What is curriculum?

What is curriculum? What should curriculum be? Curriculum is the collection of topics and subjects, units and modules, imposed upon students from the uber-young early childhood education years of pre-school programing all the way through secondary schooling as well as the uppermost reaches of post-secondary schooling. The funny thing and the paradox for me personally, is that even though I am curiously fond of schooling for myself and for my students, upon honest reflection, I must admit that my own schooling has been of questionable use to me. In other words, the curriculum which I have experienced over 40 years of my life has not been exactly helpful or useful. I feel a bit downcast admitting this, but it is true.

I first earned a bachelor degree in accounting with a minor in music from Hillsdale College as a very traditional aged, young thing. I felt enormous pressure to select a major, get a good job, get on with my life and prove myself to my parents and to the world. The courses contained in my bachelor degree accounting program were tightly selected with little flexibility for electives or personal choice. The accounting curriculum still used today in my own classroom is remarkably similar to what I experienced as a student 20 years ago. The principle difference being the big shift in the use of technology in how accounting work is performed. The curriculum itself is virtually unchanged. By curriculum, I mean the choices of courses required as well as the set objectives, topics and tasks to be covered in each required course. The idea was and is that a solid accounting education prepares a student for a career in accounting and a successful score on the CPA Exam. Even though I was a very strong student with a 3.8 GPA, I did not experience either expected benefit.

Hillsdale College is very much an Intellectual Traditionalist type of teaching and learning environment as William Schubert would say. A classic liberal arts education is emphasized with a robust general education component. Lecturing is viewed as an art and a key component of college life. Education itself is viewed as one of life’s finest, most treasured accomplishments. At Hillsdale College, academics are described as a liberal education…

“A liberal education at Hillsdale College entails the study of things inherently worthwhile—things good, true, and beautiful...Students refine their intelligence, furnish their understanding, and acquire the abilities and wisdom necessary to lead full, humane lives.”


Even this beautifully crafted curriculum and educational experience was not enough or was not what I really needed to genuinely understand how an accounting system really works on the job. It was also not enough to get me through the rigors of the 1990 era CPA Exam.

Years later in my late 20’s/early 30’s I completed an MBA from a well-known Michigan university. At this point in my life, I knew that I was a teacher at heart, and it seemed that the best fit for me would be teaching accounting at the college level. All related job postings required a bachelor degree in the field, professional work experience and an MBA. And so, off I went to complete an MBA. With the exception of my Forensic Accounting course, I have never used any of the curriculum from my MBA in my professional teaching career now as a college accounting teacher. One could say that it was completely useless and unrelated. It was a required credential and nothing more. How many of our students feel the same way? Assignments, courses and whole programs are meaningless other than being the gate-keeper to a chosen profession. I especially wonder about the formerly popular, ever glitzy MBA degree. I know a handful of folks with MBA’s that can’t get jobs. You can even read a book about it in Sonja Landis’s “My Master’s Degree is Useless?!?!”

When I was in my 30’s and my boys were young, I was constantly on the look-out for good babysitters, daycare and pre-school programs. I came across a local place in town called Happy Hearts. It was a Montessori inspired kind of place providing a range of pre-school and after school care programing. The place was a treasure trove of activity areas loaded full of rich, interesting objects, books and supplies. The founder of the school was an aging grandfather who handled the early morning shift when I dropped off my son with his daughter and others coming in later to handle the bulk of the school day. I would frequently open the door to hear classical music playing and paints set up in the kitchen area. He and I often picked up fascinating conversations about politics, the arts, education, anything and everything. I didn’t want to go to work! I wanted to stay and paint and be. One of my favorite features of Happy Hearts was the “wild woods” as the kids called it. The property included a fair amount of acreage in the back including all kinds of trees and trails and foliage. There were many, many times that my son was too dirty and muddy to load into the car at the end of the day. I learned to keep a towel and a change of clothes with me for those days. Happy Hearts reminds me of Summerhill in England. Learning is directed by the child and curriculum is so loose that most education specialists would chafe at the lack or structure. All traditional subjects are included such as reading, math and science but they are interwoven into activities and events that capture the children’s attention. If you don’t know about Summerhill, it is an amazing place William Schubert would describe as Experiential and Dewian. It turns out that I was a Dewey fan before I learned about Dewey!

