Before taking this class, I had little to no knowledge of what “curriculum” and “pedagogy” were, the biases attached to these subjects, and the essential learnings that came with them.

In the weeks of taking this class, my knowledge expanded and grew in many insightful ways. I learned that curriculum is what we teach, and pedagogy is how we teach it. The most shocking thing I learned in this course is that the government dictates what is taught in schools; this means that voters also have a say in what is taught. It was always an assumption of mine that teachers and the education board formed a curriculum of what needed to be taught; I also assumed that curricula were updated frequently, which was also a myth that was debunked for me.

Below I will attach a video of my takeaways each week from this course. I still have a long way to go on my learning journey; I have navigated through many hard-to-hear and uncomfortable topics and acknowledged my privileges along the way. This course (and many others thus far) have taught me about what it means to advocate for your students and how to continue to create safe, inclusive (and enjoyable) learning experiences for them.

I hope you all enjoy my final video from this course!