JESSICA WIEDEMANN
Innovate | Resonate | Educate

What Types of Citizens Have We Created?

What Types of Citizens Have We Created?

Something I remember from elementary school and junior high is that during holidays like Christmas or thanksgiving there was always a food/can drive at school. We were in many ways required to bring something. In elementary school, it was more to teach us the act of giving to others and to help in our community. In junior high, there was more of a competitive vibe that went along with the community service we were supposed to feel the need as citizens to do. If we were the class who brought the most food or cans to school the reward was a pizza party for the class. I never really saw these acts to be self-less or to be for the greater good of my community. It didn’t click in that we were doing these things for others to become a better citizen. It just seemed to be something we did without thinking, I don’t distinctly remember an explanation for the actions we were doing, it was just exected. One of the only times where I did that type of community service was when my mom and I decided to try delivering packages for Santa’s Anonymous. I was young and I didn’t understand the actual meaning behind the act of doing the community service. The main focus of the community service that I was taught in my younger years was the personally responsible stage. There wasn’t any look as to why these people were hungry or didn’t have money for food. Even some of the places where the actions wanted of us came from were not from places of actual want or feeling to do it. Making something like the competitive took away from the feeling of wanting to help someone or to take your time and give it to someone else to help them. I don’t feel as though I was taught to help others because of solidarity or being a giving individual, that message did not come across in the requirements of my education to do charitable acts for others.

In curriculum, there is focus on academic and logical thinking where the topic of self, giving and spirituality of becoming part of the community. The idea of citizenship is personal and is different to each person individually. WIth the curriculum being so focused on the academic part of education there is very little room for the development of a citizen and exploring what that means for every person individually. Obviously, there cannot be parts of the curriculum made for each student individually but there can be areas of the curriculum where students can explore what being a citizen or being apart of the community and the world means to them. This would create the type of spirit of a person, outside the rigidity of Taylor’s want to make the perfect adult. Taking more time in the curriculum and education to explore what being a citizen means and how individuals want to be involved would increase the self of self in students. Understanding where one fits in society and the world creates a direction to where one sees a need for them to fill.

Featured Photo by Don Ross III on Unsplash.

Jessica Wiedemann

Jessica is a student at University of Regina. Her passion for helping others and advocacy for the prevention of bullying in schools has lead her to a career in education. She is a dog lover, photographer, and a food lover.

Make sure to comment below and follow her on social media, she loves to reach out and connect with you!

Altering Perspectives and Assumptions of Education

Altering Perspectives and Assumptions of Education

Being a teacher has a lot to do with the way that we orientate ourselves to teaching itself and to the world around us. In lecture, we talked about the impact our orientations have on our teachings as well as how we interact with others. This lead into the topics of grand narratives, the concept of learning spirit and assumptions of educational discourse.

The Grand Narrative

The grand narrative is defined by Jean-François Lyotard as “a totalizing, comprehensive account of various historical events, experiences, and social, cultural phenomena” and with this definition, there are biases and predigests that are intertwined with the teachings ins schools about where a country has come from and the events that have gone on in history. Much of the grand narrative I know was taught to me as the history of the country I live in. Coming to university has opened my eyes to the variety of different narratives that are in history. I grew up in a primarily white community and didn’t have much exposure to other cultures so for myself, the grand narrative seemed to make sense and there wasn’t much to question because there weren’t many people of different cultures present in my classrooms. Learning more about these other narratives will make me a better teacher because I will know how to integrate these other perspectives into my lessons. I will know how to change my orientation and my perspective on these narratives and what the grand narrative that I learned taught me about these other narratives.

Learning Spirit

Learning spirit is a concept introduced by Battiste (2017) which is the journey of learning. The idea is that there aren’t stages of learning or that there is a point where people are done learning, “learning is our purpose in life.” This idea supports the lifelong learner that the curriculum and teachers in past schooling have talked about. The holistic component of this idea increases the spirituality involved in learning and education. I mean not the spirituality of something like a religion, rather I mean the sense of self and the essence of someone’s being, their soul. One’s spirit of learning has more to do with their view of learning and how much they value it, what it means to someone.