When I was in high school, I found a used copy of “Summerhill” by A.S. Neill at a Goodwill Store. I bought it, read it and devoured it. I was fascinated, moved, attracted to and totally freaked out that such a place could exist. It seemed like a gigantic, risky, fascinating experiment. I wondered if the Summerhill kids would end up permanently deranged without a proper K-12 education. The irony is that maybe it’s the other way around in that our US kids may be the ones messed up by that proper K-12 system. I would describe Summerhill as an extreme alternative school. Kids are allowed to progress and experience academic and non-academic pursuits as their interests and desires allow. Summerhill founder A.S. Neill describes it as a place of freedom:

“We set out to make a school in which we should allow children freedom to be themselves. In order to do this we had to renounce all discipline, all direction, all suggestion, all moral training, all religious instruction. We have been called brave, but it did not require courage. All it required was what we had – a complete belief in the child as a good, not an evil, being. Since 1921 this belief in the goodness of the child has never wavered: it rather has become a final faith.” (A.S. Neill, Summerhill, 1960)

The kids are exposed to all kinds of subjects and possible activities, but the kids direct what they do, when they do and how far they go into each subject. Summerhill seemed like madness to me back then, but it hit a nerve, and I was fascinated. I think it left such a mark on me, because I was a sensitive, bright, artistic child. I wonder how I would have fared in a Summerhill or Happy Hearts type of school environment. School was a challenge to me, but I was determined to conquer it. If school had not been posed as a challenge but as something else, I wonder how I would have engaged it.

Now in my 40’s, I find myself wrapping up yet another degree with a questionable link to my chosen profession. I would describe the MAED program at MSU as Social Behaviorist in nature. I have learned a great deal about myself and have significantly improved my confidence as a writer. I truly do not know what the future holds for me. I have tried repeatedly to infuse and share the ideas I am learning at MSU into my current teaching environment only to find that new ideas and my offers to assist and help are not welcome. I will keep trying. I also have an eye on the world at large. There are many possibilities, many unknowns. It is too soon to say whether or not my MSU studies and the MAED curriculum have been effective and useful to me.

Let me pose it this way…what would have been better?...

It would have been better for me as a budding entry level accountant to spend most of my time working in accounting in an apprenticeship and much less time in the classroom. Many classes were not relevant and could be removed from the program with required courses spaced before, during and after several years of apprenticeship work.

It would have been better for me as a budding educator to spend time in college classrooms working with other teachers observing, team teaching and doing my own teaching. Again, some supporting coursework would have been beneficial with the majority of my credits and time spent in the classroom beginning to learn the craft and art of teaching.

It would have been better for me as a child to have spent several years in an environment similar to Happy Hearts or Summerhill. Instead of school as a struggle and an opposing foe to be conquered, school could have been a place to learn the basics of being a citizen as well as a time to learn about myself and my abilities and talents.

It would have also been better for Donovan to be in a Happy Hearts/Summerhill kind of place. It seems that Donovan would be better served by a curriculum which allows him to develop whatever abilities he does have whether artistic, emotional, communication, etc. It seems ridiculous to force someone for nearly 20 years to work on linguistics, for example, when the individual does not possess the ability to produce the proclaimed desired end result. Issues of bodily safety and emotional health seem more important in Donovan’s case than achieving set milestones in English, Science and Math. Perhaps the ultimate, proper and reasonable curriculum goal for Donovan could have been to develop as fully as possible into a functional member of society. This goal could be broken down into independence and personal care, communication and social interaction, and some kind of expression of intelligence, such as music in Donovan’s case. Curriculum is the ordered set of requirements leading to an academic credential. It can take infinite forms and expressions. Unfortunately, widely used, standard educational curriculums may not be effective at all, and in fact, may be causing harm.

