School Dinners and Curriculum

[cacian]

which is worse?

As a mondern language teacher I have had my fair share of children schools and an education with a one sided curriculum. Death by learning that was my experience.
I assumed schools were about learning and sharing but I soon found out it was a nightmare.
The food was abonimable the kids and teachers were lovely and the idea of one curriculum for all was and is a real let down.
There is more to education then a book and blackboard.
So after few years of trying to teach the unteachable I pulled out for the sake of children if anything I did not want to let them down anymore.

So that is my experience what is your experience of school and learning?
Do you think that a curriculum that does not bend is healthy education?

[Lacra]

which is worse?

As a mondern language teacher I have had my fair share of children schools and an education with a one sided curriculum. Death by learning that was my experience.
I assumed schools were about learning and sharing but I soon found out it was a nightmare.
The food was abonimable the kids and teachers were lovely and the idea of one curriculum for all was and is a real let down.
There is more to education then a book and blackboard.
So after few years of trying to teach the unteachable I pulled out for the sake of children if anything I did not want to let them down anymore.

So that is my experience what is your experience of school and learning?
Do you think that a curriculum that does not bend is healthy education?

Teaching is my whole life. I have started to teach since I was 19. About what kind of Curricula do you speak, Cacian? What was wrong with it? When creating, implementing and following up with a curriculum, all teachers have their share.
My learning - teaching experience is a fruitful one, it builds me as a human being on a daily basis. I've learned a lot only by interacting with fresh minds and creative spirits.

[cacian]

The curriculum laxes flexibility ideas and energy it is totally devoid of creativity.
Nothing there to inspire.
Teaching is hard at the best of time but teaching unified ideas lead to boredom and eventually loss of interest.

[Lacra]

Is it about British Curricula? If it's so, then it's just a skeleton you needed to give life. The creative part is teacher's work and the teaching process should center on children and not on teacher. Curriculum is not about books, or materials but about a whole articulated system of education. The inspiration is you and your students together. Do not expect to find it in the curriculum itself. The curriculum displays the learning standards, the program of studies, expectations for each year of study, benchmarks and eventually, some samples of lesson plans.
To teach is an art and if you are devoted to this art, nothing goes more easy...

[Scheherazade]

The curriculum laxes flexibility ideas and energy it is totally devoid of creativity.
Nothing there to inspire.
Teaching is hard at the best of time but teaching unified ideas lead to boredom and eventually loss of interest.

Curriculum is not supposed to give us ideas but identify the topics to be covered at each level. I have taught four different subjects at different my teaching career and I would have been lost had it not been for the curriculum to guide me through.

Creativity comes into play when one determines how to deliver the topics prescribed in the currriculum. No one tells us 'how' to deliver a subject and blaming curriculum for this buffles me.

Not to mention how or why we are commparing curriculum and school dinners.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

:beatdeadhorse5:

Yeah, I just used it.

[cacian]

Is it about British Curricula? If it's so, then it's just a skeleton you needed to give life. The creative part is teacher's work and the teaching process should center on children and not on teacher. Curriculum is not about books, or materials but about a whole articulated system of education. The inspiration is you and your students together. Do not expect to find it in the curriculum itself. The curriculum displays the learning standards, the program of studies, expectations for each year of study, benchmarks and eventually, some samples of lesson plans.
To teach is an art and if you are devoted to this art, nothing goes more easy...

Teaching is an art and art is about breaking rules of past from present. Take impressionism it is all about breaking free from rules of paitings.
A curriculum for all is restricitve and does not teach the child a lot about themselves.
What is the good of knowing the encyclopedia inside out if one does not know who they are or themselves.

[Lacra]

Hehhehhe, you are giving me a very limited definition of art. Art doesn't necessary mean "breaking the rules"... And what about the aesthetic conception of art?
However we divagated too much from the initial topic. You want the curriculum to do everything and what about the role of the teacher?

[cacian]

Art for it to be art is to break all rules of engagements/aesthetism and what we perceive to be the norms to be called art.
No point at looking at an orange and calling it an orange if we want to talk orange and art. Art is what your eyes and mind tells it is not what others tell you it must be.
Aesthetism is again a rule. It sets out to define a look/an idea for me and tells me to look for it.

