When originally presented with the prompt, “To me curriculum is…,” I concluded that to me curriculum is the building code. My justification for this was that the government dictates both the BC curriculum and the BC building code and both act as a minimal standard in their respective fields. Both provincial standards are then built on by others (teachers/students & designers/architects) to be made into a structure (i.e. a building, a course). I still feel at its core that this metaphor is accurate but over the last few weeks my attitude has slightly changed, and it perhaps is not as perfect a metaphor as I once felt. However, I will let my metaphor stand but attempt to apply new ideas to it in hopes of better clarifying it and providing a greater picture of its substance.

The Original Metaphor

Using the building code metaphor, I asserted that when approaching curriculum, it is important to keep focus on both what I am teaching as well as how it is taught. This approach is supported by Egan (1978) who argues for a more balanced approach to curriculum, not going to one extreme or getting held up focusing on how to teach or the other extreme of what to teach. It is important to me that I keep the overall focus of the course and how I teach in mind, but the student’s interests and learning style should also be kept in mind. Ultimately, it is a balance that can be difficult to negotiate at times. Building on the metaphor I also gave heavy emphasis on students and teachers building on the government provided curriculum to create something that best meets the need(s) of students. This approach is supported by Blades (1997) who argues that students should not be forgotten in the discourse of curriculum making. I still hold to this approach to my curriculum creation and will, in fact, continue the argument of its importance.

Shifted Context

As my understanding has shifted throughout this course, I have begun to realize how much power teachers and students have in making the curriculum into what they need. I have found myself attracted to Montessori’s (n.d.) ideals on students not being taught to expect accolades, prizes, or punishments for learning. When I went through the K-12 school system, I aimed for grades that would keep me, my parents, and teachers happy. I received praise for my work, but I was always told what to learn and never took learning into my own hands. Now as an adult, I have had to relearn how to learn. I have found a joy in learning for its own sake and for my growth, without a shiny prize at the end. The skills and knowledge I have gained are satisfying and it feels good getting there on my own terms. As a teacher I do feel that my subject matter has some bare minimums that students should learn but the course can be customized to meet student need/interest. Perhaps in this regard Montessori and I don’t see perfectly eye to eye, but I respect the ideals of the teaching/curricular method.

In some ways my ideal teaching approach falls most in line with a balance of the curriculum-as-planned and the lived curriculum methods as outlined by Ted Aoki (1993). While the government planned curriculum is a good place to start in curriculum building, it is the interactions between students, teachers, and the community, or the lived curriculum, that emphasizes social – emotional learning and brings about the best from students (Aoki, 1993). I feel that this balanced, student focused, lived and planned curricular focus melds nicely with the approaches presented by Egan and Blades. During the initial move to online teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic, I had some wonderful interactions with students and their families when I asked them to interview a family member and ask them about their experiences with woodworking. The responses I received were so heartwarming I vowed to do this assignment every course. One father and son did a video interview where at the end of the video the father turned to the camera and challenged me to respond in my own video, telling him and his family about my experiences. I was overjoyed at this prospect and regretted not starting it by doing just as he asked. This opened a dialogue that would have otherwise not happened and allowed me and my student to learn about his father’s experiences as an immigrant and what different experiences he had to share. One 3-minute video brought so much life and investment into a hard and unfamiliar learning situation.

As I learn and grow as an educator, I am constantly reminded that what I do is not about me. Sometimes that is hard to remember, and it is easy to fall into rhythms. One saving grace is that students have an uncanny knack of reminding me that it’s their learning at stake. It’s this aspect of the job that I feel keeps me so invested. Every year is a new challenge and every year I will learn beside my students about them, their interests, and their dreams, as well as my own. It is not solely my building code to build off. We must work together to design personalized learning.

References:

Egan, K. (1978). What Is Curriculum? Curriculum Inquiry, 8(1), 65. doi:10.2307/1179791

Blades, D. (1997) Procedures of Power in a Curriculum Discourse: Conversations from Home. JCT, 11(4), 125-155

Montessori, M. (n.d.). A critical consideration of the new pedagogy in its relation to modern science. The Montessori Method: Scientific Pedagogy as Applied Child Education in “The Children’s Houses”, with Additions and Revisions by the Author., 1-27. doi:10.1037/13054-001

Aoki, T. T. (1993). Legitimating lived curriculum: Towards a curricular landscape of multiplicity. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 8(3), 255.

Personal & Professional Connection to Sloyd

As a technology education teacher, especially one that teaches primarily woodwork, I found myself drawn to the concepts and teaching practices created by Otto Salomon called educational sloyd. Developed in mainly Sweden and Finland, the modern sloyd system is very similar to what is taught in most technology education classrooms, focusing on knowledge and skills rooted in traditional hand work, such as manual skills, aesthetic/design skills, and tool management skills. The biggest difference between the two is sloyd’s heavy focus on personal development and learning (Hallström, 2017). These skills and concepts, which would normally be considered apart of the hidden curriculum in BC, come to the forefront in sloyd. The sloyd system, developed over a century ago, has continued to evolve as technology changes, exploring new ways to challenge students while holding to its core principles.

What is Sloyd?