5 Assumptions about Education

There were 5 assumptions about educational discourse presented in lecture:

  1. A belief in the existence of notions of change, thinking, learning, and mind
  2. Focus on the necessity of education
  3. A movement towards logic and advancement
  4. Particular knowledge as more important, more sophisticated, more legitimate
  5. The inferiority of particular people within education

Some of these assumptions have begun to change over the course of my education like the focus of the necessity of education, the particular knowledge is more important and the hierarchy of people in education. From seeing my other siblings graduate from high school it seems there are more young people choosing to pursue other types of careers rather than the traditional post-secondary educations like going to university. Another path they are taking is they simply take a year or more to find what they want from life and what kind of career they want to move towards. The assumption that there is a focus on the necessity of education is challenged and changing as more students choose to take alternate paths in their lives than the path directly to post-secondary education after high school. With the wider spread of knowledge from educations other than the traditional modes of education, there are more types of knowledge like personal experience that is still valid and in ways more reliable than traditional instruction. As new teachers are being educated there is more emphasis on the subjects other than science, math, and logic there is more emphasis in the real world on the arts and their value in education. With more teachers becoming educated about the incorrect, unjust, and prejudicial judgments these assumptions make there is a shift in these assumptions, and these assumptions are changing for the better.

Changing our perspectives on what types of education and historical information are valued is the beginning of further changes in education and prejudices that are in the world, but with the changing of these assumptions, are new assumptions made about education, if so what are they and are they negative or positive?

Featured Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash.

Jessica Wiedemann

Jessica is a student at University of Regina. Her passion for helping others and advocacy for the prevention of bullying in schools has lead her to a career in education. She is a dog lover, photographer, and a food lover.

Make sure to comment below and follow her on social media, she loves to reach out and connect with you!

How Curriculum is Developed: Before and After

How Curriculum is Developed: Before and After

Before:

I have not really thought about the way that curriculum was developed. It always seemed to be this list of things that just appeared in teachers hands or their mailboxes when we talked about it in past education classes. There has to be someone or more than one someone who develops curriculum and makes the decisions on what students are to learn. I think some sort of panel or committee of people educated enough to know what should be taught makes a list of the things they value and that they want to have students learn. After that there is deliberation and the needless topics and pieces of information are weeded out. The order in which the topics of the curriculum are probably vaguely in order of what is most important to least important so that if only the first few points are read the more important information is seen.Cultural, political, and religious biases are most likely injected into the importance and weight put onto some topics and not others. The document is then worded and polished into a mess of words that really don’t have a clear vision of what is to be taught. Fancy letterhead is added to make it official and after that, it is deemed the new curriculum for that age group of students in that specific place. It is handed out to every teacher in that specific place and is taught even though it doesn’t entirely make sense. Since it is now the curriculum it cannot be argued and there can be no clarifications for points that are too ill-defined for teachers to actually know what it is they are to teach.

After:

the curricula for schools is created by positions in the federal government system. People in cabinet positions specialized in education are tasked with developing the curriculum but there are others who may have a say in the content of the document. other political leaders may input their ideas into what should be on the list of things to teach or if there is a deliberation process more people may see the workings of the curriculum. Implementation of the curriculum is the job of the education administration

In reading this chapter I gained a new understanding of how the curriculum is created. It changed my view of the process. The creation of curriculum has a little more substance than just one individual impacting the learning of an entire country or province. The influence of government and politics is overwhelming to me because I am not one to get involved in politics due to the sensitive subject matter involved. Due to the heavy linkage of curriculum to policy and politics, there is an aspect of curriculum that is always changing. Teachers will need to be able to adapt to these changes that come into the curriculum with the changing of political leaders and As I progress into my teaching career my goal is to become more involved with political topics and to become more of an activist for changes I believe in involving education.

