Negotiating
the Curriculum
Empowering
Students to Direct Their Own Learning
by
Jim Vandergriff
Department
of Teaching and Teacher Education
University
of Arizona
"
The pedagogy that I propose takes the problems and needs of the
students themselves as its starting point," writes Peter
McLaren in Life in Schools. (1994; p. 223; emphasis in the
original) Though that is perhaps not exactly where we began in structuring
our course in Schooling in America, it is certainly an idea that played
a large role, even one of the major roles, in shaping our thinking.
(See Gary Fenstermacher's paper for a fuller description of the course.)
In the overall organization of the course, three areas were set aside
in which students could negotiate their own learning. One of these
was the discussion sections. The course met in plenary session two
periods a week. For the third weekly session, students were enrolled
in discussion groups, which we capped at 15. The second area open
to negotiation was the assignment structure through which we determined
students grades for the course: students chose from a list of assignments
how they would document their learning in the course. A third negotiation
point emerged during the course the first time we offered it: that
is, based on the articulated desires of the students, we altered the
syllabus. We also responded to student comments on mid-stream evaluations
in a similar vein. (For more details about these evaluations, see
Donna Jurich's paper on assessment in this course.)
Before
I begin talking about those areas, though, I want to situate myself
both politically and relative to the course. When I first began working
with Dr. Fenstermacher, it was shortly after I had taken a graduate
course in Foundations from him. In that course, which I took my first
semester in the Education doctoral program, I had been charged up
with various marxist and neo-marxist notions about education. We had
read and discussed Henry Giroux's Border Crossings and spent
a lot of class time talking about Paulo Freire's writings and about
critical pedagogy in general. On my own, I also read a number of Ivan
Illich's works and articles by various others of the critical bent
-- e.g., Bowles and Gintis, Bartolome, Delpit.
All
of this fit nicely with both my left-leaning social consciousness
and my long-held belief, which was my primary motivation to enter
graduate school in Education, that something was terribly wrong in
public education. It especially touched on my sense that the system
itself is one of the major problems. In my view, the system of American
schooling de-skills teachers, which exacerbates burnout and the associated
negative behaviors; it isolates, overworks and underpays teachers;
it militates actively against any real education for most students,
and especially for students of color and students from working-class
backgrounds.
Thus,
when Dr. Fenstermacher invited me to work with him in this course,
and explained that one of his major goals was to try to make a large
lecture course into a student-centered course with the feel of a small
seminar, I was eager to be involved. We were going to try to make
this course into something in which the students would feel empowered
to take the responsibility for their own learning. As a teaching assistant,
my role was to attend the plenary sessions, to lead discussion groups,
and to take care of the systemics, such of grading and attendance,
for those students who were enrolled in my discussion groups, and
to attend weekly staff discussions about the course.
I
have been a classroom teacher for about 25 years, having taught from
Seventh grade Latin to Master's-level courses in English and Folklore.
In those years, one of the many things I have learned is the difficulty
of getting students to engage in genuine discussion. In the context
of my thinking about this course. colored as it was by the critical
theorists, I believed it imperative that students discuss the material
of the course freely and openly. As Henry Giroux says, "I don't care
what positions the students take. I want them to be able to justify
whatever position they do take so they come out with a clearer sense
of what they believe in and what effects that might have." (1992,
p. 16) What that meant to me relative to this course was that I had
to find ways to enable student to feel safe enough to talk in their
discussion groups and that I had to be willing to let the discussions
go the directions in which students wanted them to go, to not only
permit them, but to actively assist them, in constructing their own
understandings of Foundations.
As
both a student of Education and a teacher of pre-service teachers,
I believe Foundations is an important area of study, and I wanted
my students to come to some useful, personal, individual understandings
of it that would serve them in their careers in education. I concur
with Madeleine Grumet when she says ". . . education is about a human
being making sense of her life in the world, and when we confuse her
movement with the stops on her itinerary, or worse with someone else's
travel memoirs, we obstruct it." (1995, p. 17) I did not want to confuse
my students' learning with my own agendas. As Grumet says of "the
basics" a few pages later. "It is the relation of these histories
of human action and interpretation to the lives of the children studying
them that is essential." (1995, p. 19) Thus, I saw the discussion
groups as the major arena in which students could negotiate their
understandings of the foundations of schooling in America
Of
course, I did not always succeed in motivating open, student-directed
discussion, for a number of reasons, but in general I laid down a
couple of ground rules at the beginning, tried to facilitate the students'
bonding as a group, and then let them move the discussions. The ground
rules were that (1) students would treat each other respectfully,
regardless of the views they expressed, and that (2) whoever had the
floor decided who got it next. Most of the time, the students willingly
worked within those parameters and discussions went smoothly.