Sloyd was developed originally as a woodworking program in the late 1800’s in a pushback to the education system of the time which was teacher centric and generally focused on students memorizing information for later regurgitation. Salomon based sloyd on basic ideas he took from Comenius, Locke, Rouseau, Salzman, Pestalozzi, Fröbel, Cygneus and Spencer. He mixed those ideas with his own experiences and created a system that he felt was appropriate for the time (Thornton, 1911). Salomon felt that hands-on skills, discipline, and independent learning were key to a well-trained student. The sloyd curricular concept can be generally broken down into four distinct categories:

(Wiklund-Engblom, Hartvik, Hiltunen, Johansson, & Porko-Hudd, 2015)

The sloyd curricular concept also focus’ on teacher development, expanding educators’ content specific skills, ability to plan, create, and implement designs for teaching, and grow overall professionally (Wiklund-Engblom, et al, 2015). Many of these concepts can be seen today in the BC’s technology education curriculum. For example, the Woodworking 10 and sloyd curriculum both focus on learning outcomes such as, understanding the function and use of hand tools, and employing project design opportunities (BC’s New Curriculum, 2020; Thornton, 1911).

The Sloyd Method of Teaching Woodwork

My Teaching Context

I am a technology education teacher who currently teaches woodwork and drafting at Edward Milne Community School, a high school in Sooke, British Columbia. I teach classes from grades 9 to 12. I base my class lessons and projects on the BC curriculum for applied design, skills, & technology. More specifically I use the Woodwork 10-12 and Drafting 10-12 curricula. From there I have found a variety of resources both online and in books which help my students and I build upon the government’s prescribed curriculum. As technology education is focused on project based and hands-on learning, there is a lot of room for students to meet the objectives laid out by the curriculum while doing it in ways that appeal to them on a personal level and explore avenues of learning that the curriculum may not necessarily focus on but are of equal or similar importance to growing life skills and experience.

What is Curriculum?

To define curriculum, I came across a definition that stated that it is a “floor plan” or blueprint for what is taught, learned, and experienced in the classroom (Su, 2012). Being a carpenter and woodworking & drafting teacher, I was drawn to the statement, but after a time of reflection I realized how incorrect I feel this definition is in my approach to education.

To me, curriculum is more like the building code. Both lay out the minimum requirements needed, and everyone is mandated to follow them, but it is the designer/architect’s job to create the true outcome. Like the building code, curriculum is made by numerous entities input. These entities range from government, teachers, higher education, parents, industry, etc. They push and pull until there is an agreed upon minimal standard created.

Curriculum in Practice

It is important, as Blades (1997) asserts, to not forget students in the discourse of curriculum making. With all the entities pushing and pulling to get their curriculum in, I believe it is up to the teacher to make room for the student in the learning process. That is why I try my best to give my students opportunities to bring their personal interests and sensibilities into their projects. Essentially, I bring them on as designers/architects in their own education. I find this generally gains greater interest and investment in learning from the student and is more fun for everyone (as learning should be).

It is my belief that the curriculum is the minimum standard of what needs to be taught but how it is taught is generally up to the teacher. So, when Egan (1978) asserts that when approaching curriculum and its implementation we need to have a more balanced focus on how it will be implemented as to what needs to be implemented, I don’t necessarily disagree. I, as a teacher, have the autonomy to teach in my way, it is my job to focus on how the curriculum is delivered. I may subscribe to one method of teaching while another teacher subscribes to another and there is nothing wrong with that if students are learning and the curricular goals are being met. Most teachers I know are constantly reassessing their teaching practice and tweaking it in new ways to better their efforts and the learning of their students. So perhaps to the teacher, how curriculum is taught is more of a focus then what.

References:

Egan, K. (1978). What Is Curriculum? Curriculum Inquiry, 8(1), 65. doi:10.2307/1179791

BC’s New Curriculum. (n.d.). Retrieved July 09, 2020, from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/adst/10/woodwork

Blades, D. (1997) Procedures of Power in a Curriculum Discourse: Conversations from Home. JCT, 11(4), 125-155

Su, S. (2012). The Various Concepts of Curriculum and the Factors Involved in Curricula-making. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 3(1). doi:10.4304/jltr.3.1.153-158

In search for the answer to the titled question, I came across a definition to what curriculum is that caused me to pause in reflection. It stated that curriculum is a “floor plan” or blueprint for what is taught, learned, and experienced in the classroom (Su, 2012). Being a carpenter and woodworking & drafting teacher, I was drawn to the statement, but after a time of reflection I realized how incorrect this point of view truly was in my approach to education.

“Youth discussing construction blueprints” by Government of Prince Edward Island is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

To me, curriculum is not a plan of what will be taught/learned. Curriculum is more like the building code. Both lay out the minimum requirements needed for what is going to be built/learned. Everyone is mandated to follow the curriculum/building code, but the designer/architect works to create the blueprint and plans. Those plans can be extremely detailed and rigid, or there can be room for customization and changes. Depending on the designer/teacher and how they decide to design their course, students too maybe be a part of this design process, allowing them to customize their learning, focusing on their interests and needs, while still meeting the requirements of the curriculum’s list of learning outcomes.

For example, the BC Woodwork 10 curriculum requires students to learn techniques for stock breakout and woodworking using a variety of tools and equipment, including stationary power equipment (BC’s New Curriculum, n.d.). This is on our list of curricular minimum standard, like what is laid out in the standards of the BC building code. There is more than one way to design an approach to teaching this concept. This is where the teacher would take the time to decide their best approach to teach the concept with the tools, machines, and materials they have in accordance to students’ abilities and pre-knowledge. This is their plan or blueprint for students to follow and learn from. Lesson/unit plans are effectively the blueprint.

The educator, if they are like me, can bring their student into this process and have them personalize it to build on their current knowledge and interests. Students will lay the foundation to future knowledge (much like when building a house) that will eventually become a larger and larger structure. Everyone’s structure will likely look a little different. Some may in fact look very different. In the end, if everything has gone to plan, the student will walk away with that educational structure soundly built for the future, ready to be built upon with more knowledge/ideas.