What are the most worrisome aspects of education changing with the tides of politics? How much can curriculum change with the ringing in of a new politician?

Featured Photo by Jazmin Quaynor on Unsplash.

Jessica Wiedemann

Jessica is a student at University of Regina. Her passion for helping others and advocacy for the prevention of bullying in schools has lead her to a career in education. She is a dog lover, photographer, and a food lover.

Make sure to comment below and follow her on social media, she loves to reach out and connect with you!

How much have things changed?

How much have things changed?

In comparison to past periods in history, there have been changes in the amount of discrimination against cultural groups. There is no longer segregation in public spaces, bathrooms or schools. A head tax is no longer applied to immigrants coming into the country. Society has come a long way since the times of women not being considered people. In this so-called “accepting” and “multicultural” country of Canada why is there still a stigma around SES, why is there a stereotype threat, and why is there still places where discrimination of people and groups?

Mental Health and SES

This week we talked about socioeconomic status (SES) and its links to mental health. One of the videos we viewed in class gave many insights to the impact SES has on children’s mental health and their academic achievement. In the video, it was said that 1 in 9 children live in poverty, that is 11% of children. This seems like a small amount but looking at a classroom of 30 students, 11% is 3 students. These students cannot be forgotten about when their education is at risk. There has been a link seen between mental health and low SES. A statistic from the video said that children from low-income families are 3x more likely to develop mental health disorders than children who aren’t from low-income families. Teachers should take these statistics into account when working with students. Teachers are in positions to make a change in students lives.

Stereotype Threat

The stereotype threat is a concept that explains why people who fit the physical characteristics of stereotypes can become worried that their academic performance will confirm the stereotype they fit into. This fear could happen to anyone. There are many stereotypes about people of different cultures as well as simply people with specific characteristics, such as hair colour. This type of fear or anxiety can cause students to perform poorly due to the worrying thoughts getting in the way.

5 Steps for Teachers

In the text, the authors gave readers five steps to helping students who are coming to terms with their sexuality or gender. The steps include:

  1. Listen
  2. Affirm
  3. Refer
  4. Address
  5. Follow up

These steps give teachers a solid base to start from when speaking to a student if they are struggling with feelings about their sexuality or gender. While these steps have a logical progression and are positive some of these steps could be done as precursors to a student’s feeling confusion. If teachers were to affirm and address these types of topics in the classroom and create an atmosphere where different genders and sexualities are not made into a “problem” or a dividing line that one dares not cross. The first step should be to create an open environment for students to explore and experience new things and to find who they are are individuals. There should be a precedence set that discrimination is not tolerated in any way. In looking at the level of acceptance society is at today, there is a long way to go before there are classrooms and school that are as opened and accepting as I have described, so the steps that the text have laid out are a good place to start given the circumstances.

Then to Now

Another topic that was touched on in class this week was the impact of gender roles in children’s books that was highlighted in another video. One of these gender roles that was highlighted was that women are to stay home and perform “domestic” activities. In comparing some of the jobs my mother was to do with the ones I was expected of there is a large difference. For example, my mom was to make meals for her dad and brothers who worked on the family farm, and she didn’t do much work on the farm due to her gender. Another example of the changes between the time when my mom grew up and when I did is the emphasis to play with “girly” toys like Barbies. For my mom, Barbie was a love of her childhood. For me, I wasn’t into the idea of being “girly” like the other girls in my grade. She didn’t push barbies on me by any means, she just very much wanted to share the love she had for them with me, sadly for her I didn’t agree. She was willing to get me toys that I wanted that were not the classic dolls with dresses. If I had grown up in the same time as she did, I may have been only given the toys that were approved by my parents for the gender that I was. Now, there are so many opportunities for children and youth to develop interests of their own in things that may not coincide with the gender that they identify with.

On a Personal Note

I went to two different high schools that were in the same area. The only difference between these two schools was the size. other than that they were pretty much the same. Both of these schools had low populations of students from other cultures. As A student learning about teaching, I hope to be exposed to experiences that will broaden my scope of what schools look like and the variety of cultures that exist in schools. I am excited for my horizons to be expanded in the teaching experiences that are waiting for me.