To
help them bond as a group, I made a real effort to treat them as individuals,
by which I mean I did things like learn their names immediately and
seek out opportunities to engage them as individuals in a personal
manner. Likewise, from the very beginning, and in the interest of
democratizing the groups, I insisted that they call me by my first
name. I took risks with my language and my interactions with them,
in the interest of making them feel that I was not so much "the teacher"
as a member of the group. I also insisted that the groups sit in a
circle, often, at the beginning, personally inviting outliers to move
into the circle, or even stopping proceedings and requiring them to
move into the circle. I thought it imperative that we break the spell
of the traditional roles and classrooms if students were going to
be able to engage. Certainly, this might be seen as "teacher
direction." I don't argue with that; I merely respond by referring
to Freire's notion, expressed in Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
that oppressed peoples may have to be taught how to be free. My purpose
was not so much to control the students as it was to enable them to
exercise a degree of freedom over their learning that I thought they
were not used to having. I shared that reasoning with them on many
occasions, also in the interest of teaching them how to be free to
discuss.
I
would also point out that those of us who led discussion groups all
seem to have had different ways of interacting with the students at
this level, though we were relatively like-minded about establishing
environments in which students felt safe enough to speak up. Some
of us were more directive than others. In my own groups, too, my relationship
with the students, and my success in getting them to take control
of the discussions varied from group to group. One of my discussion
groups, which met late Friday afternoons, and therefore was rather
remote from the plenary group. and another that met early Monday morning,
and therefore was five days removed from the plenary group, were both
problematic all semester (these were two different semesters). Many
days, the students simply wouldn't discuss. One of my tactics in situations
like that was simply to sit in silence until someone raised an issue.
Often that generated some discussion; sometimes it didn't. Another
tactic was to mention a related article from the local newspaper and
ask what the students thought. Sometimes that worked; sometimes it
didn't. However, I usually adhered to my principle that I was not
going to take over the discussion and, thus, we spent long, painful
stretches in silence.
Conversely,
I didn't always stay out of the discussions, though I was usually
reasonably careful not to fall back into the traditional role. On
some occasions, I did mini-lectures, often at the request of the students.
However, I was conscious that this might itself turn into a venue
through which students could avoid discussion, so I used it sparingly.
For instance, when Dr. Fenstermacher was lecturing on critical pedagogy
in the plenary session, the students became confused by the terminology
and asked me to go through it for them; I did so. On another occasion,
when Dr. Fenstermacher was discussing multiculturalism, the Anglo-American
students began to say that they didn't have a culture. Since it was
near the Thanksgiving Break, I began asking them what they were going
to do for the break and specifically what they were going to have
for their Thanksgiving dinner. I probed and tugged and pulled at individuals
until I got them almost all to identify what they meant by "the usual"
or "the traditional" Thanksgiving dinner. Then I pointed out to them
that their ideas of what constituted "the usual" was itself a cultural
element not shared by everyone in the group. One of the women was
going to a wedding over the holiday, so I then moved the discussion
into wedding customs. I even went so far as to assign them to look
critically at how their families conducted the holiday and to report
back -- homework, as it were. Obviously, that was teacher directed;
however, it was motivated by my sense that it was information the
students needed to have in order to understand and to discuss multiculturalism
fruitfully.
The
general purpose of these discussion groups was to provide students
with opportunities to engage with the material in the lectures and
readings on a more intimate basis than was possible in the large group.
Our desire was that discussion topics would sort of parallel the topics
in the readings and lectures. When it was necessary for me to nudge
a discussion, that is the direction I would nudge it. When the students
didn't volunteer a discussion direction, that is where I would start.
However, sometimes the students refused my nudgings and took the discussion
in directions they wanted it to go. In those cases, I followed their
leads. If curriculum is, as Pinar says, "A text of identity"
( 1995, p. 29), and as I believe it is, it did not make sense to do
otherwise.
