Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Learning - In a quote from Lord Durhams report, it is noted that women showed more industry than
men in Lower Canada due to education from nuns for free. This gaining of knowledge easily fits into my
definition. According to Curtis, students would be required to learn in a system that was a copy of an
educational plan instituted in Ireland. My definition of learning as being able to better understand the
world fits my definition, but placing limits on learning, as the plan seemed meant to do, doesnt fit.
Teaching - The article mentions as one of the factors lack of local government as a training ground for
advancement of political men. This is supported by my definition, insofar as the teaching carried out
would perhaps allow for the individuals involved to see themselves as members of a different
class. Also, the new education system created was designed to force teachers to follow a plan. This fits
in with facilitating the understanding of new concepts, but is not a positive outcome for anyone
involved.
Reading about how education was used as a ploy to subjugate a whole group of people was sad. I
wonder how much influence what was done during this time period has had on the education system in
Quebec today.
Curtis, B. (1997). The state of tutelage in Lower Canada, 18351851. History of Education Quarterly,
37(1), 2543. doi: 10.2307/369903
Tomkins, G. (1981). Foreign influences on curriculum and curriculum policy making in Canada: Some
impressions in historical and contemporary perspective. Curriculum Inquiry, 11(2), 157166.
The text touches upon the concept of what primary sources might exist to represent someone
50 years from today. Reading this article has made me wonder about not only what primary
sources I might use to represent me, but also how technological change might affect the
accessibility and permanence, or lack thereof, of many primary sources 50 years from now.
From a more practical standpoint, I wonder about how high school teachers might assess such a
body of work, and what that assessment might look like.
The second article I read was The Teaching of History and Democratic Citizenship by Ken
Osborne. It discusses the concept of citizenship and how teachers might foster democratic
principles in their students. Osborne outlines how both the writing and teaching of history have
undergone momentous changes in the past generation due to a variety of reasons. Some
aspects that have contributed to this change include the purpose and style of history texts, the
proliferation of alternative views to history as well as the development of different aspects of
historical study.
Theres a definite connection between my two articles in the sense that teaching students in a
new or different way impacts on their perceptions of what history is. Learners gaining
knowledge of themselves or the world around them is less uniform if there exist many different
versions of history from which to choose. However, as Osborne states, history is, or should be
about, about looking at evidence and making your own sense of it intellectually. Experiencing
logical reasoning about issues, conducting debates and engaging in thoughtful discussions are
all aspects of how Osborne sees history teaching helping to develop democratic citizens.
One aspect of the article that I found interesting was Osbornes portrayal of how Canadian
history is perceived when judged through our school textbooks. His assertion that learners of
history are presented with a view that great individuals and groups of people build Canada,
rather than the collection of normal people who had a hand in it as well. In reconsidering my
definition of learning, perhaps challenging the status quo, synthesizing information or proving it
to show learning might be necessary.
One question I had after finishing the article was wondering whether history teachers try to
guard against letting their own political views filter into their teaching. And if they do, how do
they manage it or whether they should?
Osborne, K. (2008). The teaching of history and democratic citizenship. In R. Case & P. Clark
(Eds.), The anthology of social studies, volume 2: Issues and strategies for secondary teachers
(pp. 314). Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press.
Sandwell, R. (2005). The great unsolved mysteries of Canadian history: Using a web-based
archives to teach history. Canadian Social Studies, 39(2). Retrieved from
http://www2.education.ualberta.ca/css/Css_39_2/ARSandwell_unsolved_mysteries.htm
poetry and poetic composition is the written form that comes closest to perfection is an ideal
for learning. Paying attention to the economy of words and the subtlety of their meaning is part
of striving for the ideal.
Perhaps the most poignant part of this article for me, though, is that of an image of a problem
as a knot, as Smeyers speaks about unravelling educational issues that continue to arise.
philosophers from various ages, be they Greek, Indian, Chinese, Hindu, or Persian, grappled
with problems in a real way, not an artificial one. In his eyes, people that concern themselves
more with comfort and luxury, and less with the real challenges that life has to offer, are
misguided.
Connections between Thoreaus approach to philosophy and education are quite striking.
Discrete subject teaching, endless worksheets, busy work, overly defined curriculum outcomes,
and teaching to the test are all symptomatic of the same artificial worries that concerned
Thoreau. And who in education can say they have never felt despair about what they were
teaching and whether students were learning?
In the same way that Hadot would have us enjoy the simple pleasure of the beauty of the
world, taking that same simple pleasure in learning is what should define it. I think that
viewing, or living, in the world in a way such as the one that Thoreau ascribes to is an attempt
to know more about the world, or an understanding of his position in it.
Perhaps, then, this article is about how teaching by modelling is what instruction should be, as
Thoreau would seem to have it. In learning by contemplation or by doing, is the luxury, or stuff,
of what we are teaching is obscuring what students are learning?