This week, we had to answer a question regarding whether or not we agreed that standard curriculum can be disabling. I agree that standard curriculum can be disabling; however, as a good teacher and educator, you should be able to make the curriculum lively and engaging in some small way, even if you can only teach scripted programs.
While I know that many districts require teachers to teach concepts in completely scripted and very uninteresting ways, I have the freedom to teach as I see fit for my students (finally a plus of my job!). If I want my students to master telling time, and that takes 8 weeks to do, I am permitted to do so, so long as I can justify why I spent so much time on one topic. Many districts are so focused on "teaching to the test", they often forget that our students do not learn in that manner! They need realistic, meaningful, hands-on experiences they can relate to and understand in order to learn.
One benefit of analyzing a curriculum for strengths and weaknesses is that you can find different unique and new ways to teach the same information that will be more meaningful and relatable for the students. If we continue to teach the same curriculum taught 20 years ago in the same manner it was taught 20 years ago, we are doing a disservice to our students, who are completely embedded in the technology rich world. A very important, and mentionable challenge related to this is the fact that it takes man-power to review such things, and as a result, many districts do not have the resources to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment