Community, Culture and Curriculum

At its broadest, a curriculum is the accumulation of learning experiences of an individual. The individual is the traditional target of educational products, but what about the group? What about community?

In our class this semester we opted to be graded socially (at least in part) which prompted me to consider the role of community in curricular design. What if the individual is not the target? This could have a profound impact on the design and orientation of a curriculum. This is not the same thing as thinking like a policy maker whose job it is to provide direction, usually through law or funding, for an education system. What I am thinking of here is the institutional level rather than the legislative level. There is some semblance of this idea embedded in the common core of general education courses - every undergraduate must take English, math, language, etc. I call this the minimalist approach. It has been a long time since the general education requirements were discussed at UH-Manoa. It is governed by faculty who are deeply embedded in their departmental bunkers where all action happens. There is no communal approach to the curriculum. The general education curriculum is, in practice, delivery oriented.

The most disappointing college curriculum is one characterized by the separation of people and programs. It is in such de-contextualized and atomistic curricula where we find knowledge is isolated from the experience of learners. If a curriculum is the accumulation of learning experiences, some thought must go into linking up the curriculum across disciplinary boundaries and, in particular, accounting for culture and society.

Study Abroad Programs

I enjoyed class last week when we got to think like study abroad designers - it made me reflect on my study abroad experiences. I have studied abroad a number of times and also led groups of students on study abroad programs. We don't always have effective ways of gathering the evidence that learning occurred yet we know that it did. Apart from any credits completed abroad, much of the evidence is anecdotal. From my own experience, I did not realize how much I had learned from my time studying in other countries until much later, sometimes years after the fact. It is hard to grasp the scope and depth of learning that study abroad experiences can instigate.

University of Hawaii is about to modify its study abroad requirement by allowing any student who completes a study abroad to use it to fulfill Arts & Sciences requirements.  UH is taking a bold, progressive step to allow the fulfillment of a requirement simply by participating in a study abroad experience. But I wonder if they will require a report from the student or some other "evidence?" What might be interesting to look at are the ways in which study abroad experiences, both of students and faculty directors who accompany students, gets translated back into the life of the home campus.

Creativity and Curricula

What is the role of creativity in a curriculum? Whose creativity are we talking about?

A curriculum consists of much more than a collection of courses. It consists of everything from people and environment to extra-curricular activities and pedagogy. Creativity is not only something embedded in art, design, drama and dance but can also be found in STEM subjects and thought that crosses disciplinary boundaries. Perhaps we need to embed creativity in the broadest curricular sense, not just as a skill that can be fostered among students but recognizing that taking control of a curriculum on an administrative level requires the circumstances that enable creativity to flourish. It is likely that fostering creativity in learning begins by fostering creative thinking at the administrative levels that govern colleges. Just like students in the classroom, administrators should be empowered by the system to take the risk of making a mistake without harsh punishment, exercising entrepreneurship and promoting collaborative, interdisciplinary thinking. Who knows? Maybe some creativity from the level of administration will trickle down to have a profound affect on tomorrow's leaders?

Sir Ken Robinson returned to TED in 2010 to reinvigorate our focus on creativity in education:

http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. - See more at: http://quotationsbook.com/quote/44576/#sthash.GMkNFPGd.dpuf

An argument for more theory and philosophy in the curriculum

Theory and philosophy can function as resistor to disciplinary thinking. This occurs in part because theory and philosophy are generated across disciplinary boundaries, but also because it functions at the deepest roots of human academic endeavor to interrogate the genealogy of knowledge itself. Integrating more theory and philosophy into the EDEA curriculum would enable more focus on research and induce thinking that is able to resist the confines of the discipline and open up thought. It could also help to introduce new students into higher education thought. New students can be those who are new to the curriculum of higher education administration but who have worked in the field in some capacity, as well as those who have never before worked in the field. Sometimes we cannot know anything about a discipline until we can view it from the outside. A course built around theory/philosophy would promote deep thinking that does not have to rely upon experience or practice in the field.

I envision a first semester course where students discuss the functioning of power, agency and governance. In order to understand how power works you have to talk about governance, and understanding power is essential to identify when change is needed. This approach promotes accountability for what is being delivered rather than accountability for only meeting standards or outcome.

If we are educating people to be successful in a world that does not yet exist then we need more than a paradigm shift. Don't we need the tools by which we can question the very foundations of paradigms and the thought that creates them?

Praxis

I've been thinking a lot about the practice of ideas. What is higher education about if not ideas - they are the most powerful thing in the world. Ideas are more powerful in the form of praxis, however, which can be thought of as practicing and embodying ideas. How many times have we heard the term ivory tower and can't help but conjur up the image of crusties (thanks for that word, Chris)! Those are professors who have become resistant to change and are unable to reflect on their own assumptions. They may well teach radical ideas in their classes or subscribe to progressive political ideologies, yet they remain conservative in their approach to policy and governance. They do not practice nor do they embody or model the ideas they have spent their lives teaching. Administrators can also be crusties.

According to John Tagg's golden rule, we have to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. For me this means treating students with an unconditional, positive regard. If we want to produce socially integrated beings capable of empathy for fellow learners (rather than automatons who advance by accumulating knowledge such as how to test well in standardized tests) then we have to embody empathy, at least. Would we not want other people to be empathetic towards us? Learning on a deep level can often mean challenging ones assumptions and thus being vulnerable. Learners need to feel tremendously supported. I would like to think that my praxis is the targeted distribution of empathy in the classroom.

How do crusties become crusties? Is it a fact of the aging process? I don't think so (although some do get crusty on the outside!). Does an institution naturally turn everyone into a crusty? In some cases, probably 'yes.' Some institutions embody deep emotional and workplace violences that get passed on from employee to employee or employee to student. Oftentimes we can encounter rules and procedures constructed to defend against an attack of the worst case scenario, but they make our working lives a bit more hellish. Then people forget why that rule was there, so we dare not touch it in case someone goes to jail or the earth's crust cracks. Then people forget that they forgot and violences become normalized. Clearly, by this logic, we can also practice and embody bad ideas.

How do we break the chains of such negative forces in an institution so large and complex as a university? How do we change a place deeply alienated and maligned by its own culture?

We might begin by engaging stakeholders in re-describing the mission of an institution so that they feel some ownership or we could hire and fire and re-describe/re-title positions. All of that could be nothing more than window dressing, however, unless we can learn to embody the targeted distribution of empathy. At the very least we should try to practice what we preach.

Whither Learning?

John Tagg's The Learning Paradigm College hits the nail on the head when he presents key elements of an education system that is groaning under its own weight. Tagg clearly articulates the difference between learning and instruction as praxis* and as guiding principle in the everyday college experience. One need only look at the resources mobilized in the service of instructional support (rather than learning  support) - administrative staff whose sole purpose is to enable admission, process tuition and manage enrollment, among other clerical tasks. Clearly, there is a need for such mechanics in the running of colleges but according to Tagg it has gone too far. In many ways the structures of college administration has come to stand in for and supplant the focus on learning. Tagg also addresses the assumption that if content is delivered properly and efficiently and students can earn credits, that learning must have occurred in between. We assume and expect learning happens in the classroom but we don't always know that it does. We know that content delivery occurs because that is what is promised in a syllabus.

Tagg implores us to put learning back at the heart of what colleges do. I can't wait for this to happen, but as Tagg also suggests the change won't happen by waiting for someone else to do it. One has to model the change one wants to see in student learning. No more blaming someone else.

*Praxis - the embodiment or practice of theory.