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Eisner points out how the more rigid hierarchical structure of school likely continues to exist because it's good training for those who end up in hierarchical workplaces (p. 91). In this case, I believe the idea to create initiative in students through allowing them to map their own learning (p. 89) is actually more useful than this hierarchical system. A complaint I often hear from employers in my hometown is how a lot of their employees "slack off" for the rest of their shift after they finish the list of tasks given to them. I think if people have been taught initiative, they are more likely to self-motivate and look for ways to improve their workplace themselves. This is just part of the equation, considering there could be a myriad of reasons why an employee isn't working, but I think it would be more useful, not only for the job, but for the employee themselves. Taking initiative requires being present and, in my opinion, if you're working 35-40 hours a week, it's better to be using that time actively engaged and thinking, rather than shutting your brain off and following orders until there are none left to follow.
Another interesting idea in Eisner's article was that of how much time is allotted to each subject and the choices of subjects available to students as core subjects or electives. I was always aware of this to some degree but I just assumed it was a convention we followed and that we could make choices once we left high school. However, I hadn't thought about how these decisions fed public perception of each subject. I also imagined what it would be like if everyone learned their basic language, math, science etc. skills in elementary/middle school, and was allowed to start exploring subjects they preferred in high school. Would that start to shift public perception or would it just switch to people viewing the basic skills classes as superior? Also, as far as I understand it, electives can be cancelled if there isn't enough enrollment. I thought about all courses effectively becoming "electives" in high school, and if Math 9 had been cancelled, I would have been devastated. But that's probably the same devastation students who want to pursue arts feel when their classes don't run, yet we've just come to accept that as normal now. As I don't think this system is going to come to be for a long time, if ever, I thought about how I could work within the system. I think it would be interesting to see if I could cater lessons in my own classroom to try to allow students to explore their own personal fields of interest in a way that still fulfills the curriculum goals of the subject.
Although the newer curriculum includes ideas of incorporating social emotional learning, Indigenous knowledge, expanding knowledge, and taking risks in discussions, which are all important aspects of learning apart from the subject, they are still presented as add-ons to an existing system that continues to place unconscious weight on some subjects over others, doesn't address the fact that subjects are sorted into logical or emotional categories, and allows for a lot of variation among teachings. To me, it seems like the curriculum allows those who are more traditional to comfortably continue in their style while introducing one or two lessons in each of the boxes they need to check, while at the same time, it allows teachers who want to push past the rigid structure to expand the minds of their students and take perspectives like Eisner's into consideration. Using this freedom, I think it is important that we as teachers emphasize to our students that there is more to math than logic and facts, and that art also has it's advancements and techniques that they haven't necessarily been exposed to. Also, showing the overlap between subjects could be useful in getting this point across.
As a side note, I have recently been trying to learn Kathak dance, which requires intricate technique and precision. Even for basic footwork, it is easy to become lost if you aren't concentrating enough. Because of its mathematical nature (a pattern repeats precisely within a 16-beat cycle), becoming lost throws off the entire dance as it is hard to rejoin unless you are close to a checkpoint.
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