Hello fellow TE 818er’s!

I am Suzanne Kiess, long time teacher girl and accountant. Now don’t let that bit about me being an accountant let you pigeon hole me. You could say that I am not your typical accountant. While the bachelor degree of my youth did lead me to my first career in public accounting, there have been many twists and turns along the way. You could say that I am not your typical accountant!

After a few years of working on audits with a CPA firm, I had to admit that I was a round peg trying to fit into any number of attractive square holes. It just wasn’t for me. I pursued many professional experiences in my 20’s ranging from professional musician to running a landscape company with my husband as well as staying home with my babies and a little adjunct teaching in accounting. It was the teaching that stole my heart.

I have a bachelor degree in accounting and a MBA that led to my teaching jobs. I have been teaching at a community college now for about 12 years in a tenured position with about 7 years before that as an adjunct instructor. I am an artsy-fartsy type and always seem to have a few artistic endeavors going. Right now, I am taking ballroom dance lessons and also weekly NIA dance and Zumba workout classes. I am practicing and learning piano music to accompany a group of high school band students at Solo and Ensemble competitions in February and April, which I have been doing every winter for several years now. Rehearsals will start soon. I also like to create things and have a few cross stitch and beaded Xmas ornaments in progress. And, I have come to honor myself as a writer with a few writing projects going, most importantly now my TE 818 blog experience.

I love working with college students, getting to know students and being a part of their lives during this critical transition time in their lives. While the logical-analytical nature of accounting work comes naturally to me, I am also quite drawn to the big picture questions of teaching and learning. Why do some of my students quit so easily even with so many resources and kind hearted people surrounding them? And why do some of my other students persist and excel even in the face of incredible adversity, financial devastation, criminal conviction, zero family support, zero history of academic success, etc.? Students fascinate me. As the years have ticked by, issues of curriculum have also come up. Does the lock-step undergraduate accounting curriculum truly align with what students and employers need in those first entry level jobs in the field? Why do we teach what we teach? I have read and read and read about teaching styles and learning styles and the like. I am ready for something a bit different in focus, a bit deeper in context. TE 818 looks like a good fit for this teacher girl.

Looking forward to TE 818

I am pleased and surprised to re-discover my blog from 2010. I must admit that I am a bit enamored with the idea of blogging and do follow several blogs on a regular basis. I love reading and thinking and reading and thinking some more. Blogs are great.

My journey with the MSU MEAD program began several years ago. I am irresistibly drawn to some reflection on my studies and coursework in the program. When I created my blog here in 2010, I was in the midst of my 2nd of 10 courses and a bit on edge with each new journey into uncharted technology from blogs to podcasts to moviemaker. I am now beginning my 9th of the 10 courses. Of all the things I find attractive and interesting about the description of TE 818, I am most drawn to the ideas of working with and wrestling with big, really big, messy questions about education. I have a feeling TE 818 will challenge me into these gray areas of thought and writing.

I take one course at a time while working full time, working several, varying additional projects and running a busy household full of teenagers. I find that I can completely immerse myself in each course by keeping each one separate and sacred. Sometimes I get lost in the research and reading in the most delightful manner of being lost. I especially like those courses which combine reading with visual examples such as TED Talk lectures, interactive websites and movies. What began as a pragmatic goal to acquire graduate credits has evolved into a passion for research and writing. I have re-learned who I really am and have achieved a taste of my capabilities. There is more for me beyond these courses and beyond my current employment. There is more to come, and I look forward to many challenges in the unfolding of the next chapters of my life.

