To me, curriculum is Art. If one sits there contemplating what it could look like, they will have nothing but empty space to show for. Recognize there is discourse in curriculum design regarding what to teach versus how to teach it. Experiment with it; use different lens and reflect on the results. Seek feedback and consider what improvements can be made. The final product might be a marvelous masterpiece, or it could be an ugly blob – and that is okay. Teachers do not start out perfect, otherwise we would all be at highest salary on the pay scale. We learn from our mistakes and seek ways to improve our practice over time.
The Ouroborous design shown above was specifically chosen in this metaphor because curriculum design feels circular in nature as well. It symbolizes what Egan (2003) touched upon in the history of curriculum discourse where the focus should be on “what should be taught” versus “how it should be taught”. Do I begin with drafting the head or the tail of my snake? Pottle (as cited in in Egan, 2003) cautions that over-contemplation would waste more time than simply doing both. So, let’s take a chance start from the head followed by the body and tail in this piece, which are the contents of a curriculum. The rationale behind it could be as simple as wanting students to be able to distinguish and create different parts of the body. Afterwards, if they wish to create a palindromic creature or repeated array of a single part, that would be perfect and creative extension of the knowledge they have learned. With a clear picture of where the head, body, and tail are, I can then flesh out the details such as the position of parts, the specie being drawn, or perhaps texture of the model. This is the “how” portion of the curriculum. For instance, I could provide students with a blanket circle and ask them to arrange three unique parts within the circle and the connect them. Or, I could provide them with pictures and ask them to sketch or label the parts.
Reflecting on which approach had “better” results becomes easier as you obtain data, be it measured or anecdotal. There should also be student feedback to help direct the goal or process of the curriculum as they are the ones most impacted by it (Blades, 1997). While us teachers in BC may not have a voice in our curriculum, if the same process occurred for us as it had with Alberta Education then we at least have the autonomy to designate outcomes we want to include or exclude in the classroom.
It is intriguing thinking of the curriculum as a circular and as a process. Thank you for including the images and the imagery in your text to better understand the metaphor.