-ism/-ology attack continues to be on the offence...

While my Essentials of School Leadership continues to be an interesting read, Critical Essays on Major Curriculum Theorists (Scott) continues to be a bit of a tough read.

Why? Two reasons:

1) Leadership is an easier reading level, conversational, easy to relate to.
2) I don't really have a terribly extensive philosophy background and Curriculum, it seems, counts on that as assumed prior knowledge. Why oh why oh why didn't I consider an intro. philosphy class in my pre-professional years? Hmmm... maybe a trip to Indigo [slash the library] is in order?

The good news is that I've seen the course outline for my Curriculum Studies class and it seems my found resource is meant to be supplementary. However, I'd still like to wrap my head around some of these concepts. I find them very interesting, just a tad inaccessible, at least so far.

So let's try to break down Curriculum (Scott) a bit and set some goals:

Chapter 2 - Behavioural Objectives - So, let's see: according to Popham these need to be unambiguous, explicit descriptions, referring to the learner and not the teacher, measurable. Not measurable? ...that can be fine, as long as those non-measurables don't dominate. Criteria for judgement is discussed (where adequacy is agreed-upon amongst judges). How specific and how general should these be? Popham wonders the same. Individual, class-wide, partially achieved... doesn't matter. Bloom is mentioned. Krathwohl's Taxonomy is too--I'll have to look that one up--affective--receiving, responding, valuing, organising, and characterizing. Psychomotor--perception, set, guided response, mechanism, and complex overt resonse. A handy dandy curriculum bank (not unlike an LOR or test bank) is suggested.

Critique (given)- understands, appreciates, learns. No, let's get more specific, more verifiable. If things are broken down or atomised, there needs to be an order and sequence. Disciplinary knowledge and pedagogic knowledge may complement or conflict with each other. i.e. Logos(disciplinary)--hmmm.... need to understand this word better--and progressions (pedagogic). What about intellectual virtues? Can behavioural, and measurable, objectives truly achieve those? Can common interpretation and evidence-gathering truly occur? Are behavioural criteria and priorities the same as society's? Are the easiest objectives to word the best? Language needs to be decontextualised... is that appropriate? What about the tacit, unspoken parts of language and phrasing?

Chapter 3 - Process Curriculum; Inquiry-based learning - Okay, I have some confidence here. I also have some exposure. Some ideas I need to pursue further like "con-text, pre-text, sub-text, and inter-text".

Stenhouse argues against objectives being behavioural. He also argues against didactic, passive learning. Why? Disciplinary knowledge goes beyond knowledge bites as a body of knowledge with structure and form... a syntax.

Problems (given) - 1) with the disciplanary knowledge structure, 2) with the way knowledge is reconfigured at thepedagogic site 3) possibility of learner aquiring false or misguided views of principles/sytax

1) Disciplines are evolved from groups of individual knowledge developers. Naturally, these gain power as they evolve and are micro-political arrangements. Boundaries are permeable and definitions are fluid. These definitions, structures, and hierarchies reflect and contribute to society(/ies).

2) *okay, the rest is in progress*

Chapter 3 - Foundationalism - *not just in progress, but requiring every second word be looked up... WOW, this is where some basic philosophy background would come in handy!?*