CEP 800 Storytelling Project

The Story of the Origins of Learning
(Daniel and the Tuba)

This was an interesting experience working with my son, experimenting more with technology and considering deep thoughts about the origins of learning. I never imagined that I would be taking sides with Plato! After finding Emily Bear and then listening to my son describe his learning process, I knew that was my angle. Yes, indeed, in some cases, knowledge is truly innate. Suzanne McKee

Click Here: CEP 800 Podcast Project MCKEE

Suzanne McKee's Podcast Project is complete! This was an interesting and challenging project. I struggled with Audacity, downloading it, using it and exporting it. In the end, I accomplished all that I was trying to do and more. I have been curious about using podcasts in some of my courses but have been hesitant to give it a try. This project has immersed me in Audacity and given me a wonderful introduction into creating podcasts.

Technology Steps:
Download Audacity (make sure it’s the right version for the operating system used)
Work in Audacity in WAV format
Download converter to be able to use WMA audio and convert to WAV
Save as WAV in Audacity
Download LAME
Export from Audacity to MP3 using LAME
Create a webpage account at box.net
Load the MP3 file to box.net
Link the webpage at box.net to the blog
Post the blog to the class in Angel

Bridge to Mosaic

So much of my life has been spent feeling pulled in different directions. This winter was a defining experience illustrating this internal push and pull. My teaching job had me pulled in two very different directions serving my department as chair and teaching a full load. My MSU course had me pulled in personal and intellectual directions that felt even more sub defined and different. I would like to take a moment to reflect and think about the various art topics and modules I worked on during CEP 882 to get a better idea of what I have learned in this journey.

Photography

There is some kind of artist deep within me that longs to get out and play. I have never tried to take good pictures before and found the process intriguing. Whether the subject is a landscape, a person or an event, the process is both thoughtful and intuitive. I can say the exact same thing about my better moments in the classroom. I need to be prepared and ready for class, just as to take good pictures, I need to have my camera charged and with me ready for action. Yet, in the moment, I may need to improvise and follow something other than the plan to really reach my students and have a great class session. Similarly, great photography is improvisational depending on the light that day and the flow of activity and all of the many variables that come into play. I see many similarities between taking great pictures and pulling off a great class session. Be thoughtful and intuitive.

Movie Making

For a variety of reasons, I would have never in a million years considered putting together little movies. Now, I am having inspirations on a regular basis for personal and professional applications for the program Windows Movie Maker. While the storytelling and artistic is of utmost important, the piece of this that was so critical for me was simply being exposed to and learning how to sue the technology. It would seem that there is no limit to the creativity that can be unleashed when planning and producing a mini movie project. There is the thesis, the music, the files, the text, the narration and on and on. My lesson here was to be creative and techy. I have been teaching accounting online for many years now. Accounting is probably not the best subject for the online world, but students are depending online occupational programs, and so I give it my best shot from one year to the next. Windows Movie Maker opens up a whole new world of online teaching possibilities for me. This is a tool that will greatly and very positively impact my teaching. Be creative and embrace technology.

Interior Design

I have considered interior design before, but I have never studied it in a serious manner. I am still fired up from this module. I have checked out interior design books from the library and started an idea book on my home. It is a sort of sketch book for ideas on everything from moving walls and making major transformational changes to ideas on paint colors and furniture rearrangement ideas that can be quickly and immediately implemented. Some of the big ideas that really stuck with me in this module are that silence can be powerful and complexity is not necessarily better than simplicity. I can really relate to the author’s point of view that as Americans our motto that “Bigger is Better” has gotten quite out of hand. We are spending and borrowing ourselves into oblivion. We live in huge houses and spend nearly all of our time away from each other. When I consider my teaching, it is not the physical space that matters. In my circumstance in teaching at a community college, it is not possible for me to design and decorate my own classroom. I rotate and teach in a variety of room assignments, which constantly change from one semester to the next. What inspires me about interior design concepts is the idea of space and simplicity. Keep it simple. Allow time for silence and pauses. Encourage students to have their own precious moments to think and analyze and develop their own thoughts unspoiled by a know-it-all, talks-a-lot student or even by an instructor that just won’t shut up. I have been playing with this idea in my morning Principles of Accounting I class. I set up short periods of time when the students think individually in silence to process and take us to the next level. I was afraid of silence. I was afraid that they would shut down. My experience has been quite to the contrary. This group is progressing at a faster and deeper rate than other similar groups. They are also quite talkative and engaged. These short bits of time for thinking have not dampened their engagement at all. Use silence and be simple.

