Before Reading
1. Curricula is made by the provincial government because education is education falls under the provincial jurisdiction not the federal.
2. I know from personal experience that the government asks for student, parent and teacher feedback regarding the curricula. I have had the privilege of reflecting on the curricula before and after certain curriculum is released. I was involved in a response to the “new math curriculum” where students were able to record themselves solving series of problems and discussing the positive and negative aspects. I have also participated in focus groups in a division and federal level to reflect on the important areas of learning.
3. Many parts of curricula may be created by teachers and educators themselves. Teachers within my high school have sat on committees to create curriculum as well as write the textbooks that correlate with it.
4. Works towards making the dominant area of society happy, using the dominant narrative; within Saskatchewan many curricula are written from the white male perspective.
After Reading
As we talk about reflective teaching, it would not be too far to believe that there are biases within educational policies. If the policies are coming from a place of power, the government, it means that the policies will reflect the interests of that party, which do not always a line with students views or best interests.
I found that the quote “most policy decisions in education, including curriculum decisions, are made with little or no public attention” (pg.8), is something I grew up learning from my teachers. I can vividly remember with the new math curriculum came out and for many years my teachers struggled to understand the concepts they were teaching.
Minorities can often be forgotten about because of the sure mass of the majority. Within an idea each student could be ask about their education, the majority answer would then be passed to make a school majority answer, leading to a division answer and finally the provincial majority answer. It is easy to see from this that students that do not fit the curriculum mold will be forgotten.
The two kinds of discussions when creating curriculum: what subjects are included and what content should be taught? I think that subjects should have more cross over, many times smaller centers are more likely to only offer core classes so integrating other topics into those subjects could be helpful. If cross curriculum is used more often it can open more time within a school day allowing for other classes including art. For example, if a student is able to do an assignment that applies to both social and English the extra time can be used for subjects that are often over looked.
https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/16905_Chapter_1.pdf
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