ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ohio Department of Education Standards & McKernan’s Curriculum and Imagination

Looking at the social studies standards for second grade, I can see how McKernan’s idea that an objectives, outcomes-based model would inhibit depth. The indicators for History alone are quite lengthy, and when you consider history is just one of seven different benchmarks (e.g., geography, economics, government, etc.) that is to be covered in a year, one can see how a teacher may focus end up doing a glossary overview of things. Take for instance, the seventh indicator for History:

7. Recognize the importance of individual action and character and explain how they have made a difference in others’ lives with emphasis on the importance of:

a) Social and political leaders in the United States (e.g., George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Tecumseh, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr.)

b.) Explorers, inventors and scientists (e.g., George Washing Carver, Thomas Edison, Charles Drew, Rachel Carson and Neil Armstrong).

It is kind of unrealistic to expect children to learn all of this in any great detail along with nearly forty other indicators for social studies in one year. I don’t know if block scheduling is the solution to this dilemma of depth though, especially at the elementary level, children’s attention spans are rather short.

Based upon the words used to identify what students should be capable of doing at the end of the school year, I have to agree with McKernan that “an outcomes-based design is suitable for low-level rote learning instruction” (p. 87). A look at Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives for the cognitive domain (1956) shows that most indicators do not go beyond the first two levels of understanding, namely knowledge and comprehension. Take for example, the indicator mentioned earlier. The words recognize and explain are used, and these do not ask a student to think critically, make judgments, or apply their knowledge. Moreover, it is in the application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of information that students have a chance to be imaginative and creative. The sheer bulk of low-level objectives that must be met though make it very difficult to allow for higher level orders of cognition. I suppose I must agree with McKernan then that “in a sense, to have objectives is to set limits to human speculation and development” (p.97).

A positive spin on this “low-level objectives” though is that “unanticipated, or unplanned, objectives or outcomes” are likely to be achieved if a teacher is imaginative in his or her instruction and allows for inquiry (p. 81). For instance, if a teacher decides that students will be able to hit this seventh indicator for History by assigning everyone in class one of the famous leaders or inventors above, and then having the class have a discussion where each student talks from the standpoint of their historical figure, than more than simple recall and comprehension is bound to take place. Students will likely immerse themselves into their new parts and want to be experts on their historical person’s life so that they seem credible and real. Also, students will likely want to show that their person is the “best,” so they will be motivated to show how their contributions to society were the most profound.

Even still though, I think McKernan does have a valuable point when he say that these objectives “reduces education to a production process rather than a creative and constructionist experience” for the vast majority of Ohio classrooms (p.90). I mean most teachers may look at the 7th indicator above and think well a few books and some worksheets can cover this standard. These teachers worried about covering every objective, may not stop and think of creative ways to allow students to gain not only this factual knowledge, but think critically about the lives of these social and political leaders, explorers, and inventors. But for the teacher that does stop to think and is concerned about stretching his or her student’s minds, open classroom discussions can take place about the contributions of George Washington Carver versus Thomas Edison or ponder what the world would be like if they hadn’t lived. In these discussions, teachers can “help students to become aware of their beliefs, attitudes, and values” and “detect bias and prejudice” (p. 93).

On another note, McKernan believes that “students should not be told what it is they will know, find, and be able to do as a result of their inquiries” (p. 39). I can see how by telling students objectives may be restricting, as students may then just concentrate on memorizing the facts and neglect to deeply think about things. However, can’t telling students the objectives help them to learn the information? I know that if I am told I will need to learn such and such, I tend to increase my level of focus so that I learn such and such. And is there something wrong with adjusting the standards to allow for higher level thinking. Students don’t need to know that the real 7th indicator is to “recognize the importance of individual action” highlighting the lives of George Washington, Harriet Tubman, etc., but can be told that they will need to be able to analyze and evaluate the lives of George Washington and Harriet Tubman.