Taking all this information into account, what is the influence of how a teacher grew up on the way they teach cultural differences in the classroom?

Featured Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash.

Jessica Wiedemann

Jessica is a student at University of Regina. Her passion for helping others and advocacy for the prevention of bullying in schools has lead her to a career in education. She is a dog lover, photographer, and a food lover.

Make sure to comment below and follow her on social media, she loves to reach out and connect with you!

The “Good Student”

The “Good Student”

As an aspiring teacher, I would naturally want to have students in my class that were considered “good” students. I don’t know if anyone would want students in their class who are inherently “bad” by social standards. By “good” I mean to be respectful of others boundaries and opinions. Being a good student has changed throughout history. Common sense dictates that a “good” student is to be punctual, positive, open-minded, and to be exactly what the curriculum wants. A “good” student fits into the mould of the curriculum by fulfilling every part of what the perfect adult should be. Many of these ideas of what a “good” student should be were derived from stereotypes in history that were based on different races. There was a hierarchy of which races were considered to be the best students and would be able to succeed in being educated towards the perfect adult at that time, which was typically the English and white settlers. The difference of culture was not taken into account, and education was a melting pot and the goal was to assimilate everyone.

With this idea of the “good” student, there are predigests that cause certain students to be privileged and others to be burdened. This concept of “good” students being privileged is still seen in classrooms today. In personal experience, if a student fell into the category of a “good” student they were able to get away with behaviours that would have been considered bad or against the rules because they were getting good grades. Any type of bad behaviour was excused because they were doing well in school. Teachers were more lenient on students doing well, because “they were smart” so they are obviously doing everything else right, they can slack off or take a break, while other students had to work harder. In history, many of these students who were privileged were the students who came from the correct background, i.e. white kids. This is still apparent today, and the predigests have only become more numerous because of the expansion of the knowledge of different sexualities and genders. This one adds another dimension to what is considered the “good” student, now they must be white, male, and straight.

With these stereotypes and new dimensions being added to what makes a student a “good” student, there are aspects of life that are made impossible. For example, it is harder to see the good in everyone because if people don’t fit into what is “good” then that means they are bad. These ideas stomp on the potential for the growth if diversity in society because we want everyone to be “good” and fit into the mould of what adults should be. As teachers, I believe we are to open the world up to students, give them more opportunities and show them their potential to be good in whatever standard that want to be in. If, as teachers, we are supposed to sort students into categories of “good” and “bad” there will continue to be the deviation between good and bad people. Some people believe they are bad because they were told they are, so they keep doing bad things to further prove to themselves that the label they received is in fact true.

What is the true goal of the teacher? Are we to sort students into categories like “will go well” and “won’t succeed”, or are we to show students there is good in everyone, not just those who are of the majority?

Featured Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash.

Jessica Wiedemann

Jessica is a student at University of Regina. Her passion for helping others and advocacy for the prevention of bullying in schools has lead her to a career in education. She is a dog lover, photographer, and a food lover.

Make sure to comment below and follow her on social media, she loves to reach out and connect with you!

Reflecting on Social Cognitive Theory and Marshmallows

Reflecting on Social Cognitive Theory and Marshmallows

This week in lecture we talked about the social cognitive theory, marshmallow test and self-regulation.

Part of the social cognitive theory is the concept of Reciprocal Influence. This is the idea that three aspects all influence each other. These aspects are Socal Influences, Self Influence, and Achievement Outcomes. I strongly agree with this idea due to personal experience when I was in high school. I was having issues with other girls at school and I really didn’t feel as though I belonged at school. This lead to my want to stay home from school which had a large negative impact on my grades in my classes, I even failed a class because I wasn’t in class enough to know enough for the exam. The issues I had in the social aspects of going to school and my achievement outcomes were influenced in a negative way. In feeling very low about the social issues I was having my self-efficacy was pretty much non-existent. Self-efficacy plays a big role in how much the reciprocal influences impact a student. The better a student believes they are able to succeed, the higher the chance of positive outcomes.

