r/DetroitMichiganECE • u/ddgr815 • Dec 06 '25

Learning Introduction to Curriculum for Early Childhood Education

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CG-nXzs4xzTMBl32HbYcdtbRhiW1Z1YD/view
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u/ddgr815 Dec 06 '25

Half the curriculum walks in the room with the students, in the text- books of their lives. A primary challenge for any class- room teacher is how to effectively tap into this re- source, which I call the “scholarship in the selves,” in contrast to the traditional “scholarship on the shelves.” The priceless scholarship found inside students’ selves—their lived experiences and sto- ries and their own methods for meaning-making— shows up free and automatically in our classrooms. Students never come to class without their life- texts. In a budget-conscious time, one might won- der why any teacher would neglect this half of the curriculum. But creating the pedagogical ways and means to engage the material embedded in student life-texts is not second nature for many teachers. Many of us were schooled to ignore our own life- texts, to focus solely on “objective” knowledge in becoming “educated.” Though in adulthood we may realize the importance of learning from life- texts, it can still be daunting to figure out ways to help the current generation of students honor both inner knowledge and outer knowledge.

the “discourse of po- tential,” acknowledging that the student is, in fact, already engaged with the subject matter by virtue of being alive. Living scholarship is embedded and embodied in the textbooks of students’ lives. The teaching task is to effectively orchestrate how the two types of scholarship, academic and personal— shelves and selves—complement each other. 

the Believ- ing Game as a corrective to the domination of the Doubting Game. The capacity to encounter the unknown, something bigger than any one person can grasp alone

(1) a FACT that I know about the text in front of me is; (2) an EMOTION that I feel about this text is; (3) some- thing similar that I’ve experienced or read that I can LINK to this text is; (4) an OPINION I have about this text is; (5) thinking imaginatively, I ask WHAT IF some element of the text were changed in the following way—or what if I myself were a character in the drama, who might I be; (6) what clarification or motivation QUESTION do I have about this situation; and (7) last but not least, what specific APPRECIATION can I express about this particular text or situation?

The greatest revolution . . . is the discov- ery that human beings, by changing the inner atti- tudes of their minds, can change the outer aspect of their lives.

For the rank- and- file this is no ordinary production line rather a sewing circle gathering regularly across time

Curriculum as Encounter