This cycle we are looking at how curriculum should be created. After reading the article about the Texas Board of Education and their changes to social studies curriculum, I realized I have stronger feelings about this question than I originally thought.
It had never crossed my mind to
think about who creates the state or national standards that we teach. I have always viewed it as an expert. This thought now kind of baffles me. Especially because I used to teach in Texas
and they were changing the reading and the math standards while I worked
there. I was irate over some of the math
standards that were changed. The rumor
was that they were bumping all standards down two grade levels, meaning that a
standard that was taught in fifth grade last year will now be taught in third
grade. As a third grade teacher who
watched my students struggle with the third grade standards and the time line
the district was giving us to teach them in I could not fathom my students
being successful with standards that were once expected of fifth graders. Even with all of that I still thought it had
to be a credible source choosing the fate of my students. Boy was I wrong! I now see that anyone can be on the Board of
Education and anyone can insert their own personal agendas into the lives of
students across the country. This is
where my feelings about who creates the curriculum changed.
I now strongly believe that the
people in charge of creating curriculum should be focusing on what is
developmentally appropriate, what is important to create successful members of
a community, and they must cover truth and facts. It is important to me that the people
deciding what I teach have knowledge and a background in education. They should be impartial to politics, religion,
and race when deciding what will be taught.
They should not be a dentist or a lawyer who have not step foot in a
K-12 classroom since their own days of attending school. I for one am offended, but not surprised,
that the Texas Board of Education allows people to make decisions about
education based on their religious and political views. The idea that someone could tell me that I
must teach my students to look and judge important figures in history based on
their own personal opinion or that I should have discussions boosting one
religion while putting down another. As
someone who is not Christian, that is not something that I could do. I believe that the view of curriculum that
started in 1954 of multiculturalism and inclusion are the way the people in
charge should be focusing. I believe
that church and state should be separate and I believe that if you talk about
religion or politics in school all sides should be taught. We are supposed to be helping our students
find their own voice, not creating them to think like us. This has to start higher up than the
teacher.
In the creation of curriculum there
should be a change. This change should
come from the who and not the how. I do
not understand after so many years how the decisions about education is still
being left in the hands of people who have never stepped foot in a classroom as
an educator or who have never taken a course on teaching and curriculum. Our society has this view that anyone can
decide I am going to teach or work in education and they will know exactly what
to do. This happens with allowing
organizations like Teach for America or programs, like the one in Texas, which
put someone with a degree in anything in the classroom and give them a few
classes with tips and pointers on teaching and allow them to teach. This happens with allowing a dentist to
create teaching standards that are set for the whole state and will be looked
at by the whole country. This is
demeaning to our profession and to those of us who work hard to make sure that
these kids are getting everything they need.
These actions tell me that my education and knowledge is not needed and
that someone who has no experience can walk into my classroom and can do my job
just as well as I do. I actually just
watched an episode of 1600 Penn on
NBC. The son in the show was trying to
figure out what to do with his life and the stepmom suggests teaching. I believe there was a line along the lines
of, “It’s easy to be a teacher. All you
need is a degree.” (Note that his was not in education.) Followed by, “No one wants to be a teacher.” People honestly believe that this is true and
this is why the education system in our country has not gotten better.
Curriculum should be decided by
educators; teachers and principals, people who are around the students, who are
in the classrooms, and who have taken the appropriate education themselves that
allow them to be knowledgeable on the topic.
It should be created with the consideration that every student is
different and it should be decided by a group of people that come in with an
unbiased opinion. This is at least what
I think.
This is an article about a school district that is allowing
their teachers to play an active role in choosing and creating curriculum. It looks at what their role would be and
processes they can use.
This article looks at the demands that administration has to
go through when working with curriculum.
It focuses on the societies role in their decisions.
Hi Katy,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your impassioned post! I totally agree with you.
I think it's really interesting how you link TFA, the Texas debacle, and the poor view of teachers and teaching held by the public. It is absolutely time for teachers and school leaders to reassert their authority to act in the best interests of individual children! The standardization movement has been misapplied.
We need both individual and collective autonomy and accountability. We are accountable, first of all, to our students and their families. Close to that, we are accountable to each other as teachers for that primary level of accountability--we all have to see our goal to serve families, and cooperate with each other to get there.
Only secondly, I think, are we accountable to more abstract bodies and documents, like State Boards of Education and standards documents.
I think the ASCD article you linked to is really excellent (I wrote an article like this, but this one is much better than mine!). It really stresses how inquiry into the needs of our students and communities is way to build bottom-up standards for accountability and learning.
I like your use of my timeline--1954 as the moment where we embraced diversity of all sorts, and said it is time to make public education truly public--a shared endeavor that includes all. We need to make sure curriculum and teaching keep heading in that direction. We need to honor the needs and gifts of all children.
Thanks, again, for your post!
Kyle
Hi Katelyn,
ReplyDeleteThe topic of the Texas Board of Education evokes similar feelings in me. I actually have a physical reaction when I recall the social studies curriculum debate. As a social studies teacher the movement away from any historical thought and towards a specific political and religious agenda appalls me. It rubs against the very grain of why I teach history, which is to help students interpret and participate in the world around them.
I am also deeply shocked to hear your story of math standards. Usually math curriculum tends to slip under the radar because it lacks what some people would consider controversial issues. However your story highlights that even without controversial material, standardized testing has pushed math curriculum into murky waters.
I also agree that educators should be the ones who ultimately make curriculum decisions. One of the reasons I enjoyed Tyler’s article so much is that for the first time, I was able to view the process of curriculum writing from start to finish. I appreciate that this process allows for community involvement (in the beginning when creating larger goals and standards) as well as teacher autonomy (as long as they adhere to the guiding principals and standards of evaluation). It all seemed so simple to me. Sure undergoing this process would require intensive labor but ultimately you would end up with a curriculum that was real and also allowed for flexibility to meet changing needs.
Lack of relevance and rigidity are two major problems in curriculum today. Most teachers are stuck teaching large swaths of content in order to prepare students for tests and allowed very little room to experiment to try new paths of engagement. In this context, it’s no wonder that Khan Academy or small charter schools that cater to specific child needs are becoming more popular.
The articles at the end of your post give me hope for education. We have a responsibility as educators to make sure that we are involved in decisions effecting our profession.
Thank you for your post.
Erin