Hey everyone, this is Hayley and Ashley and we are going to be presenting The Child and the Curriculum by Dewey and Chapter 4 of the Strike text. We know that it is Spring Break and most of you are taking a break from school work and reading, but we wanted to go ahead and give you the questions and material that you will need to read and prepared to discuss next Wednesday!
Questions for Dewey:
1. On page 237, Dewey talks about how the child goes to school, and various studies divide and fractionize the world for that student. How much do you agree with this. Why or why not? Do you think that sometimes schools fractionize material too much so that the child has little room for self-exploration?
2. Dewey thinks that the logical and psychological aspects of experience are dependent upon on another, why is this and do you agree with his reasoning?
3. On page 242, Dewey describes the difference between a scientist and a teacher. According to his decription of a teacher is he accurate or are there parts of the job description that he is missing? If so, which ones and why?
4. Can an individual really gain interest in material if given the appropriate stimuli?
5. Would you agree with Dewey on his main ideas of how the curriculum is developed? Does it really focus on the child or not?
Questions for Strike:
1. Should Teshan be given a chance, why or why not?
2. How would you deal with Susan's disability in your classroom when resources are limited? How could you make the time spent with her fair to the others who are there to learn?
3. It is clearer how we can not discriminate upon race, gender, etc, but when we look at differences in people it can he harder to create equality among all students especially when each child is different, how would you address this in your classroom?
Here is an article that relates to the readings for this week:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/06/comparability.html
I hope you enjoy this weeks readings although they are long! Have a wonderful Spring Break and Hayley and I look forward to hearing your reactions to this weeks Dewey and Strike discussion!
Sincerely,
Hayley and Ashley
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2 comments:
Great questions Ashley and Hayley. I had a personal experience that I would like to share because I believe it helped me become who I am today.
There was a boy in my readiness class (I’m from the North so it is a grade in between kindergarten and first grade) who was handicapped. He could not speak and was in a wheel chair. Having a student with a disability in the class was a fairly new concept with the law of equal rights for disabilities students passed a couple years before.
My teacher made sure we still did everything the class would have done even if Eric was not in our class. We did talk about having a special student involved in our class before Eric came, but children in early childhood are the most accepting. I have always been a very caring person for anyone with any type of disability. I remember we loved helping Eric with whatever he needed. When we went to gym and played kickball, someone would kick the ball for Eric and another would push Eric around the bases. Instead of having drawing time, we would have drawing or listening to music time. Giving options where Eric had one he could participate in was always something my teacher provided us. For reading, we would have independent reading or you could read with a partner. That way, Eric was able to have a partner read to him. Students would even take him out to the playground and play ball, etc. The class adopted him in their life because it was what we knew.
Eric was one of the school’s first cases for having a disability student in the classroom. Everyone became very close to him because it was a learning experience not only for the school but also for each of us. Eric and I became very close and I used to call him one of my best friends. I even remember the newspaper coming to do an article on how having a student with a disability was not affecting the way the other students in the class were learning. I remember the newspaper guy asking me what I thought about Eric and I said he was one of my best friends. He asked me how it felt to have a student with a disability in our class and I said what do you mean? He is just like one of us. My parents have the newspaper article somewhere; I will try to bring it to class on Wednesday if I can find it.
As a future teacher, we will need to have our students accept any student with a visual disability like a wheelchair or someone who cannot talk or is blind. You have to show your class that the disabled student is just like the rest of us because each individual is different in their own ways. You have to learn to incorporate your everyday tools to fit the needs of the student’s with disabilities without losing the needs and interests of the rest of the class. Ms. Cleaver changed her classroom to fit Susan when she should have added activities that met Susan’s needs. Ms. Cleaver never showed her students that Susan was just like everyone else because she treated her differently. You will always have students that will raise their hand at every question you ask and ones that are shy and will never raise their hands. You can call upon students instead of them raising their hands and since you are the teacher, you need to be fair and call on everyone equally. You cannot call on Susan every time just because she has a disability and is shy. Every student is unique and special in their own way. I believe if Ms. Cleaver would have showed her students that Susan is just another student like everyone else, they would not feel the pressure or need like they had to include her in what they do. In turn, I believe the parents would feel like their children were receiving the same attention. Having the experience I did at a young age, has made me accept everyone for who they are.
This reading was particularly interesting to me in that the way I view life is not to focus on the problems that may come about, but more to focus on the solutions of those problems.
What I take from Dewey throughout the readings is that learning is an "active" process and traditional schooling is restrictive and does not leave room for self-exploration. Dewey believes that students/children need to be contributors to society and need to be in an environment in which they are exposed to real, guided experiences to give them the ability to contribute to society.
Without real-life tasks and challenges students they are not experiencing what they should. Dewey on page 237 explains "facts are torn away from their original place in experience and rearranged with reference to some general principle. Classification is not a matter of child experience."
Even when a standard curricula is presented using established pedagogical methods, each students will have a different quality of experience. That is why Dewey's way of thinking is evident, and teaching and curriculum must be designed in ways that allow for such individual differences.
For Dewey education needs to be have a greater social purpose, so that children can learn to contribute to be an effective member of our democratic society. Students need to learn to be valued, responsible and equal members of society.
Logical and psychologyical aspects of expierence are dependent upon one another because humans are shaped by their experiences, and what they learn from them. Education is critical to providing children with the skills to survive in society, thus they should be providing experiences in which to learn from. The idea of continuity, and that every experience that a person lives is carried through with them and they influence and effect someone throughout their entire life. Dewey states on pg. 238 that the child has "narrow experience which is to be widened" thus education needs to be designed around this understanding of the importance of human experiences, past experiences interact with present situations.
Dewey states on pg. 239 "cease thinking of the child's experience as also something hard and fast; see it as something fluent, embryonic, vital; and we realize that the child and the curriculum are simply two limits which define a single process." Thus, reinforcing the need for experience and the development of education around it.
In regards to question #3, on page 242, Dewey explains that "every study or subject thus has two aspects: one for the scientists as a scientist; the other for the teahcers as a teacher. These two aspects are in no sense opposed or conflicting." I have read on another source interpreting Dewey that stated "every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is the social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth." I believe this sums up the idea of the "job description" of the teacher.
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