Touchstone 2 Teacher's Book Free Download
Hedy Madrid
There is a tale from the Middle Ages about a magic pebble, called thetouchstone, that when rubbed against any metal, would turn the metal into gold. It was said that this pebble could be found on the shores of the Black Sea. It looked like any other pebble on the beach. The only difference between the touchstone and the other pebbles was that it was warm to the touch, and all the others felt cold.
Education is richer for all involved if the more-than-human-world is actively engaged with, listened to, and taken seriously. At one level this touchstone seems easy to understand and to put into practice. The claim is that the natural world is a vibrant, active, agential place that is worth listening to and learning from. Accepting this claim means that educators will spend more time outdoors and access different pedagogical possibilities.
However, this touchstone also has implications for what knowledge is and how learning happens. If nature is embraced as co-teacher then the human is de-centered and learning becomes a shared project that is no longer ever complete or human-based.
N2 - Pandemics, like other global challenges, are unquestionably curricular issues. They are curriculum issues not only because of the disrupting consequences of Covid-19 and the economic and social crisis alike but also because people have, through their own activities, contributed to global catastrophes and perpetuated injustices. This article attempts to answer the question: How does Finnish curricular thought, including the role of the teacher and the core curriculum for basic education, respond to the various global crises? While reviewing the current situation, the article also imagines a post-Covid-19 curriculum. Reactivating what is still powerful in Bildung/Didaktik and emphasizing the importance of education's ethical dimension and the teacher's role as a curriculum theorist offer the means for dealing with the theme. In addition, understanding the structure of the National Core Curriculum document, the political dimension of the Finnish curriculum's design process, and the educative possibilities in subjects and multidisciplinary modules, the teacher is capable of creating opportunities for educational experiences that are (ethically) significant for students, proactively and in terms of crises.
AB - Pandemics, like other global challenges, are unquestionably curricular issues. They are curriculum issues not only because of the disrupting consequences of Covid-19 and the economic and social crisis alike but also because people have, through their own activities, contributed to global catastrophes and perpetuated injustices. This article attempts to answer the question: How does Finnish curricular thought, including the role of the teacher and the core curriculum for basic education, respond to the various global crises? While reviewing the current situation, the article also imagines a post-Covid-19 curriculum. Reactivating what is still powerful in Bildung/Didaktik and emphasizing the importance of education's ethical dimension and the teacher's role as a curriculum theorist offer the means for dealing with the theme. In addition, understanding the structure of the National Core Curriculum document, the political dimension of the Finnish curriculum's design process, and the educative possibilities in subjects and multidisciplinary modules, the teacher is capable of creating opportunities for educational experiences that are (ethically) significant for students, proactively and in terms of crises.
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During read aloud, today, we're reading what I call a touchstone text. It's usually a picture book that may or may not be at grade level, but that really demonstrates a particular idea or skill or strategy well.
"As 5th graders, what we know is that we are not just looking for metaphors in sentences anymore, we're looking for metaphors, Lucia, in entire books. And, we're about to take on a really challenging fifth grade level book that has a alot of metaphor and a lot of symbolism. So, right now we're practicing those skills of identifying metaphors with "The Sneetches" by Dr. Suess."
By sharing with students that we're reading this, not just for fun, and not just to learn about metaphor and symbolism, but actually to practice for a harder book, sort of sets up in their mind that this is a safe practice zone for more challenging territory ahead. I better get comfortable with it now.
"So we left off yesterday in "The Sneetches" and we met the star-belly sneetches who have stars on their bellies. And, we met the plain-belly sneetches, and they did not have stars on their bellies. Was that a big deal in the land of the sneetches?"
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