In my math classes growing up, there wasn’t much room for discrimination when talking about the pure math questions. When we would discuss word problems or use the textbook other races and cultures had the opportunity to be represented. The textbook we used did incorporate pictures of students with diverse backgrounds and included them in examples by using names from other cultures and even some traditions. Hanukah was a holiday represented in a math problem that incorporated other cultures into the textbook and into the math questions. Although the textbook made an effort to have other cultures and races present the textbook only went as far as names from other cultures and some pictures of other races. Beyond the pictures and names there weren’t questions that pertained to many other cultures and the questions were still directed towards white students in the dominant culture.

Inuit math is based on very practical problems and solutions. This is different from the Eurocentric math where there are a lot of equation-based questions with graph problems being solved. In the Inuit math the problems being solved are useful for daily life and have a more practical approach to them. Lots of students feel what they learn in math isn’t useful and often ask when they will actually use the information. In the Inuit math the problems are based through practical approaches and useful information. The Inuit math is also influenced by the environment, culture, and language. Eurocentric math isn’t always influenced by the environment or the culture and language of those learning it like Inuit math is.

              Before this weeks reading, I never really thought much about how I read the world or the lenses I have that shape the world I see. Growing up I came from a smaller town where everyone in my class was mainly white with mainly white female teachers. I was never really exposed to anything else until I got to high school where I saw other cultures in my school and more than just female teachers. Since I was growing up in an environment where there were mainly white students and white female teachers, I never really had to think about how this lens shapes how I read the world. The biases and lenses I bring into the classroom would first be growing up in an environment where I am part of the dominant culture and never put in a situation where I had to deal with being discriminated against. These lenses I have formed growing up can really be challenged when I am faced with a situation where there aren’t just white people.

              Some ways we might unlearn/work against these biases would be first to acknowledge that we all have these biases and sometimes it’s not something we have full control of but we can change how we act and respond to situations. By learning about biases, we can better deal with them when in situations where we need to control the biases we have towards other people. As teachers we need to understand that many of our students may come from cultures and races where they are discriminated against and bias is very present in their everyday lives. Even actions we think aren’t biased may still have some bias in them without us realizing because of the lenses we have when viewing the world. By being aware of the biases we have and working on how they alter the way we read the world can help us in helping our students.  

       The “single stories” that were present in my schooling would be that boys are better at sports and the typical blue-eyed white person as the one who is superior. Other stories include the western family or ideal family being the “normal” family. These stories aren’t necessarily accurate or correct but they are constantly repeated in media and in schools so we feel that they are the only story. Having these single stories doesn’t allow us to get the full picture about someone or where they come from. In the video, Chimamanda Adichie talks about how we see these single stories and assume we know everything about someone even though we only see a part of them. Since we assume and judge before we actually know the person and their situation, we use these single stories when we read the world and those around us.

Through my schooling, I don’t remember much about citizenship education and don’t think I really had a class where that is what we learned. Citizenship is one of those topics that tended to be incorporated in other places in the curriculum. Most of the citizenship education I got was probably through social studies class. When I was in grade 10 wellness it was a requirement to do 10 hours of volunteering and I remember at the time I was already very involved in my school council that I didn’t really struggle to get hours or find places to volunteer. Most of the other students in my class struggled a lot to find places to volunteer and most of us struggled with understanding what can count as volunteering and what doesn’t. I come from a smaller school so for us we all always helped and did volunteering we just didn’t realize that we could say what we were doing was volunteering. Other than that, I didn’t really get any citizenship education that was explicit and rather it was incorporated in other subjects.

             When I think back to the types of citizenship that I did learn about the most prominent one would be the personally-responsible citizen as we were taught to donate to organizations and “do our part” without really knowing what our part was. It was also encouraged that as young high school students we get out in the community and help out through volunteering whenever we could. I was part of my student council and so I did a lot of planning for events such as food drives making me fall into the participatory citizen category while still participating and being a personally-responsible citizen. In schools, it’s not the most encouraged to become a justice-orientated citizen as this may backfire on schools if a student were to stand up against the school, but this type of citizen was never really talked about as much as the other two types and kind of brushed over. Although I never knew the names or types of citizenship it was still explained to us in a way where there is a distinction between types of citizens.