Music

I adore music and have studied and performed for years. I was really looking forward to this module. Looking at music this time from a different perspective helped me to see that practice and variety are so important. Effective, powerful, inspired teaching requires many years of practice, preparation, study and improvisation. There is no one formula for becoming a great teacher. It takes a lot of time and willingness to experiment. The same could be said of becoming a great musician. It takes a lot of practice! Compelling music and compelling teaching include lots of variety. There are big moments and small moments, individual applications and group applications, and all sorts of flavors and moods and colors. In summary: practice and mix it up.

Fashion

Now this was a concept I had never given any thought to at all. After allowing this to sink in a bit and settle, I have more ideas on the subject than I did while going through the module. Most folks develop a wardrobe of clothes over the years. It is an accumulation of practical items, items on sale, special items and gifted items. This collection of clothes becomes our face to the world. Similarly in teaching, we pick up a certain way to work a lesson plan, a certain way to start a class, and end a class, and certain ways of doing things. It is our teaching wardrobe and how we present ourselves officially and outwardly to the world in our profession. The trouble is…it doesn’t take any time at all for our clothes and our ideas to become outdated. We regularly need to let go and take on the new, and this is a very hard thing to do. Be open to change and growth.

My mosaic is the composite of what I have learned in CEP 882 about how to live life well, create good art, and become a great teacher. My mosaic includes these key concepts:
 Be thoughtful and intuitive.
 Be creative and embrace technology.
 Use silence and be simple.
 Practice well and mix it up.
 Be open to change and growth.
 Never stop learning & growing!

What does it feel like when art is compelling?

Let me take a moment to focus on what it feels like for me when I experience compelling art. It is a deeply emotional, interior feeling. It is overwhelming and even embarrassing to feel that much. Sometimes I wonder if others feel what I feel. It could be compared to a deep religious experience. It takes over all aspects of my being.

Having studied yoga and the chakra system, it is a similar, complete mind-body experience. It effects all of my chakras at once. From my root chakra up through the sacral, naval, heart, throat, third eye, up and out through my crown chakra. The most recent compelling experience I had with an art form was my attendance at a rehearsal of the african drum ensemble, which is the focus of my WOA project for CEP 882. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor observing the rehearsal and letting myself go and be in the moment. As the drumming crescendoed, I felt the music throughout all of my being. The room was literally shaking from all of the movement and action, my root chakra was engaged and stirred up. There is a sensuality about drumming. The drum is secured between the players legs and becomes an extension of the person. Seeing this intimacy between player and drum engaged my sacral chakra. The players are thinking and playing and singing and chanting and playing. They are breathing and really sweating up a storm. Feeling this heat in the room from this exercise engaged my naval, deep breathing chakra. My heart was full. I felt alive and grateful and full of joy. My heart chakra may have been the most engaged of all. Throughout the drumming is lots of chanting and calling and singing back and forth from leader to players and back again. My throat chakra was also engaged sensing this communication. I had a lump in my throat as if I might cry at any moment. I was so full of emotion, I was ready to burst. I started having moments of insights into my life. My thoughts wandered from the meaning of life, to the goals of education, to how this particular leader was teaching and guiding without teaching, to what I really want to do with life, and on and on and around and around. My third eye was engaged and inspired to high levels of thought. My spirit was also stirred. Like a top note of a fine perfume, my thoughts wafted to ideas of sacred significance in this music. Surely there must be a god in this inspiring, captivating music. These thoughts and thankfulness about God indicate that even my crown chakra was in play.

For me, a truly compelling experience with the arts is a complete mind-body experience that moves my soul to higher places not at all a part of my common everyday experience. These moments affirm my humanity and thankfulness for being alive.

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