“Let’s make our
values/Our dialogue/Our course and/Our catalogue”
Whether
we like it or not, whatever curriculum we create will reflect our values. Whether we value economic success,
creativity, obedience, selflessness, knowledge for practice, knowledge for
knowledge’s sake, etc., these values will inform and, at least in part,
transmit through curriculum to students. I created my model based on the former
reality.
I modeled my
curriculum on a song, which I wrote to illustrate how values affect
curriculum. I chose to write it using jazz
chord formulas to recall how curriculum studies consists of a constantly changing
discourse, the same way jazz as a movement helped change the musical zeitgeist,
by breaking many traditional rules and structures. Most importantly, my lyrics denoted the core
of my proposed curriculum: a consistent dialogue on values.
Michael
Apple (1979) noted in The Hidden
Curriculum and the Nature of Conflict, “normative conceptions of legitimate
culture and values enter into curriculum.”
Therefore, a kind of “covert” teaching takes place in the
classroom. As a result of their values,
teachers selectively incorporate knowledge, ultimately emphasizing certain
meanings and practices, and neglecting, excluding, diluting, or reinterpreting
others (p. 77).
My
song demonstrates the same perspective, especially the chorus. The chorus addressed both our class and my
own struggle to develop a curriculum. As
I said in the song, and as Michael Apple maintained, regardless of how we
design our curriculum model, we will enshrine out values. Even when valuing a “dialogue on values” as
the key component of a curriculum, I’m still merely enshrining my values.
My
curriculum model addresses the problems associated with Apple’s “hidden curriculum.” Apple argued that some methods of teaching science
and social studies demonstrate “explicit instances of […] hidden teaching”
(Apple, 1979, p. 82). Specifically, Apple argued that science is often taught
as if scientists never experience or confront conflict. However, “without
disagreement and controversy science would not progress or would progress at a
much slower pace” (Ibid, p. 83) . Along with
science, Apple determined that social studies classes often portray “’happy
cooperation,’ as the normal if not the best way of life.” (Ibid, p. 86). He argued that this understanding of social
studies “is essentially a value orientation,” which helps shape the questions
one asks or the educational experiences teachers create for students (Ibid, p.
87).
My
model addresses Apple’s criticisms of curriculum through its dialogical
premise. Gordon Wells and Rebeca Arauz (2006)
argued in Dialogue in the Classroom, “learning
is likely to be the most effective when students are actively involved in the
dialogic coconstruction of meaning about topics that are of significance to
them” (p. 379). They argued that the
premise of dialogue is to create “semiotically mediated joint activities.” Through
dialogue participants persistently attempt to understand each other’s
perspectives, in order to achieve a state of “intersubjectivity.” They also maintained that dialogue is specifically
human as it impels the development of both our species and its various cultural
groups (p. 381). Moreover, as long as
the participants share a language: “a functionally based system of
communication,” they can participate in dialogue. They concluded that dialogue is the “tool of
tools,” as it develops individuals’ abilities to participate effectively as
members of their communities (p. 382).
If
values: “the topics […] of significance,” serve as the nuts and bolts that
drive any dialogue, then my curriculum would encourage group conscientization
of these values (Wells & Arauz, 2006, 379).
Dialogue functions as the tool and catalyst by which individuals become
conscious of their own and others’ morals.
Further, dialogue can eventually cause individuals to begin to
understand how values themselves develop.
Lev Vygotsky (1926) argued that “the individual is not only subjected to
the influence of the environment, but […] he influences the environment in particular
ways through each of his reactions, and also influences his own being through
the environment.” Most people have two kinds of values, those that develop from
the influences of the environment, and those that manifest from “the influence
of one’s own body” (p. 53). In other words, people are subject to both their
external nurture, and internal nature. So
our values are influenced, or even determined, by our innate desires, such as
survival, and our exposure to our environments: to the entities and materials
that compose them.
In sum, our
experiences within and without our environment shape, and possibly even
determine, certain values. And these
values ultimately prescribe our actions.
If values determine our behaviours, then a consistent dialogue on them
could serve many valuable functions for humanity. For example, a dialogue on values is both a self-affirming
and community consolidating process, because as we begin to understand how
values shape our actions, we
gradually understand how values affect others’
actions.
As a community
consolidator, values discourse serves as an excellent method by which to
mediate in conflicts. A values dialogue
serves as a tool of mediation because it culminates in an empathy that allows
and sometimes encourages a unity amongst all people and ideas. If parties in conflict participate in a
respectable dialogue on values, it humanizes both parties, and eventually makes
both parties conscious of how their environments have influenced their choices
and behaviours. Demonizing and dehumanizing
your enemy becomes difficult once a party develops a consciousness that they
are subject to the same kinds of influences on their behaviour as their enemy. For example, if conflicting parties come
together in dialogue, they may eventually realize that they are both fighting
to defend their families. As such, the
mutuality that develops in a values discourse can transform conflicts.
Although a
permanent dialogue on values plays the central role, other features of my
curriculum not mentioned in the song include the development of skills. Theodore Sizer (1992) argued that curriculum
should focus on the development of “good intellectual habits” (p. 73). These
habits include: perspective, analysis, imagination, empathy, communication,
commitment, humility, and joy (p. 74).
He maintained that education should “convince an adolescent of the
virtue of these skills” and “give opportunities to practice the skills [so] that
they become almost second nature” (p. 74). He concluded that “good schools
focus on habits, on what sorts of intellectual activities will and should
inform their graduates’ lives” (p. 74).
When I first
formulated my curriculum model, I was going to base it entirely on Sizer’s. However, the more I thought about skills,
especially Sizer’s prescribed skills, the more I realized that they consist of,
or depend on, values. Skills, as I
define them, include values, as certain skills can require them. For example, Sizer’s skill of “humility”
completely depends on the person’s ability to devalue the self, or at least value
the self for its true worth. Also,
humility relies on an appreciation of others, which ultimately amounts to
valuing others, and their qualities. Another
skill, which can also be a value depending on the context: objectivity, has
requisite values, such as honesty, integrity, and humility. Without each of those three values, it is
difficult, if impossible, for an individual to exercise true objectivity: to
always keep a measure of doubt for all ideas and philosophies including their
own and to be ready to change those ideas when presented new evidence.
A
permanent discourse on values actually encourages and concludes in certain
skills. For example, empathy, the skill with
which to understand and accept other individuals’ feelings, values, and
choices, is a direct requirement for the tolerance and acceptance of diverse
others and for their mutually beneficial collaboration.
Ultimately, when
constructing a curriculum model or any curriculum for that matter, as the
chorus goes, “no matter what we choose we will enshrine our values.” Rather than unconsciously allow values to
shape curriculum, my model’s impetus is to bring the hidden curriculum to the
fore. Otherwise, many people could remain
unconscious of values, or their development of their consciousness of values
may lag, or ultimately, they could get manipulated by those who understand how
values work. In conclusion, a consistent
dialogue on values has the potential to completely revolutionize curriculums and
conflicts around the world. [Blog Note: in the email submission of this essay I told the professor that the previous sentence was the "PG ending," and that I actually initially intended to finish with "In conclusion, STS4Life."
Today my new boss at the university told me that I should focus my research topic on something specific that I could build a career on. I took those words with an affirming smile, but deep down I shook my head.
