Curriculum in its Social Context

  In reflecting on all of the various texts for this cycle, I kept returning to the idea of human beings putting up barriers between ourselves and nature. These barriers exist both in the physical world, in our societal structures like curriculum, and in our minds and, as Richard Louv says, “reduce the richness of the human experience.” I was struck by Jill Lepore’s exploration of breastfeeding and the commercialization of pumping both in its literal implications and how it can operate as a metaphor for the larger societal disconnect from nature. Lepore questions whether it is the mother or the milk that is really valued and explores how milk and breastfeeding have been commodified through the wide use of breast pumps. The pump itself is an artifice that separates mother and child, but in many cases pumping is used as a way to continue providing breast milk while returning to work because of the U.S. labor laws that only allow for three months of (unpaid) leave (Lepore). These laws...

      In exploring the readings for Cycle 1, I found that they not only resonated with my personal experiences and philosophy of teaching, but with my core motivation for becoming an educator in the first place. I did not choose to pursue teaching because of a love of curriculum or state standards, objectives or assessments; I wanted to help my students become the best versions of themselves. So much of my teacher preparation was focused on the how of teaching within the current system, essentially how to get the most out of the status quo, but the questions of what and why were not explored much at all. Kieran Egan raises this issue in his work, and comes to the conclusion that “we turn our attention increasingly to what questions and present strong arguments for or against specific curriculum content” (Egan 16).  But this questioning, as Nel Noddings points out, needs to be asked along with the question of why. How can one have discussions of what should be taught ...