I
have considerable anecdotal evidence of the success of these efforts.
For instance the woman I just mentioned who attended the wedding thanked
me publicly and profusely for helping her see that she did indeed
have a culture. She had grown up in a culturally-mixed household (Anglo
and Puerto Rican) and entered the group believing that she was a culture-less
mongrel (her phrasing). She related to me what a "nuisance" she made
of herself (her phrasing again) at the wedding by pointing out the
various traditional elements from both her cultures. My role in her
enlightenment was simply to help create a condition in which she could
apply what we were studying to her own life circumstances. As Grumet
says, "Curriculum is the act of making sense of these things and that
requires understanding the ways that they do and do not stand for
our experience." ( 1995, pp. 10-20) This young woman came away, by
her own report, with a much deeper appreciation of the concept of
multiculturalism than she probably would have without the discussion
group.
Another
instance involved the debate over California's Proposition 187. One
of the men in my most vocal discussion group asked me if he could
make a presentation in favor of Prop. 187. What speaks loudest to
me about this incident is that he was himself Mexican-American, the
group had a high proportion of very vocal Mexican-American students
in it, and the class had already indicated a strong majority opposition
to the proposition. Yet, this young man felt it a safe enough atmosphere
that he could openly support the minority side. He did so, and was
treated respectfully by his classmates. His was, I believe, an example
of what Roger Simon calls "the self-affirming expression of experiences
mediated by one's history, language, and traditions," (p. 3 / 4) and
an affirmation of our efforts to empower students. Though this young
man obviously did not interrogate existing knowledge claims in this
instance, he did engage in "a dialogic encounter." (Simon, pp. 3 7~75
)
Students
written comments about the discussion groups said such things as follow.
"It is interesting & stimulating." "I am excited about both lecture
and discussion sections & I feel like I am learning a lot." "I
really enjoy the discussion section -- it is fascinating to hear other
students' ideas and ideals in this field, and be able to validate
other viewpoints," There were, of course, negative comments.
One student, damning with faint praise, said about one of my groups:
"I would like to discuss more in my discussion section. Sometimes
it's just Jim discussing and the 50 minutes go by without us being
able to chat about the material. Although, I do like what Jim has
to say." What I find salient in that comment is that the student was
bewailing the loss of opportunity to learn from his/her peers, to
interact with them and the material. That speaks well of the concept
of the discussion groups.
A
second area in which students could negotiate their learning was in
what we came to call "the assignment structure." We offered students
a number of assignment options through which they could choose to
document their learning. Some of these options were traditional assignments,
such as research papers, book reviews, and tests; others were not
so traditional. For example, one of the non-traditional options was
a student-designed activity. In this option, a student had to propose
to his or her TA some alternative activity and some method of reporting
it, along with a grade weight for it; then the student and the TA
would discuss the proposal. The criteria for acceptance were that
the activity had to be relevant to the substance of the course, it
had to be practicable within the parameters of the course, and the
involvement had to be appropriate to the weight.
Several
students chose this option. One, for instance, shadowed a director
of an alternative school program. Another attended a series of school
board meetings during a union work-slowdown action. Another reported
on education efforts in a battered women's shelter. Another did a
series of interviews with an adult student he was helping prepare
for the GED test.
We
also offered a "community service" option. This worked much the same
as the student-designed activity, though the weight was based more
on hours of service than on a written product. (Most of those who
chose this option, however, also submitted a written report.)
In
our second offering of this course, we also included an "independent
study" option, in which students were given a course syllabus and
a list of books. They were welcome to attend the lectures, which several
chose to do, and encouraged to conference with the TA assigned to
students who chose that option. Aside from that, and scheduled exam
due dates, these students worked on their own.
Perhaps
even more than the discussion groups, these assignment options permitted
students to understand educational foundations in frameworks that
were individually meaningful. The student who interviewed the GED
student, for instance, has been a volunteer tutor in that adult education
program for several years and plans to continue working in that context
when he completes his certification program. Through these assignment
options, he was able, at least in a small way, to focus the content
of a generic foundations course directly on his career path.
