TE 818 Introduction

Hello, All! My name is Tom Collins. I am in my seventh year teaching English in suburban New Jersey. I have taught all ability levels, and I currently teach tenth grade honors English, SAT Prep and AP Literature. I will begin Creative Writing in a few weeks when the new semester starts. I am also the advisor to our school's literary magazine. My school has been going back and forth between virtual and hybrid teaching all year (which has been pretty exhausting) and we will go back to hybrid on the 19th. Most students will still be at home and we teach in person students simultaneously, so I am not looking forward that dynamic again. I tend to feel that I am not able to give either group of students my full attention and it is logistically difficult to have whole class conversation, which is typically a big part of my classes. I have been interested in pursuing my degree in Curriculum and Instruction for some time, and I am excited to be on this journey with all of you. 

Outside of the classroom, I enjoy cooking, reading, listening to podcasts, and watching television and movies. I nerd out on all good writing, but especially sci-fi and fantasy. Since the pandemic started, I have joined two book clubs: one with family and one with friends. I have also gotten into yoga and meditation. I think that mindfulness should be an essential part of curriculum (for students and teachers) and I hope to figure out how to integrate it into all of my classes in a meaningful way. 

I received my undergraduate degree in English and Secondary Education at Syracuse University and began teaching at the high school I attended shortly after. It has been a unique experience teaching at the school where I was a student; although I associate my school with my job more than my time as a student, I am still able to relate to many of my students. This unique position has allowed me to see how the curriculum has developed or remained the same and the ways that ideas can be explicitly and implicitly communicated through planned and enacted curriculum. As a first year teacher, I recall feeling like I was doing all I could just to "get through" the curriculum, essentially letting it dictate my teaching. Even at that time, I understood that what I was "covering" was not equivalent to what students were actually learning, but I didn't have the knowledge and confidence to systematically revise my teaching. Now, I have been able to shape my curriculum and work within it to center my students and learning through inquiry. One of the ways in which I have engaged with curriculum on school level is through the lesson study group we have, which is an interdisciplinary group of teachers and administrators that develop and study a lesson each year centered around a goal in the style of the Japanese practice. We then try to apply what we learn from the lesson study to curriculum. I am also on the newly created social justice committee at our school and one of my focuses is revising curricula to incorporate culturally responsive pedagogy and counter curriculum narratives rooted in colonialism and white supremacy. 

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, curriculum is derived from the Latin word meaning "to run." I think a valid question to ask when considering the impact of curricula on our students is: where are we teaching them to run to? Are we teaching students to run their own races, living their own lives and continuing to develop their own intellects beyond the bounds of public K-12 education? Or are we teaching students to be the most efficient at jumping through the hoops presented before them to be the best workers they can be? I believe, in the spirit of John Dewey, that curriculum should be relevant to student's lives and should be designed to help students become the best citizens they can be. I am also influenced by the constructivist concepts put forth my Vgotsky and Piaget, Paolo Friere's rejection of the banking model of teaching, and bell hooks's approach to teaching as the practice of freedom. I have not yet realized all of these aspirations in my planned or enacted curriculum, but I hope through this course that I can come to a better understanding of the development and execution of curriculum and find ways to revise my own teaching with my students' well-being and justice at its core.


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