The marshmallow test was interesting as well as entertaining because as a child I feel I wouldn’t have been able to sit and wait for as long as some of those kids did. I like how the researchers used marshmallows to test the self-regulation of children. The idea of self-regulation is along the same lines as self-control and self-restraint.

Coming from the experiences I had in my younger school years I feel like I was let down by some teachers in a way because they were not concerned by my absence in class.  How can teachers able to take more of these three types of influences like social, self, and achievement influences into account when observing their students and their behaviour in the classroom?

Featured Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.

Jessica Wiedemann

Jessica is a student at University of Regina. Her passion for helping others and advocacy for the prevention of bullying in schools has lead her to a career in education. She is a dog lover, photographer, and a food lover.

Make sure to comment below and follow her on social media, she loves to reach out and connect with you!

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” – What?

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” – What?

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” – John Dewey

This quote hit me kind of hard. I really enjoy learning and becoming aware of new ways of thinking; to me, education and learning are extremely important. To learn is to broaden horizons and to see more of the world in different ways than before, but that being said, there is a lot to be learned outside the classroom or in learning institutions.

The first half of this quote speaks against the classic ways of learning like the Tyler Rationale, which I spoke about in a previous post. The Tyler Rationale on learning is that educators are to prepare students for adult life by moulding them into the “perfect adult.” This idea that education is not simply a process of preparing students for adult life makes other things possible in education. There is potential for learning applicable skills for the students own specific job they want to go into as well as the ability for teachers to specialize teaching methods for students. Adult life can be stressful and simply grooming children to be ready for adult life isn’t expanding their view of the world or challenging their thinking. Using education for more than prepping kids gives more potential for students to enjoy learning so they can become lifelong learners when they are older. Many students, myself included, do not come out of high school feeling they are ready to be an adult or take on the responsibilities of being an adult. In many ways, the education system doesn’t prepare youth for what one more deal with as an adult. What the Tyler Rationale set out the achieve is not actually working.

The second half of this quote says “education is life itself.” These words are saying that to learn is to live. In life, we learn more than what is presented to us in the classroom or what our teachers tell us is true. Personally, I have learned more in my 2 and a half years out of high school than I ever did in high school, and by learning I mean learning to function as an adult (AKA what Tyler had set out to teach in schools). The life experiences I have had have caused me to grow and to change. I am constantly learning new things and understanding more about the world. This is what these words are truly saying, life is the true teacher. People continue to grow and learn throughout life. A 15-year-old isn’t going to be able to learn how to be a grandparent through sitting in a classroom or being taught about it out of a book. No matter how much people disliked learning in school they are still learning every day from the activities they do and the new things they see. These words from John Dewey make a good case for the validity of alternative methods to learning. Teaching in more practical ways instead of the classic lecturing teacher and students in rows. The hidden message of these words is to learn from everything, mistakes, new experiences, and others.

In reflecting on the ways a quote like this could be limiting I realized there are some hard boundaries that these words put on people and what they are able to do. The words “education is life itself” can be meant to say that we learn every day. There are new people we see and new experiences we have every day, no day is the same. On the other hand, the words “education is life itself” can bring some heavier negative connotations to the table. I am someone who enjoys the process of learning and the feeling that comes from seeing something new or viewing a new perspective. There are people that do no enjoy learning when thinking of it in the conventional sense. They may feel as though they aren’t good at the conventional way of teaching and learning that we experience in schools in Canada and the US. In thinking about these people, they are excluded with saying “education is life itself”. One could see these words and begin to believe that because they are not good at this classic way learning and education, they are not good at life. This thought process could cause the reader to further solidify their perception of themselves as being bad at learning and thus do not try to learn new things. Taking these words and the conventional learning and teaching together it seems to convey that being in school and being a student is the only goal or way of life one can have.

