Social Organization of the School

In looking at the social organization of Parkview School, three broad, overlapping areas are examined: (a) the curriculum, (b) the school environment and (c) the teaching. Delpit (1995) points out how educators make assumptions about families that are different from theirs based on stereotypes that they may hold. She argues that a problem that teachers face in teaching children from other cultures is in not understanding the "worlds of others" (p. xiv). I address the curriculum, school environment and teaching as individual topics in the sections that follow. However, it must be recognized that these are difficult to separate since there is considerable overlap.

Curriculum

The core curriculum at Parkview School, is the standard curriculum that is used throughout the province of New Brunswick for children to acquire certain basic skills, values and bodies of knowledge in a variety of subject areas. Although the majority of the curriculum is defined by the province, there is also room for some locally developed curriculum to help meet student needs. The teachers complain that every year something new is being introduced that an expert claims is the answer to help all children learn.

More experienced teachers like Kelsey and Stephanie use a range of pedagogical orientations. Although they participate in workshops and professional development opportunities, they tend to pick and choose aspects from new programs to augment what they are doing and feel is effective, rather than completely toss out one program for a new one. They go to their classrooms, evaluate the expert claims and teach confidently with already proven instructional methods and techniques that they know from their experience will work.