             It would be beneficial if students learned the different types of citizens rather than just being told to do our part or be better people. I never explicitly learned the different types of citizens and that can be beneficial to students to learn what type of citizens there are and allows the students to further learn about citizenship. As I said earlier, I never really had citizenship education as it was just added into other subject areas and talked about for a brief second. As citizens, it is important to understand the types which can also help us understand what it means to be good citizens and do our part in the community. If we have a community that acknowledges whether or not they are participatory citizens it can help other people also want to help more or get involved in the community. Having this education more explicit can also possibly create more justice-orientated citizens.  

Through watching the videos and reading the articles I have furthered my learning and understanding of the importance of treaty education in the classroom. I didn’t really have treaty education when I was growing up but I am now seeing more and more the importance of treaty education in the classroom.  It’s important to understand that treaty education affects everyone and not just First Nations people.

              In response to the email, it really is unfortunate that so many schools and teachers don’t feel the need to teach treaty education or think that it has a purpose in school. I would suggest to this intern to start by having a conversation with the coop teacher and explain to her your perspective as to why you believe treaty education should be taught. It could be that the coop teacher never learned much about treaty education themselves and don’t even know how to go about the topic. By having this conversation maybe something can be figured out in order to incorporate treaty education in the classroom and the coop teacher may learn something too. Some points I would make during this conversation would be to first start off saying that even though there aren’t any First Nations students in the class or school it is still important to learn about. Everyone living in Canada has come from some sort of settler background which makes treaty education important to everyone and not just First Nations people. Since we are all settlers at one point or another, treaties and treaty education is an important part of our history. If you are learning about the history of Canada there would be a huge chunk missing if you didn’t include the treaties and First Nations people in some way and if we don’t include treaty education in the history or the classroom we are just creating another generation of students who are clueless on the topic. This topic of treaty education isn’t going away and we need our students to be educated and exposed to this learning.

              In Dwayne Donald’s lecture title “On What Terms Can We Speak” he talked about how many people don’t want to teach Treaty education and residential schools because they want that to be done and to put it in the past (11:43). The problem is that this isn’t over and treaty education is still very important and we need to be teaching our students about them.  “There is a disconnect (On What Terms Can We Speak, 12:08)” and when this disconnect occurs the two sides of the table tend to not understand one another and results in one side not being heard or acknowledged. In schools, we strive to have our students feel heard and when we aren’t giving them all of the information or skipping out on pieces of the story, we aren’t allowing them to learn the whole story. If we want future generations to appreciate those who roamed the land before us and work on things such as reconciliation, we need to teach students about treaty education. “This last chance to stop moving, to start listening (Chambers pp. 35)” is very important because if we continue to not teach treaty education in schools we may lose the opportunity to make things right. As Cynthia said, it’s very important to stop ignoring this topic and take action because we need to start listening to one another in order to make things right. Our students have the ability to change the world and we need to help them do that by teaching them all aspects of their history and to teach them about the land they walk on everyday.

              One misconception that might also be present in this situation would be that treaty education is only for First Nations people when really it affects all of us. We are all treaty people and we all should have exposure to treaty education as it affects our past, present, and future. If we skip out on treaty education then many students will have no idea why some people acknowledge the land we are on or why certain ceremonies occur. The land we are living on is important to every generation that steps foot on it so why not teach the students about the history. Our students deserve to know their history and to be given the knowledge to make a positive impact on treaty education in Canada. We need to explain to people and show them the importance of treaty education because it affects us everyday whether we realize it or not.

Part 1) School curricula is mainly developed by experts on the particular topic with teachers of the subject area also included in high numbers (Levin 2007, pp 17). There are other groups of people involved in developing and implementing the curricula such as government officials, post-secondary subject experts, and other groups such as parents, community members, companies and more (Levin 2007, pp.17). When the curriculum is under review or renewal those listed above that are involved in the developing and implementing gather to examine the existing curriculum and try to come to a conclusion of what to change, what to keep and what to get rid of all together. It takes a long time to revise or renew the curriculum and can be a lengthy process if solutions and arrangements to the curriculum are not found or agreed upon. A lot of work goes into making sure that what is included in the curriculum is what the group of developers see fit to be in the curriculum.

