is safe.  Student-centered classrooms are open-ended.  What can happen?  I don’t know.  I don’t need to know.  Student-centered teachers need to be confident enough to release control.  Student-centered teachers need to be secure enough to accept, nay expect, mistakes.

Photo by Dalboz17.

Reform

Last year, I was an elementary teacher. This September, I will be teaching secondary.

In preparation for my new assignment, I wanted to draft an outline of academic expectations. I thought this would be good for the students to receive at the beginning of the year, so they could know what their goals were and what they would be graded against. Also, I thought such a document, or checklist, would be beneficial for parents. It would also be beneficial for my superiors, to demonstrate my planning, and beneficial for myself, to guide the development of my curriculum.

I thought that the provincial Ministry of Education would provide a document for teachers outlining what needed to be taught at each grade level. However, the prescribed curriculum is not so clearly defined.

Quebec is in the infancy of an educational reform. There are new curriculum guides for the teachers. The elementary English guide has a sort of checklist enumerating expected skills for each of the three cycles.

The secondary guide is less specific. I have read through it more than once. It does not provide the same level of specific benchmarks that the elementary guide provides. The information is presented with less structure. In an attempt to extract and organize the information, I have begun creating a mindmap of the guide utilizing the website Mindomo.

SELA Cycle 1 via kwout

I had been seeking detailed instructions. But this, I suppose, is the old paradigm of education. We really are experiencing a revolution, one that is affecting not only curriculum within the classroom, but also the job description of teachers. It is no longer: tell the students this information; it is: help the students practise these skills.

Here is a nice video about today’s students, entitled, A Vision of Students Today, that I found on the website, Emerging Internet Technologies for Education.