April 6, 2015 - 10:04
I love Sleeter’s idea of students as curriculum, and am thoroughly impressed by the lengths she, her students, and Keenan go to center their classes around what the students bring to the classroom. However, I struggle a little to understand how the majority of teachers will ever have the time, motivation, or skills to do this. It is much easier to teach to a test, and keep lesson plans straightforward. After spending some time this weekend talking to a very tired teacher (who actually teaches in a school district with a lot of resources), I wonder how many teachers would choose to go above and beyond their teacher duties by seeking out grants from Target and Donor Choose programs, and “supplying the students with a large number of experiences, [to]… increase the odds that each experience will have an impact on at least one child” (Keenan, 73).
It seems like in order for the students as curriculum and multicultural ed in general to work, they must become the standard. Every person who is training to be a teacher should have to be educated on these topics, and then be given resources in order to make these lessons relatively easy to build and implement. With that said though, one of the things I really appreciate about Sleeter’s article is that she makes her ‘students as curriculum’ seem quite doable, and not necessarily inclusive of that much extra labor. To be a really outstanding educator using this curriculum would likely be quite hard, but for example, her list of 7 questions to ask adults in the community, such as custodians or secretaries seem pretty straightforward. As does asking students if they are interested in certain topics, and speaking with students to find out what they already know. The question then becomes how to disseminate this information to all teachers, who most times are over-worked and under-resourced.