New information from this reading I have gathered would be how many people are involved in developing curricula. It’s surprising to see what kind of people are involved and who has the most say when it comes to deciding what actually gets included and what doesn’t. Something that concerned me about how curricula is made would be how expert dominated it is. As a future elementary teacher, it can be quite difficult to teach curricula that is made for an expert to teach when I have no expert background in the subject area. As a teacher who doesn’t have the expertise of all subjects it can be quite a challenge to teach when it is made for those with the expertise in the subject. This is also concerning because it raises the question of how much do experts really know about how students learn and what learning methods work in the classroom? If the experts don’t know what is happening in the classroom and how students learn then why are they the ones with the most say in developing curricula?

Part 2) When I was growing up treaty education was trying to be included in every subject area but never really made a point or a purpose as to why it was incorporated in multiple subject areas. I learned the same information year after year and never learned much about treaties or the purpose about why we would talk about them. Since I never learned until my later high school years or more in depth in university the importance of treaty education and why it was incorporated in multiple subject areas, I never knew the purpose. I believe that this can be seen as a disconnect when the curriculum is being made. The experts making the curricula don’t always connect treaty education in with the outcomes as this piece of information isn’t necessary to include in subjects to some developers. With the treaty education being implemented it makes a purpose to incorporate treaty education into the curriculum, but how it is implemented can effect how it is being delivered to the students.

Some tensions that could have been part of developing treaty education curriculum would be that most curriculum is made by experts that have a colonizer background and/or view point. This can be an issue because instead of wanting to incorporate other people and their way of life into the curriculum they fight against it as it doesn’t follow what they believe. Another issue could be that many indigenous people have experienced events differently and there could be tension in trying to create treaty education with multiple perspectives involved. Some community voices could also have been an issue when creating the treaty education curriculum as many people don’t feel it is important or don’t want their children learning about this important topic. Although these tensions may not have happened, they are possible as making any type of curriculum comes with challenges as so many people involved have different opinions and perspectives.

Throughout the article there were points where reinhabition was being done and other parts where decolonization was still occurring. One reinhabititon part was the overall project of having youth and elders work together on a project. The youth would interview the elders and learn through their stories. They would make audio documentaries out of the findings and stories that they learned from the elders. There were also youth groups formed to connect the youth to elders. This project helped the youth in the community gain an understanding of where they come from and what is important to them. Decolonization occurs when the land is being destroyed or injured which has been happening. The elders are huge advocates to protect the land and all it has to offer as the land is very important to the people and the youth. It is also important to protect the land for many generations to come.

              As a future educator it is very important that we understand how vast our classrooms will be as we will have students from all over with varying backgrounds. It’s important to have a welcoming environment for all of our students to feel safe and accepted. The ideas presented in the article can allow us to bring in discussion about how important the land is to us. The land is something we rely so heavily on and we must protect it. Bringing in an elder and their wisdom can also help in teaching students first hand how important it is to learn and understand reinhabition and decolonization.  

A “good” student is a student who is able to follow rules and learn course material a certain way and retain certain information from their learning. Now not all students are the same and not every student fits the description of a “good” student. This doesn’t make the other students bad but those other students don’t follow what society believes is the “right” way to learn. Those students who can learn the way society wants them to learn and those considered “good” are the ones privileged. If you can learn the way society wants you to learn then you are a “good” student and privileged because you are able to do so. These common sense ideas don’t allow for students who learn in other ways the chance to learn in their own way. Society has put a label on learning and says it must be taught this way and the students will learn it through this one form of learning. This can cause problems as not every student will learn the same way and take the same points away from each lesson. When students are learning we must be giving them the opportunity to learn in various ways and teach them that everyone learns differently. Since these common sense ideas believe that students should learn certain lessons and learn in a certain way it can make it hard for the students who learn differently or aren’t that interested in the topics being taught and would rather learn about something more interesting and engaging.

The common sense idea that students need to be taught certain lessons and in a certain way follows the same pattern that the students are just glasses needing to be filled. A quote from the reading that stood out was “Sometimes the person filling the glass is the teacher(through lectures or guided discussions), and sometimes it is the student (through discovery or collaborative inquiry), but the goal remains the same: to fill the glass”(Kumashiro, 2010). This quote stood out because no matter what at the end of the day its supposed to be the teacher’s job to just fill the students up with information. Of course, this doesn’t actually work because so many students come into school with previous knowledge that needs to be added onto and in some cases corrected. Again, the idea that the “good” students learn one way and they are just there to have their cup filled is something that doesn’t actually work in the classroom no matter how much pressure society puts on it to work this one way. It also reminds us that the “bad” students might not actually be bad but rather they may learn differently and may just be interested in different topics.