I relate to the positive connotations of this quote because I love education and learning. In my understanding of education and learning this quote relates to the hidden curriculum in the classroom. There is more to learn than just in the classroom and from the teacher.

What are some quotes you have seen that have been eyeopening and changed your ideas on education?

Featured Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash.

Jessica Wiedemann

Jessica is a student at University of Regina. Her passion for helping others and advocacy for the prevention of bullying in schools has lead her to a career in education. She is a dog lover, photographer, and a food lover.

Make sure to comment below and follow her on social media, she loves to reach out and connect with you!

Excitement

Excitement

It is the beginning of my third week of winter semester 2018. This is my 5th semester of university and I have been to 3 different universities. Every new semester I wonder if I am ever going to start a new semester and not feel the same insane level of excitement for my new classes and the new knowledge I am going to learn. I know assignments, midterms and finals are going to be hard as usual, but I am always so happy to be back at school. It doesn’t matter what classes I am taking or how hard I know they are going to be I am always super excited to be learning new things and opening up my mind.

This is my desk in my dorm room at school (right after I cleaned and organized it, it doesn’t look like this on a normal day).

What are you most excited about for the new school semester?

Featured Photo by Kimson Doan on Unsplash.

Jessica Wiedemann

Jessica is a student at University of Regina. Her passion for helping others and advocacy for the prevention of bullying in schools has lead her to a career in education. She is a dog lover, photographer, and a food lover.

Make sure to comment below and follow her on social media, she loves to reach out and connect with you!

What do you think of you?

What do you think of you?

Understanding the concept of self, understanding oneself and finding our identity is an everchanging process that every individual will go through at different times in their lives. our reading in the textbook this week was chapter 3, and it focused on the idea of self-concept and identity.

Erik Erikson developed a theory of stages of development. He described these stages as a developmental crisis. At each stage, there is a conflict between a positive and negative option. For example, in the 3rd stage which correlates to ages 3-6 years old, there is a conflict between initiative versus guilt. In this conflict, the child is taking initiative to make choices in activities but may be too assertive in their actions which can lead to the feeling of guilt. While reading about all these different stages I made a connection to which stage I am in currently being a young adult. It got me thinking about the actions and interactions I am struggling with or the ones I am exceeding at. This section provoked a lot of self reflection and applying some of the stages to where I am in my social development.

A concept highlighted in this chapter that I had a tough time understanding was the idea that difference between self-concept and self-esteem. I always thought that self-esteem was what I thought of myself and it was the same as this new term I learned reading this textbook, self-concept. However it is explained that they are in fact have meaning in the same realm but are two distinct things onto their own. Self-concept is a belief of who you are. It relates more to identity than to the belief of one’s self-worth. While self-esteem is the overall thought or feeling about one’s self and their worth as an individual. Self-esteem is affected by the outward environment while self-concept is more a internal idea of ones identity. The two terms seem to be interchangeable but they are different concepts of the self, one overarching the other.

Another theory that was introduced to me in this chapter was that of parenting styles and their affect on the child. I knew parents all had different ways of parenting their children, and there is no “right way” to parent. Even between my two parents there are different methods and ideologies of what works and what doesn’t, what is correct and what is wrong. The 4 types of parenting styles that were derived are authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and rejecting/neglecting. The parameters of these types came from measuring the amount of affection and control given to the child. There are speculations and generalizations made about these parenting styles saying one causes higher grades, better adjustment, and more positive self-esteem, however these do not seem to be grounded with experimental evidence.

A topic of this chapter that interested me the most was the different classifications of children in the section on cliques and friendships. There are 4 classifications of children, popular children, rejected children, controversial children, and neglected children. In reading these different classifications I made a connection to my personal experiences when I was a child and in adolescence. From elementary school to graduating high school I had issues with bullies as well as being isolated from my peers. Remembering these experiences I had I was able to put my past self into 2 of these categories. Understanding these different categories children can fall into helped in my reflection on myself, and that understanding will aid my future career as a teacher to be able to see where students are in their social interactions. With this knowledge I may be able to counteract the negative impacts these categories can bring to students who are in them.

