“Knowing It All”: Conceptualizing the Curriculum for the Preparation and Practice of Elementary Teachers

Session Submission Type: Symposium

Abstract

Assuming, as do the conference organizers, that simple knowing is not enough, we explore ways to reconceptualize and reclaim the elementary school curriculum that has been so co-opted in recent years by scripted curricula, a proliferation of fact-based standards, the elimination of all subject matters except reading and mathematics, and high-stakes standardized fill-in-the-bubble testing. We look at multiple relevant issues through a variety of lenses from different institutions, continents, and intervention arenas; that is, we consider what the implications of an epistemological/ethical/political orientation intended to promote the aims of greater equity and social justice might be for both the curricula used by elementary teachers and the curricula used to prepare them in teacher education programs.

Sub Unit

• Division B - Curriculum Studies / Section 1: Critical Perspectives and Practices

Chair

• D. Jean Clandinin, University of Alberta

Papers

• “New Tools, New House”: Shifting the Emphasis From Substance to Syntax in the Elementary Curriculum - Vicki K. LaBoskey, Mills College

• Working From Inside-Out and Outside-In: Radical Curriculum Reform in a Postcolonial South African Context - Carol R. Rodgers, University at Albany - SUNY; Noluthando Toni, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University; Denise Margot Zinn, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

• Developing Action-Oriented Knowledge Among Preservice Teachers - Frances O. Rust, University of Pennsylvania; NancyLee Rodenberg Bergey, University of Pennsylvania

• Teaching or Testing in Urban Schools: Learning to Manage Curriculum Dilemmas - Anna E. Richert, Mills College

Discussant

• Kevin Kumashiro, University of San Francisco