Janus

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Janus
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The teacher as JanusA little background

Janusby Micha F. LindemansJanus is the Roman god
of gates and doors (ianua), beginnings and
endings, and hence represented with a
double-faced head, each looking in opposite
directions. He was worshipped at the beginning of
the harvest time, planting, marriage, birth, and
other types of beginnings, especially the
beginnings of important events in a person's
life. Janus also represents the transition
between primitive life and civilization, between
the countryside and the city, peace and war, and
the growing-up of young people. One tradition
states that he came from Thessaly and that he was
welcomed by Camese in Latium, where they shared a
kingdom. They married and had several children,
among which the river god Tiberinus (after whom
the river Tiber is named). When his wife died,
Janus became the sole ruler of Latium. He
sheltered Saturn when he was fleeing from
Jupiter. Janus, as the first king of Latium,
brought the people a time of peace and welfare
the Golden Age. He introduced money, cultivation
of the fields, and the laws. After his death he
was deified and became the protector of Rome.
When Romulus and his associates stole the Sabine
Virgins, the Sabines attacked the city. The
daughter of one of the guards on the Capitolian
Hill betrayed her fellow countrymen and guided
the enemy into the city. They attempted to climb
the hill but Janus made a hot spring erupt from
the ground, and the would-be attackers fled from
the city. Ever since, the gates of his temple
were kept open in times of war so the god would
be ready to intervene when necessary. In times of
peace the gates were closed.His most famous
sanctuary was a portal on the Forum Romanum
through which the Roman legionaries went to war.
He also had a temple on the Forum Olitorium, and
in the first century another temple was built on
the Forum of Nerva. This one had four portals,
called Janus Quadrifons. When Rome became a
republic, only one of the royal functions
survived, namely that of rex sacrorum or rex
sacrificulus. His priests regularly sacrificed to
him. The month of January (the eleventh Roman
month) is named after him.Janus was represented
with two faces, originally one face was bearded
while the other was not (probably a symbol of the
sun and the moon). Later both faces were bearded.
In his right hand he holds a key. The
double-faced head appears on many Roman coins,
and around the 2nd century BCE even with four
faces.
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Janus-Role of the Teacher
The teacher stands at the gate, bringing the
accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the community
to the students and helping prepare them to enter
into the future.

• The teacher oversees the development of essential
  skills
• Cognitive
• Physical
• Expressive
• The teacher demonstrates proficiency with the
  materials and skills
• A. through their
  organization of the curriculum into a coherent
  scope and sequence
• B. Through the use of
  assessment tools that accurately measure growth
  and accomplishment.

• The teacher provides the social context in which
  learning takes place.
• 1. Gender equity
• 2. Fairness
• Respect for difference
• The teacher looks in two directions.
• In presenting the curriculum, the teacher needs
  to be articulate and clear to administration and
  the community on the one hand, and to the
  students being taught on the other.

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The teacher demonstrates proficiency
By organizing concepts, skills,
materials, activities and assessments into a
coherent scope and sequence.
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How to represent the curriculum?
The curriculum is best presented by a
configuration that is -Easy to read. -Easy to
navigate. -Scalable. -Compatible with current
technology. and most important of
all -Represents the curriculum as teachers think
about and organize it.
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Curriculum Maps
In one picture, all elements are
present. -the curriculum, organized for
immediate access by subject. -the important
social contexts that frame learning.
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Just as students bring their multiple
intelligences and different modes of learning to
the classroom, so do teachers and
administrators. The CurriculumMaps format,
using SmartTechnologies? software, capitalizes on
the visual and the colorful to organize important
curriculum materials. Curriculum materials are
presented in a scalable format that allows both
teachers and administrators to access and to
revise the information easily and directly.
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The Algorithm
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Concepts Those overarching ideas that organize
thought and behavior.an example from
musicThe time signature organizes beats into
groups, with each beat carrying a different
energy level.
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Skills
Skills are behaviors that embody essential
concepts in the real world and under real
circumstances. Again from music The student
will play an eighth note pattern on the classroom
instruments with a stable pulse and with a
downbeat accent on the first beat of each measure.
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? Essential Skills are Few
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?Skills are practiced in ever increasingly
sophisticated contexts over many years of study.
a fifth grade argument in support of an idea
maybe a paragraphIn eighth grade a supportive
argument may be a page or two and include several
examples.A 12th grade argument in support of
an idea may be pages long and include historical
citations and detailed examples.
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Activities - the focused environment
activities provide opportunity for exploration
of and practice with essential concepts and
skills.Activities provide context. It is in
the choice and framing of activities that
elements of multicultural, diversity, gender,
etc. are represented.Activities provide
opportunities for assessment within an authentic
context.
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Who uses this format?

• Teachers use this format
• To organize curriculum into broad categories and
  Concepts
• To create presentations for Parent Night and
  Curriculum Meetings
• To store and organize lesson plans
• For classroom presentations
• To store tests and assessment tools, music,
  pictures, movies.
• Readily revise and add to curriculum

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Administrators use this formatto track
curriculum through the grades. To track
context topics through the grades
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Navigating the Map Overview
The overview functions as a table of contents.
You turn the pages to the next level of
curricular detail by clicking on the green arrows
attached to each subject/context. Using music as
an example subject..
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? Level 2 Concepts and skills by Division and
Grade Music
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? Level 3 Lesson
Plans/Activities/Worksheets/Web
Links/Pictures/MoviesGrade 4 Music
Pitch/Scales/Whole Tone Scale
C. Debussy Voiles From Preludes, Bk.1
httpwww.carolinaclassical.com/articles/debussy
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? Level 2 4th Grade Science Concepts, Skills,
Vocabulary
A ten minute conversation with the science
teacher generated this map. This is an
experienced teacher who has a well thought out
curriculum, who understands the need for an
organizing idea within which the essential skills
and vocabulary are explored, practiced and
assessed.
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? Level 2 Ninth Grade English
The map was generated from a course description,
taken from the online catalog of course
offerings. The organizing topic is The American
Novel. Within this framework, students explore
the chosen texts for major themes through close
reading, analysis and interpretation.
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? 9th Grade English Level 3 Analysis
On this level, the specific classroom
assignments, with their assessment rubrics, can
be stored, along with web references, pictures,
authors biography, study sheets.
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The Mapping Process

• Step 1 Current curricular materials (scope and
• sequence, class outlines, course
• descriptions) are collected.
• Step 2 The curriculum is mapped using these
• existent materials.
• Step 3 Maps are peer reviewed by division for
• vertical integration and sequencing
  of
• skills/concepts/vocabulary.
• Step 4 The final maps are gathered into a
  master
• map and posted on DVD or
  electronically.
• Ongoing Maps are revised as needed to include
  new
• materials, activities, assessments.

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More information?

• Do you want templates in order to initiate this
  process yourself?
• More conversation about this approach to
  curriculum mapping?
• Contact Janet Underhill
• junderover_at_rcn.com