In the article “The Effect of Hidden Curriculum on Character Education Process of Primary School Students” it talks about how the hidden curriculum in schools is very important and can impact the students and their character. Creating a student’s character involves a lot of outside influences as the child is growing up especially by their peers. The article talks about how some pieces of the hidden curriculum can really affect how a student develops and can either impact them in a positive or negative way. Although the hidden curriculum is not specifically stated anywhere on official documents it is a huge part in a child’s learning at school. Most pieces of the hidden curriculum are learning that occurs through experience and interactions with others. Most say that attitude, feelings, values, and habits can be huge pieces of hidden curriculum that are very important but often overlooked (Wren, 1999).

              In the article there is a quote that states “Hidden curriculum covers the organization atmosphere which is formed by the interaction of both symbolic and social of school culture” (Wren, 1999). This quote really stood out to me because it directly says that hidden curriculum is the atmosphere and the interaction of social and school culture which is something that can’t be directly taught out of a textbook. The idea behind this type of curriculum is that although it is not directly stated it is implied that teachers teach it and help their students develop their own values and beliefs. Most teachers are able to teach the hidden curriculum through the relationships a teacher makes with their students and their class.

              The next steps in writing the critical summary would be to find two other articles about hidden curriculum. I have already looked and have found an article about hidden curriculum being present in medical school classes. I have also found an article about the hidden curriculum being present during recess time. Although these other two articles are also discussing the topic of hidden curriculum, they also show a different perspective as they are analyzed not in the typical classroom setting. The articles represent the various places hidden curriculum can be found aside from the basic classroom and how important hidden curriculum is.

The Tyler rationale is still used in many schools today. In my own experience being in school especially at the high school level this way of learning curriculum was very present. When I was in high school the main goal as a student wasn’t really to learn the material, it was more so, finish this so I can pass the class. The reason it felt like this was because the students are expected to complete a massive amount of work in a short time with little creativity or opportunity to learn in a way that best suites them. The students constantly are having to meet requirements and do several tasks that make it feel like you just have to get the to do list done whether you learn or not. Many students are slower at learning certain subjects and deal with having to just reiterate a textbook on a test to finish and move on to the next task at hand. I am someone who is a very visual learner and don’t get the most out of my learning if I am only reading out of a textbook. This Tyler rationale isn’t a process or approach to learning that works for every student.

              Some limitations of the Tyler rationale would be causing the learners to have “little to no voice” (Smith, 2000 pg. 4). Although this isn’t the goal it tends to happen as the students aren’t given as many opportunities to express their own learning and understanding, rather they just take in information. Another problem is that students are told what they must learn and how they will learn it (Smith, 2000 pg. 4). This can be problematic as so many students learn differently and in their own way. There are so many ways we can teach a certain subject or topic and we shouldn’t have to limit the way we teach instead we should explore as many options as possible so our students can learn in their own way. Many times there are certain objectives that need to be covered and it can tend to feel like a to do list where you just go and check things off even though that task might not be fully understood by the students. This way of teaching the curriculum is very process based and not giving the opportunity to explore the topic in other dimensions of life or past experiences.

              The benefits would be that as a teacher all of your students are checking off every objective needed to be learned and if they can check off the objective they can continue moving onto the next task. This can also make the teachers work a lot easier because they teach the subject one way and expect the students to also learn the same way and show that on the test. It can make the teaching of the subject easier as you just teach the topic as it is. This process approach makes it easy to explain expectations and to plan as you go through certain steps of instruction followed by a form of assessment. This isn’t the best way to teach but it is a way that many teachers default to when they don’t know how to teach in other ways or to make the task simpler and to the point.

              Although Tyler had many good questions and expectations for this way of learning, it doesn’t support every student in the classroom nor does it support every teacher. Every teacher and student will learn and teach differently depending on their preference and experiences. Learning shouldn’t be just checking off a box to say that you understood enough of a certain objective and moving onto the next in order to get it done and pass. Learning shouldn’t be just learning a bunch of information that is right from a textbook and then tested on what information you read. This rationale doesn’t allow for creativity and aid the various learners and their learning techniques.