Reimagining the Educated Mind: Using Student Choice Curriculum to Transform Educational Practices

Reimagining the Educated Mind presents Student Choice Curriculum, a descriptive argument for a major change in high school education. This is a system where students select topics/subjects of interest and then, in negotiation with teachers, design the curriculum and assessment strategies they will follow. Four hypothetical students serve as models; thus, the reader sees both the overall structure of Student Choice Curriculum and the day-to-day educational practices within schools that might use it. Student Choice Curriculum will help students learn how to learn and how to situate that learning in the real world, something current educational paradigms do not accomplish.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Chris Unger Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter One – Learning with a Purpose Chapter Two -- Linking Academics with Interest Chapter Three – Student Choice within the Curriculum Chapter Four – Putting the Program into Practice Chapter Five – The Learning Environments Chapter Six – Education is Democratic Selected Bibliography About the Author

About the Author :
Ben Graffam currently teaches Theory of Knowledge and Philosophy at International Baccalaureate East in Haines City, Florida. Since beginning in education in 1982, he has earned a Master’s Degree in Gifted Education, a Ph.D. in Special Education, taught Gifted Studies at University of South Florida’s College of Education, and served as an Education Specialist at USF’s College of Medicine. His research has been published in journals of both Gifted and Medical Education. He lives in Lakeland, Florida, with his wife, Cheryl and their cats, Tawny and Ruby, the Port Sisters.

Review :
At a time when education is being debated in economic and political terms, Graffam’s substantive proposal for a student choice curriculum is refreshing and challenging. His well-written, grounded, and thoughtful work deserves the serious attention of educators and education policymakers. By challenging the philosophy and structure of the “top-loaded” curricula, he reminds us that “…schools ought to be places where students learn … (how) to investigate and imagine different methods and outcomes for their world.” In this lively, provocative volume, Ben Graffam asks, “What would happen to education if we allowed students to choose, not only the subjects they studied, but also the way they were taught and evaluated?” Guiding us step by step through several choice-based learning scenarios, Graffam envisions a learner-centered, community-connected curriculum where students pursue their interests, design their studies, and share their progress with teachers, peers, and authentic audiences beyond school. Once student choice is freely at play, everything else changes, including the schedule, teacher and student roles, the relationship to the community, the configuration of learning spaces, and processes of assessment. Students emerge as self-directed learners, and teachers function as guides who regard their own disciplines, not as bodies of content to transmit, but as powerful lenses for understanding the world. The book offers a valuable resource for educators who wish to take concrete steps to put student voice and choice at the center of their practice. Graffam's book reminds us that powerful and authentic learning is always contextually-based. As an arts educator, I am particularly interested in how the Student Choice Curriculum fosters the problem-solving skills that the art-making process promotes. His notion of "choosing to learn" will resonate with many educators who've grown frustrated with a top-down/standardized-sanitized approach to public education. In this important book, Ben Graffam reanimates the legacy of John Dewey’s Lab School by crafting pedagogy as the purposeful extension and elaboration of student interest. Beginning with the kernel of a child’s interest, often not fully formed or refined, Graffam’s teaching provides the child the necessary guidance, support, and activities to grow outward into the community in order to contribute to a democratic society. In an era of stale educational accountability that too frequently forgets the child and standardizes the complex social art of teaching, Graffam’s book brings us wonderfully and wisely back to why we became educators in the first place. Ben Graffam’sReimagining the Educated Mind reads less like a jargon filled prescription on education and more like a chat with a friend over coffee. Through his conversational tone, hypothetical student-teacher conversations, and exploration into what the modern education system could be, Graffam invites readers to explore how their own teaching would be impacted by giving students the ability to choose their own learning pathways. Instead of presenting readers with a cure all for the ills of the modern education system, Graffam begins with the simple question: What if we let students choose how they learn?This book is a must read for any teacher struggling to make learning interesting for their students.