Creating a REAL Curriculum

Reading about R.E.A.L teaching reminded about the Culturally Relevant Pedagogy that we discussed earlier this semester. Thinking about the R.E.A.L applications allowed me to understand ways that I can incorporate it into my own teaching. In order to make the curriculum relevant to students’ lives, the students need to determine this, not the teacher. This is something that I think is so important because far too often, teachers make assumptions about students because of where they come from without getting to know them personally. A quote that stuck out to me from this reading was “We convey messages to our students by what we include as well as what we neglect in the curriculum and official classroom activities”. This quote stuck out to me in a number of ways. Firstly, it implies that students pay attention to what is being taught in the classroom. We have already learned about making the curriculum engaging, and from reading Linda Christensen, we have learned about ways to make it relatable to student experiences, and it is important to structure a curriculum based on the current students. Secondly, this quotation implies that it is not just about what is included in the curriculum, but also about what is not in the curriculum. I have never really thought about this aspect before, but it made me more aware of what I decide to teach. A teacher needs to be cognizant of what they are including in their curriculum and making sure that it aligns to the particular students in the classroom. For example, if there are multiple students in a classroom who are interested in racial issues it's important to make sure to include this social justice topic in the curriculum. If a teacher chose to not include this topic in a curriculum, despite knowing that students were interested, it would signal to the students that the teacher really didn’t care. I think that it would be beneficial to conduct a survey at the beginning of the year by asking students “What are some things you want to learn or discuss this year?” or “What are you passionate about”. I would then read all of my student’s responses and make sure to address each response at some point during the year. This would be a great way to keep the curriculum R.E.A.L. for my students.

In addition, I am really passionate about community involvement and the question of “To what degree does the curriculum engage students’ interest within a community” really sparked my curiosity for ways to integrate outside experiences into the classroom. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to California to work with an organization that employs refugees. We were able to listen to firsthand stories of people who had come to the United States and what the refugee process was like. This was such an eye-opening experience for me because I was able to truly get to learn about another person’s experience

and relate it to what I had previously learned. While traveling to California would not happen in the classroom setting, it would be awesome to allow my students to have a similar experience of hearing stories from people all over the world, getting out in the community and experiencing different events, or hearing from guest speakers about their life experiences. I understand that these events can be costly, but I also believe that there can be ways to do this without needing to spend any money. Even students can provide this experience for their peers by teaching the class about things in their culture or parts of their identity (Stewart Chapter 2). As an educator, I want to be able to involve my students in their community in ways that they might not have thought of before, and this would also help to create a R.E.A.L Curriculum.