“Chop one red onion finely....”: teachers as ‘curriculum makers’
Last week, I was making a shepherd’s pie, following a recipe in a
cookbook. I came to the instruction “Chop one red onion finely”,
and went to the fridge. There was no red onion, so I picked up my
car keys and went to get fish and chips instead...
Of course, I didn’t...
I changed the recipe from the one in the cookbook. I used – get this
– a shallot instead, and I chopped it coarsely...
I also substituted balsamic vinegar for Worcestershire sauce, a
bouillon cube for Oxo, red Leicester for Cheddar cheese and some
passata for tomato puree...
Guess what, it still turned out to be a shepherd’s pie... and quite a
tasty one...
OK, so what has this got to do with your NQT year ?
Well... on your first visit to your new school you will, if you’re lucky
be handed some schemes of work for the various year groups that
you will be teaching, which will vary tremendously in the level of
detail, mapping of PLTS, timings, resource lists, assessment
outcomes, literacy mapping, differentiation opportunities, and a
long list of other things. These may reflect school policy, and follow
a standard format. You may feel that some of the sections are
irrelevant, or overly complicated, or that other important things are
missing. They may well be tied closely to a particular textbook as
the key resource to be handed out and opened to a particular page.
(I hope this doesn’t happen too often...)
This is the ‘recipe’ that you may be asked to follow when teaching
particular year groups...
I would say that, at the earliest opportunity you should “vary the
recipe” to suit your tastes. If the students are happily discussing the
results of their group work, don’t call a halt just because the lesson
plan says you should... go with the flow... vary the tasks... think
about the sequence.
Discuss your reasons for doing this with your mentor and other
colleagues, and reflect on the results...
Consider the diagram below. It describes what we call “living
geography” or “curriculum making”.
Curriculum making is defined as:
“the creation of interesting, engaging and challenging educational
experiences which draw upon teacher knowledge and skills, the
experiences of students and the valuable subject resource that is
geography.”
The aim should be to begin to design a curriculum which looks for
the overlaps in the diagram.
The missing ingredient in the lesson plans that you have been given
may well be the student experiences. These can feed into the lesson
planning if they are allowed too. Also think about the opportunities
that have been provided for students to ‘think geographically’.
There has also been a welcome move from students merely
‘consuming’ the curriculum (“watch this video”) to ‘creating’ the
curriculum (“make a video...”) One thing that we have also seen
time and time again when reading through submissions for our
Secondary Geography Quality Mark, is that exciting lessons lead to
a dramatic reduction in challenging / negative classroom
behaviours.
As you gain confidence, you might try going a little further away
from the recipe. You might also discover that the original recipe
was already the best, and your slight changes didn’t actually
improve the end result. Some recipes are ‘classic’ after all...
At the end of the lesson, the students will have hopefully
progressed a little further in their development as geographers and
can begin to articulate this over time.
A final aspect of using my analogy...
As I was cooking the pie, I tasted it, and I thought it was quite
good... The true test came, of course, when the people I was
making it for tasted it. You might have what you think is the best
lesson ever, but it needs to be tested with some consumers with
‘discerning’ tastes. Think about this as being your ‘formative
assessment’: a chef can taste their food, but it’s the customers’
decision that matters.
A final pie-related metaphor... if all you had to eat was shepherd’s
pie every day, you’d get a bit fed up of it. Don’t overuse any
particular technique, resource or pedagogical approach. The phrase
‘death by worksheet’ is just as likely to have been replaced these
days with ‘death by mystery/YouTube clip/IWB drag and drop’ etc.
So whether your teaching style is a bit Heston Blumenthal
(experimental, wacky, creative ??), Delia Smith (insert appropriate
metaphors here) or Jamie Oliver (ditto) have fun, keep tasting as
you go, and remember that you don’t always have to buy the most
expensive ingredients to end up with a tasty meal.
Bon appétit !
References
http://www.geographyteachingtoday.org.uk/curriculum-making/introduction/ - Curriculum making
http://geography.org.uk/projects/makinggeographyhappen/ - some recipes to follow
http://livinggeography.blogspot.com – the author’s main blog...
http://geography.org.uk/Journals/Journals.asp?articleID=719 – an article for ‘Geography’ written by
the author on food as a context for learning....
Alan Parkinson
Secondary Curriculum Development Leader
Geographical Association
http://www.geography.org.uk