EDUC 897 - Spring 2005 - CURRICULUM INQUIRY   
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DSTP items - For March 10
In the pages passed out on March 3, please fill in pages 2 & 9 and turn them in on Thursday. In the next steps, you will want to compare how you see the student responses later with how you see them this first time, so pages 3 & 10 are for your use to keep a record of what you will be turning in this week (or you could just make a photocopy of pp. 2 & 9 after they're filled in).
    I see that one line from the directions on page 2 got moved to the top of page 3. Just look at page 3 and you will see both lines together.

Readings For Thursday, March 10 (Week 5)
    and Week 4 miniproject for midnight Sunday, March 6

Note: This might look like a lot, because there are so many links. The amount of reading is not that much, however: The most substantial items are the three "critical reviews" of Hirsch, and the excerpts from Perelman (which may be read as an alternative, instead of two of those reviews). The other assigned items are mainly newspaper articles plus the transcript of the panel discussion on the Newshour program.

note: For the miniproject, you are asked to focus on "the most fundamental differences between Hirsch and ONE of the other panelists (Coles, Angelou, or Welsh)," and I have recommended that you do this BEFORE you do the other readings.

After our class meeting on March 3, I think I should reiterate this, and flag the readings that do pertain to the miniproject. You can do the miniproject after reading just the transcript of the Newshour panel, although I think it would also be helpful to read the background item on the other panelist that you choose to discuss. Again, I am recommending that you do this before you have read the longer and denser critical reviews. The items intended for your use on the miniproject are now flagged with this green button. See also the note added below the original directions, at the bottom of this page.

  1. E. D. Hirsch's "Cultural Literacy"

  2.  [Option B] Does Perelman's technology-based "Hyperlearning" give us a way to escape thorny conflicts and controversies over prescribed curriculum?
    Excerpts from School’s out: Hyperlearning, the new technology and the end of education, by Lewis Perelman
    (note: I have numbered the paragraphs to make it easier for us to refer to them in class discussion)
    Does technology provide the answers? Perelman proposes a technology-based alternative to schooling -- would this deliver not only the benefits that he describes, but also a way to avoid the conflicts surrounding Hirsch, and the court cases as well?
    To help you decide whether to read the excerpts linked above [Option B] or the reviews of Hirsch by Buras and by Kohl [Option A], you might want to click on this link to see four brief (1-paragraph) abstracts of Perelman's book.
    Optional Supplement - Turkle: How Computers Change the Way We Think
    Turkle writes: "Computer simulations enable their users to think about complex phenomena as dynamic, evolving systems. But they also accustom us to manipulating systems whose core assumptions we may not understand and that may not be true." Are there such assumptions presupposed in Perelman's argument?
  3. Vouchers and consumer choice:

miniproject

Week 4 miniproject on the rationale for Hirsch's "Cultural Literacy" program
please note:
This is the miniproject that was scheduled for Week 4, based on the readings that were scheduled for discussion that week on March 3. Although discussion of those readings is postponed until Week 5 (March 10) because of the weather cancellation, this miniproject is not postponed until Week 5. Please submit this miniproject before midnight Sunday night, March 6. Before midnight Sunday, you will only be able to see your own posted essay. After everybody's miniprojects are posted at midnight, I will change the setting so that you can see everybody's responses, and we can respond to each other's ideas on the Webtalk discussion board, and then continue our discussion of the issues in class on Thursday, March 10.

directions for the miniproject:
After you have read the transcript of the Newshour panel discussion, and the supplemental background information on the other panelists, please write a brief essay on what you see as the most fundamental differences between Hirsch and ONE of the other panelists (Coles, Angelou, or Hirsch).

(Note: I recommend that you do this BEFORE you read any of the critical reviews appearing after that on the list above.) These "underlying fundamental differences" may or may not be differences that the panelists themselves recognize as such. What are the differences in thinking that are fundamental (i.e., at the foundation) in the sense of being at the root of issues that emerge from the differing approaches of the panelists? In terms of how these issues should be decided, what kinds of differences are these?: For example, are these differences the KIND of differences that could be definitively settled by the right kind of factual or empirical research? Or are they differences that will need to be decided on some other basis? How?

added note: There seemed to be some feeling of relief in class Thursday, March 3, when I said that the miniproject can and should be done after doing just the reading on the Newshour panel, and that I'm looking for a memorandum of your thinking at that point -- I am not looking for a correct answer, or your final answer to these questions. The point is to register what you see as the "most fundamental differences" at the point when you have only gone as deep as that initial reading. The plan is that you will see more deeply into the issues

Articulating that first response accomplishes at least two things:

  1. it gives the whole class a platform to build on, in electronic and classroom discussion that will take us beyond our initial understanding from the first readings, and
  2. it gives you a written record of your own initial understanding from those first readings, which you can reflect back on later to see the difference between what you saw initially, and what you are able to see and understand differently (hopefully a deeper, more perspicuous understanding) as an outcome of the discussions we have all gone through together as a class.

This might be different from some habits that are inculcated through our years of schooling. There's a tradition that encourages you to think that I assigned the readings because they contain the information that you are supposed to ingest, and then you are supposed to prove that you have swallowed it all by doing something smart with the information. I'm not asking for that kind of smart demonstration. Instead, I'm asking for an articulation of a starting-point on this leg of a continuing journey, which is the curriculum of this course.

Finally, because of the purposes sketched out above, I want to repeat that the mini-projects do not require lengthy papers with finished, perfect form. You should try to be as clear as possible. That could require some work getting your thoughts clear in your own mind, as well as expressing them clearly for others. If you can do that in a paragraph or two, that's fine. If you are inspired to write at greater length, that's OK too, although I would say three pages (or about 750 words) is about the maximum that anyone should write for any miniproject. The purpose is to articulate as clearly as you are ready to do, at this point, your conceptual understanding and the reasoning for your response to the issues presented by the readings.

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link to Miniproject for Week 5: Response to Weaver's argument about curriculum