The debate over curriculum is a constant concern for most teachers. Teaching for me is another branch of the creative process and teachers by default produce an environment with the tools that are available. In my humble point of view one of those super important tools is of course curriculum and another is instruction and they are both a work in progress and a creation. The ability to create curriculum or at least modify it, use it or discard it, has been an activity that has been associated with teachers in many countries. To take away this freedom affects the instruction element because it is more effective to teach material that is self-designed or at least revised and edited simply because we are able to familiarize more with the subject.
I have worked with scripted programs and I know people that are having to teach scripted curriculum and even when some programs like MCI-making connections or read 180 are ok-designed, there have been many complains by some friends of mine who are teaching remedial math. My experience was not horrible, it was boring, but not horrible. i had to teach MCI for three months and if you are familiar with this program you know that everything that comes out your mouth should be part of the script. I thought it was very weird and then I began to get used to the material... it just made me an effective MCI instructor but I felt like the teaching part was so modified that I did not feel like a "real" teacher.
Maybe some of these programs are necessary. Maybe they could be used in a less standard form. It is difficult to know where things are going with education but I do fear an enormous displacement of teachers by these ready-made-robotic curriculms.
I thought that this was a great post. By forcing teachers to follow a scripted curriculum we could be smothering a truly gifted teacher. Not all people are talented teachers, we are all here because we have strengths and passions that we want to share with students. We lose these talents when there is no room for teachers to apply them. I feel like forcing teachers to use scripted curriculum defeats the purpose of having a passionate teacher...any random person can effectively read a script. Sometimes the direction education is heading really scares me! Let us shine!
ReplyDeleteHi Minea,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rebecca. What the heck? Are we parrots? When all research points to GREAT TEACHERS as being the single most critical determiner of a child's success, why are they pushing such programs into the schools?
It reminds me of a short story I read back in junior high in my Science Fiction writing class. It's called, "Harrison Bergeron," and was written by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. That story (you can read the plot summary on Wikipedia) impacted me more than anything else I read that year. (Including "The Pearl" (yawn) and "To Kill a Mockingbird" ...)
Anyway, sound the alarms because surely it is to Harrison's world that we are heading -- and fast.
Oh, wait. We're already there ...
Ready made and robotic is not the way to go, I agree with you, Minea. It makes me think of cooking and instead of creating meals in the kitchen, we are now being asked to heat up tv dinners. No creativity, no personalization, no feeling, no passion…..
ReplyDeleteTeachers, because they are individuals, have a wealth of innovative and individual ideas that can spice up the offerings. I don’t mean to say that every teacher should create their own curriculum from scratch, but if all must use certain texts, let the personality shine through in the instruction/delivery. I’ve enjoyed reading Lemov and see so many practical ways that we can share to be more efficient in the classroom or even make a bigger impact. Even in last week’s readings there were solid examples of bringing the instruction to the students’ front doors. What’s in our school’s backyard that can become an amazing tool for us to begin an education journey by using? Let’s form relationships with our kids. We spend a great deal of time with our students, let’s use that time to form a community of thinkers and achievers who can learn to speak and act for themselves instead of spewing back pre-prescribed rhetoric.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and getting me thinking. It’s been amazing to see how my thoughts have been sparked by reading each person’s blog.