Even with this knowledge there are still holes in the concept of social development, and this poses the question that with the interplay of development and peers and parental relationships, what is the teachers role in creating a positive experience for the child?

Featured Photo by Alina Miroshnichenko on Unsplash.

Jessica Wiedemann

Jessica is a student at University of Regina. Her passion for helping others and advocacy for the prevention of bullying in schools has lead her to a career in education. She is a dog lover, photographer, and a food lover.

Make sure to comment below and follow her on social media, she loves to reach out and connect with you!

The Tyler Rationale: Is tradition holding education back?

The Tyler Rationale: Is tradition holding education back?

In the reading for this week, The Social Efficiency Ideology by Michael Schiro, the Tyler Rationale on the development of curriculum was discussed. The Tyler rationale is probably very familiar, but you may not realize it is. Learning objectives, evaluations, separation into grades, and standardized tests. These are a few developments that have come out of the Tyler Rationale. In the lecture, we learned that Ralph Tyler was a behavioural psychologist. He was also considered the “father of assessment and evaluation.”

 

The Tyler Rationale was a very influential part of my elementary education and it continued into my secondary school time as well. Provincial Achievement Tests (PAT’s) were a part of my education in grades 3, 6, and 9. PAT’s were taken by students every three years starting in grade 3. These tests were to see where the province was in terms of academic achievement. This concept most likely came indirectly from the ideas that Tyler had on what education should lead to. An example from my past education was when there were attempts at changing the grading of students. Instead of using percentages or letter grades like A, B, C where new letter grades that were used like E for excellent and P for proficient and L for lacking. The school was attempting to be less like the classic way of education and evaluating. They wanted to be more inclusive of all students and their academic levels. Coming back to common sense, many parents (mine included) were resistant to this change because it was different than the way it had always been done. “We had normal grading systems when I was in school,” “this is so weird,” “what does that even mean,” my parents would say to me when I should them my E on my math homework. Commonsense is going to be a hard wall to break through when trying to change the ways of educating and evaluating future students.

 

There are some major limitations in the Tyler Rationale. For example, the idea that all students are to be cut into uniform cookie cutter people is limiting on the potential for diversity. There is no room for creativity to grow and diversity to be explored. With this rationale young people are to be just like every other adult. This leads to students feeling as though they don’t belong or that they are not “what they are supposed to be.” People of minorities such as race, gender and sexuality could be impacted greatly by this concept. Tyler is trying to fit everyone into a box, but what if someone doesn’t if nicely and neatly into that box? They are likely to feel as though they are excluded and they are othered by society. Making the “perfect adult” is not the goal of educators. The goal, is rather, to give young people tools to help them through their adult lives which are specialized to each different individual. Some tools may apply to wide ranges of aspects of adult life while others are very much individual for the type of job, family structure, or life a student wants to live.

 

Tyler’s Rationale isn’t completely ineffective. His four questions for creating a curriculum are extremely helpful in the creation process. For example, his first question, which is noted in the reading, “What educational purposes should the school seek to attain” is a valid process in finding experiences and knowledge that students would benefit from knowing. In order to know what knowledge should be taught there needs to be somewhere to start or a baseline. In general, the four questions are very useful in finding the type of education and knowledge young people should be practising before coming into society. The idea that all young people should become the same type of adult is the ineffective aspect of this rationale.

 

Tyler’s thoughts and ideas about curriculum have been around for a long time, but does the sense of tradition make his ideas still valid and effective in this time period? Are there other ways to achieve what he set out to achieve? Would there be a need to completely recreate the system of curriculum or could there be a hybrid created of Tyler’s Rationale and a new system?

Featured Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.

Jessica Wiedemann

Jessica is a student at University of Regina. Her passion for helping others and advocacy for the prevention of bullying in schools has lead her to a career in education. She is a dog lover, photographer, and a food lover.

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