Some Helpful Pedagogical Approaches to Teaching the Budget

Here are some helpful tips on how to initiate the Teach the Budget (TtB) conversation, and to share some examples of ways that instructors are making connections to TtB in their courses.

Introducing TtB to Your Course

• Our short (6 minute) VIDEO is a great introduction to the curriculum.  DVD's are available upon request.  Pair this with the 1/2 sheet flyer as a handout.
• Consider introducing TtB with specific details on budget cuts and impacts to your program that have lowered educational quality and impacted students.  
• Try asking a compelling question about recent student protest, and sacrifices students have made for the cause.

Why are students willing to sit down and be pepper sprayed, or arrested at protests over tuition increases?   What are they hoping to accomplish?

  Why are students targeting the UC Regents and taking over their meetings?  How are the Regents connected to budget cuts? 

• Begin with a quick look at your students' future.  

What kind of job prospects exist in their field?  How does their field/industry benefit from public education systems? How will their student loans factor into their job choices (social justice law vs. corporate law, nonprofit work vs. corporate work, etc.).

Creative Ways to Make Connections to the Teach the Budget Curriculum

 Grammer Exercise for ESL and Foreign Langauges

ESL and foreign language instructors can use, or adapt this quick grammar exercise which features details from the Teach the Budget Curriculum.

Teaching in Romance Languages

One lecturer who teaches Italian is doing a comparison between funding for education in Italy and in CA.

Teaching Writing  (A one hour discussion)

A Writing Program lecturer at UCSB is planning on making a connection between UC funding and the larger issues of funding in California via the following short, mini-lesson.

• Set:  Show the video "First Year Teachers: A Year in the Life," which is located at http://vimeo.com/6440194.  (The film is 26 minutes in length.)
• Film Questions:  While the film is in progress, ask students to write down notes to the following questions:
  • What are the challenges that the first-year teachers here face?
  • Why are most of the first-year teachers we meet facing "pink slipping?"
  • Key Question:  What connections might there be between what the first-year teachers are facing in terms of budget cuts and the budget issues that are occuring here at UCSB?

• Discussion:  Using the questions above, lead a discussion on the nature of budget cutting and the effect that it has on California public schools and the UC.
• Complication:  Share the "Teach the Budget Fact Sheets" and lead into a discussion focused on the following questions:
  • What are the connections between what we saw in "First Year Teachers:  A Year in the Life" and what we read in the fact sheets?
  • What might be the effects of UC budget priorities on you and your friends?  What have they been?
  • Key Question:  What are things that could be done, and what might we do to advocate for UC budget priorities that serve students, teachers, and the people of California?