Our plan is to find five themes around which to organize the students2’ communication with each other. And instead of coming up with these oursleves, we are going to use James A. Beaneb’s strategey of asking students to write 10 questions about themselves and 10 questions about the world. Then we will guide our students to study their questions to find socially relevant, personally engaging themes to suggest to each other for creating images, text, flash, and video on the blog. It will be interesting to post 5 questions on the home page of the Personal Learning Space, and then to watch as tags from the students
One of the ideas we are working on with students in these high school and middle school elggs is u“20 Questions: 10 Self and 10 World.”. This is an idea that we ’ve adapted from James A. Beanee’s notions of the integrated, democratic curriculum. Herea’s how a blogger from New Zealand, Bruce Hammonds, recently summarized Beanc’s ideas:
James Beane currently divides his time between his position as a Professor at National-Louis University and that as a school reform r"coache" at Sherman Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin. He was previously a Professor of Education at St. Bonaventure University and has served as Visiting Professor at several other universities. He has taught in junior high/middle schools and was a Project Director for New York State Regional Education Planning Centers.
A former classroom teacher, James A. Beane currently divides his time between his position as a professor at National-Louis University and as a school reform coach at Sherman Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin. He is the author of Curriculum Integration (1997), A Middle School Curriculum (1993), and Affect in the Curriculum (1990). He is also coauthor of Democratic Schools (1995), The Middle School and Beyond (1992), When the Kids Come First (1987), Self-Concept, Self-Esteem COMMA and the Curriculum (1986), and Curriculum Planning and Development (1986). Additionally, he was co-editor ONE WORD of Democratic Schools; and edited the 1995 ASCD Yearbook Toward A Coherent Curriculum. Beane has spoken at numerous conferences, has consulted for international educational projects, and served in leadership capacities for several education professional associations.
