Hey folks.

Sorry I haven't been around much the past week. I actually do have a good idea for a post in my head right now, but don't really have the time to get it on (digital) paper with all of the stuff I've got on my plate, both school and life related. Foremost on my mind right now is preparing for WestCAST. I've been writing a lot of stuff. I'm starting out just writing as much as I can as a stream of consciousness kind of thing and working it down into a 15 minute thing that I'd want to actually present to colleagues. I'm on track, but there's a lot to do yet. That in mind, I don't want this thing to stagnate so I figured I'd post the introductory ramble from what I'm doing as sort of a teaser of my presentation a week today (eep.). Here it is, hope it gets the brain a-churning:

On Dishonesty

In gathering my thoughts for this workshop that has descended on me with what feels like the force of a particularly impatient freight train, I forced myself to think about the various reasons why science bored me in school and why it fascinates me now. Unfortunately, this fascination emerged during the course of a degree in philosophy with practically no scientific background, so sadly too late to pursue this in any kind of formal setting, at least until after I finish what I'm working on now. Despite this, I find myself reading scientific articles in my recreational time, rather than all of those great works that, as an aspiring English teacher, some would expect me to know cover to cover (first edition if possible). As I have meditated on this issue, it has become apparent to me that it may not actually be the science itself that interests me, rather the concept of it. Man, do I ever sound like a philosophy major now, huh? It's true though. The story of science is not one merely of discovery of fact or the natural, observable world. The story of science is one of turmoil; one of constant upheaval and debate. People have died for their beliefs. Some, with lacklustre safety habits, have died from them. It is this passion, this fervour, and this constant struggle to be more right than the other guy that fascinates me. It just so happens that in reading up on all of this stuff, you learn all sorts of things about what they were more right about. How then, do I expect myself to (as the thought experiment that brought me into this project asked) teach science to a class of ninth grade students? After a great deal of thought and no small amount of soul searching, I hit on a simple idea that I think could really get people interested: lie to your students.

Sound like a decent start? The whole thing will be going down on Thursday, February 23rd at 1:30pm in EDT1220b at the University of Calgary, if you're around. I'm honestly not sure whether a friendly face would make me more or less nervous, but no way to know without one being there.

Well, I'm only a little late. I'm not sure if I want to give away too much about the WestCAST thing here, but I do want to talk a bit about what exactly the project is. A couple of weeks ago a buddy of mine came up to me with a proposition. Imagine that, as a person who is specializing in English/Language Arts, one of the first jobs you are able to get is that of teaching ninth grade science. Unfortunately, that kind of scenario is not too uncommon. As such, she was gathering a group of people from different disciplines to try to come up with approaches to science that break convention pretty hard. I was intrigued, so I signed on. After several meetings with the group now (people studying to teach Spanish, Inclusive Ed, Social Studies, English, and so on), I now have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do with myself. It's actually kind of risky. To give a bit of a preview, coming from my Philosophy background, my intention in teaching science is to communicate that science is inherently unfinished and that the goal of it is not to communicate a set of objectively true facts but to find flaws in what we know in a constantly continuing process of refining humanity's knowledge. As such, I intend to get the students pretty involved in argumentation and questioning what they are told. There is one slight hold-up however, in that I think I may need to talk to people about ethical clearance before I go ahead on things. It's a risky idea I have, but if it turns out it could be an incredibly memorable and powerful experience for potential students. For the WestCAST workshop, this is all hypothetical, but as I'm aiming to teach at the elementary level, sixth grade science may well be something I'm teaching sooner rather than later, and I'd love to implement something like this. More to come closer to the February 23rd presentation date.

I'm just wrapping up a paper which has me evaluating the K-9 Program of Studies for English Language Arts in Alberta. I have to say that, despite the sheer size of the document, it's a rather interesting read. My assignment was to look it over and note the ways in which it does and does not correspond to Luke & Freebody's "Four Resources" literacy framework (those being encoding/decoding, comprehension, real-world use, and critical evaluation) and I have to say that I'm a little surprised at what I saw. What particularly stands out for me is the way in which encoding and decoding are barely addressed, especially given the largely traditional climate of the province. If you're unsure what I mean by that term, encoding and decoding refers to the building block type stuff. Phonics, spelling, simple sentence construction, etc; the kinds of things that teaching reading and writing were all about for centuries. Looking at the program of studies (last revised in 2000, near as I can tell), it is very strange to me the attitude that is taken. It seems almost to be saying that by practising writing, good spelling and grammar will evolve naturally. Now, I don't know about you people, but I know plenty of folks who are constantly writing and can only spell just well enough to make the meaning apparent. The program references things like "the artistry of language" being the motivator for proper spelling and grammar. While personally I will admit to enjoying reading well written and properly spelled things, this is an aesthetic judgement that I don't believe we should think people will jump to without any kind of guidance. Particularly when we can look to countless poets who throw off grammatical convention in their work and produce things of great beauty, I don't know how we can take "artistry" seriously as a motivator for learning grammar.

Luckily, a further part of the assignment is to find ways to modify some of the outcomes the program of study sets in order to better address the four resources. This means that I've had some time to think on ways to sneak in some of the things it has omitted. I'm very glad that this course has given me the chance to look at the curriculum I'll be trying to adapt to my own classroom in (provided I can get a job) fall of 2013. In the time I've spent in the education program so far, it's probably the most useful thing I've done. I'll try and write a bit more by the end of the weekend. Maybe something about the WestCAST (Western Canadian Association for Student Teaching) conference and the workshop I've been asked to help put on? Who knows?