Friday, February 24, 2012
Curriculum
I feel like curriculum has been surfacing in a lot of discussion around our school systems these days, especially with the new "grading" experiement for NM schools. My personal experience has only been in a charter school setting where we pretty much have free-reign of what we use to teach in our classrooms. We do have an adopted curriculum but teachers are not required to use it. Some teachers use Harcourt, Saxon, Globe, Pearson, or Houghton-Mifflin. Some use bits and pieces from different curriculums and some use there own stuff that they brought from other schools or created throughout their career. Personally, I REALLY appreciate the freedom to choose what to use. I feel like teachers, especially ones that have been in the business for a while, know which works the best. Every year we are presented with a different group of students and a different class, so one curriculum that might have worked last year may need to be adjusted this year for your new group of kiddos. One downfall that I have noticed is that perhaps the inconsistancy between grade levels and within the school might cause issues as kids move on through the years. I have never worked at a school that delegates what teachers will teach and when they will be doing it but I have heard horror stories about not being able to add your own touch to teaching. My suggestion would be that grade level teachers do teach the same things arounfd the same time during the year because this would make for an easy transition for a new student switching schools in the year. Teachers wouldn't have to wonder what things they had covered previously in their old school before coming to a new school. That way students wouldn't miss out on content if they made a move in the school year. Other than that I think it is extremely important to allow teachers to add creativity and personal touches to their teaching. That is the reason that most of us want to enter into this profession...to make it fun and meaningful and relevent! So make curriculum available to teachers, but allow us to supplement it with our own creative touch!
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Hello Kristen,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that teachers need to have freedom on how they teach and by all means bring their creativity into the classroom. Perhaps some of the curriculum can have well defined standards as Lauren has said in her flog, but the teachers should still have the freedom of implementing it in their classrooms.
Hi Kristen!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with your statement about having the freedom to simply teach in your classroom without having a mandated curriculum to follow. I think that it can be really helpful in allowing a teacher to adapt lessons to specific groups of children. I also feel, as you stated, that in some cases not having a more structured curriculum can cause problems with grade levels and differences between other schools. That is why I like the idea of having a curriculum that schools follow with regard to the core information that all students should know, but having the ability to teach and incorporate things that help each group of students succeed.
Kristin, thanks for your thoughts! I really liked what you wrote about teachers having a supplemental curriculum available if needed. I also liked your point of view on having to adjust every year to a new group of kids. As long as the curriculum can be relevant to the students and the teacher can deliver, then students will learn effectively.
ReplyDeleteKristen: I too liked the the idea of each teacher having the freedom to supplement the curriculum with their own ideas to help best fit each class. I also agree with your thought of using a structure for the curriculum that would make it easier for transitioning students. However I wonder how possible this would be with the different levels of students and abilities and resources of teachers. But i do think it would be ideal to ensure all student are learning similar curricula.
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