A curriculum does not do anything in fact it limits what one can do.
One goes on about thinking outside the box but the curriculum tells us the opposite to look inside it.
Teaching is not just about how to add and learn by heart it is about guessing and learning as well figuring out things for myself.
It is problem solving but instead of a problem I have a solution a something in my hand I can learn from.
It is also about interaction between a child to a child and a child to an adult and so on.
It is about learning to think and express words and images and use a correct language to do so.
It is also about how to be able to express oneself about anything from anger to happy to excited.
It is important to learn about our emotions and how we present ourselves to others and discover what and who are in the context that we are in.
Teaching a child how to think for example is important.
Or teaching how them to speak without swearing is another. Showing a child the rights from wrongs is very important.
In other words communicative skills are crucial if one is to learn about the real world.
There is no point in me teachign a child who feels anger and does not know how to express it and yet I go on pretending I can teach him and he could learn.
No point in telling them to add either if they are not even able to tell whether I am lying or telling the truth.
Being disposed to learn in important.
I am trying to teach a child how to spell and yet he does not know the chair he sits on is a chair. A child who does not hygiene and does not understand how to listen because no one cares to teach them is not learning.
We expect them to behave in a compressed environment and yet our behaviour in general is atrocious.
The child sees his environment tv streets and adverstising as shambolic and chaotic and I am trying to tell them how to behave in class. Where is the learning here? Misbehaving I say.

[Revolte]

Well I don't teach, not that way anyhow, but I always despised being a student. Of course I'm in another country, but all the same. School systems are horrid. The best learning environments come without cost and without coercion. Schooling doesn't.

It's simple really, every kid-adult learns differently, with different subjects and some just don't get through. The school systems take static subjects and force them on the teachers and the students. Say I wanted to give college another go (HA! You know they are taxing me for something I never owed and is two years old? Again, Ha!) for psychology. In of itself, not a bad idea. But I'm awful with numbers, I always have been and I always will be. That's perfectly fine, too. However, I can not graduate unless I pass a mandatory math class.

Hmph. I'll stick to my own means.


Nothing personal, I respect the good most of teachers I have gotten to know. But their workplace needs to get it's umbilical cord cut off.

[Paulclem]

A curriculum does not do anything in fact it limits what one can do.
One goes on about thinking outside the box but the curriculum tells us the opposite to look inside it.
Teaching is not just about how to add and learn by heart it is about guessing and learning as well figuring out things for myself.
It is problem solving but instead of a problem I have a solution a something in my hand I can learn from.
It is also about interaction between a child to a child and a child to an adult and so on.
It is about learning to think and express words and images and use a correct language to do so.
It is also about how to be able to express oneself about anything from anger to happy to excited.
It is important to learn about our emotions and how we present ourselves to others and discover what and who are in the context that we are in.
Teaching a child how to think for example is important.
Or teaching how them to speak without swearing is another. Showing a child the rights from wrongs is very important.
In other words communicative skills are crucial if one is to learn about the real world.
There is no point in me teachign a child who feels anger and does not know how to express it and yet I go on pretending I can teach him and he could learn.
No point in telling them to add either if they are not even able to tell whether I am lying or telling the truth.
I can think of billions of ideas to talk about.

The curriculum is none of the things you mention. A curriculum is just a list of what you need to cover in a subject. How you teach the subjects is up to you so long as there is learning and progression. I may agree with some of the things on our list, but I don't see how having a curriculum stops good practice. That is down to the professional judgement of the teacher.

[qimissung]

I agree that a curriculum is "just a list of what you need to cover in a subject;" but it can be somewhat dangerous all the same. I taught at an inner-city school for a number of years, and during those years saw the power of the teacher over his/her dominion-what/how material would be presented- diminish substantially. The majority of our students read at below grade level to varying degrees, and this is what I found frustrating. For instance, due to the state-mandated tests we were actually not allowed to follow the curriculum for the fourth six week period, really until after the test which was in March-and this curriculum was necessary for students to be able to pass their final exam. Aargh!

Also, I grew to dislike the reliance of classic literature in the curriculum. I would have preferred to use more current literature that the students would find more engaging. Some teams did this successfully, "Speak" and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime," for instance, but the teams I was on did not. I felt torn, because I believe that having some familiarity with the canon is valuable, especially if the student were to go on to college.

This was/is my school district:



:" I will do remembering! Who is king here? I remind you, so you remember that! I do not remember any promises! I do not remember anything except that you are my servant! "

And this is the teachers:


"It's a puzzlement."

(with thanks to "The King and I")