Even
the more traditional assignments, though, fed into student directed
learning. One of my students, for example, did a research paper on
gay high school students. In her discussions with me when she first
broached the topic, I asked her why she had decided on that topic
-- knowing as I did that she was more than a little homophobic. Her
response was that some of the stuff we had been reading and discussing
had led her to believe that she needed to know more about it because
she would probably have to deal with it in her classes and she needed
to be able to put her prejudices aside in order to deal fairly with
it. Her paper was not stellar, but she learned some things she felt
she needed to know, and I applaud her effort.
Even
the book review option let students determine the direction of their
learning. Though Kozol's Savage Inequalities was probably the
most common review choice, some chose to get into deeper water with,
for instance, Pedagogy of the Oppressed and The Moral Dimensions
of Teaching. Ain't No Makin' It, Growing up
Literate, and Horace's School were also popular
choices. Furthermore, though the list of books we offered was extensive,
many chose works not on the list. This alternative required consultation
with and approval of the TA. Again, though, our primary criterion
was relevance to the course content.
Overall,
students responded very positively to this options approach to the
course. They said such things as "I can learn what I want to learn
and learn what pertains to my field of study" and "I like having options
presented to me for completion of the course. Although I chose the
standard option [tests], I can take more responsibility for my work."
Another student said, "Everything is up to me. I love the responsibility!"
Still another said, "I'm really excited about . . . choosing my own
course load. I feel it best gives me a chance to shape the curriculum
that I am supposed to learn into something that's beneficial to me
and my style of learning. I think this form recognizes that different
students learn in different ways and caters to that" Another said,
"The choice option was an easy decision for me to make. I relish the
idea of being able to take a meaningful course without the pressure
of formal examinations. Also, I've never had the opportunity to construct
a course to my liking before and that in itself makes the choice option
an attractive one for me."
As
I noted above, a third, and a much less formal, area of negotiation
emerged during the course as we offered it. At various times, based
on our sense of the students' desires, we altered the curriculum.
The best example occurred the first semester when a group of Hispanic
students articulated a deep dissatisfaction with the coverage of multicultural
issues. In response, we empaneled a group of students whom we considered
representative of the ethnic and gender backgrounds in the class.
Each student was given the opportunity to make a statement of his/her
position, then they all fielded questions from the whole class. Thus,
in response to student desires, we changed the syllabus to include
what they wanted. Interestingly, the second time we offered the course,
we built in the panel discussion and it did not work nearly so well.
The lesson we took from that was that part of its success the first
time around had resulted from the fact that it was student initiated.
Also,
in response to students' expressed concerns about the reading load
in the second course, Dr. Fenstermacher eliminated from the syllabus
some additional readings that he had planned to include (and which
were mentioned on the syllabus) and also stretched out the due dates
for those readings already assigned. He also permitted students a
second opportunity to renegotiate their assignment contracts at their
request. (See Donna Jurich's paper for more detail about this process.)
Though
this paper has been largely about my role in helping my students feel
free to, and learn how to, take charge of their own learning, Dr.
Fenstermacher himself was a critical element in its success. Because
he had been motivated to attempt this venture as a result of his dissatisfaction
with large, impersonal, lecture-hall courses, he made numerous efforts
to personalize the plenary sessions. For instance, on occasion, during
question-and-answer sessions, he would move out into the audience
and sit beside students, talking to them -- despite the microphones
both had to use -- as if it were a personal chat. Even when he did
not leave the arena, he would move near the respondent, using body
language to help break down the barriers inherent in auditorium teaching.
At the beginning of almost every class period, he played music contributed
by the students, and he always acknowledged the individual who brought
it in. These, and numerous other such small details, helped to make
the class a community. Students very quickly became comfortable with
him, which seemed to transfer over to the discussion groups. His manner
seems to have helped students feel that we were truly interested in
dialog and in empowering them to take responsibility for their educations.
My
original focus in this paper was to discuss how we worked, over the
course of two different semesters, to turn a large lecture course
with an enrollment in the neighborhood of 120 students into a course
in which students felt empowered to take on the responsibility for
their own learning, and one which had the feel of a small seminar.
We attempted that by offering three areas in which students could
negotiate the curriculum: student-directed small group discussion
sections, assignment choices, and responses to students' articulated
desires about the syllabus. I believe we have been successful.
Works
Cited