I didn’t realize the difference between common standards and common curriculum. I think what I meant was that there should be common standards so each student enters the next grade with the same background knowledge. At the school where I work they implement common curriculum, from what I can tell (although it’s not chosen by people outside the school – it’s chosen by the Head of School). Even so, I see the benefits and detriments to this type of teaching.
One problem is actually the parents. They get worried when they hear that one 1st grade class is doing something different than the other 1st grade class. They immediately want to know why and if their son or daughter will be getting to do that too. Another problem (which goes along with the parents) is that the teachers lose some of their ability to go in a slightly different direction that may be more interesting to their students. There are times when I can sense my class wanting to know more about something but they don’t get the chance because we have to stay exactly on the projected path to keep pace with the other class.
On the plus side, having common curriculum gives a teacher a build-in planning partner. The time to actually meet and do the planning has to be found by the teachers, but the opportunity is there and ready to thrive. Another (although slightly selfish) benefit I have seen is that materials are ready to go from the previous year’s study of the topic. The teacher I work with has made folders and files of everything from worksheets to examples of assignments to bulletin boards. She told me today that for one section of our Coral Reef unit, she hopes the students pick a Sea Turtle to be their group leader because she already has one ready to put on the board. I think this is taking the advantages a little far because the students should be able to pick whatever animals they want without being convinced or lead by the teacher to pick a Sea Turtle.
Anyway, I don’t know yet if I fully support having a common curriculum like this, but so far, those are my thoughts on the matter J
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And so far, they are fine thoughts.
ReplyDeleteParents often just need to reassured that their kids are fine and that good teachers do differ from one another. They can sometimes worry so much about relatively small things in the big picture of their children's education.
The trade-off that you identify here is real: If kids are encouraged to keep asking questions and to go deeper into the material, they're not all going to keep pace with one another day by day.
And skilled teachers who understand common standards can still be pretty sure that they'll all wind up knowing what they needed to learn by June, even if they took different routes to get there.
But yes, then we might have to come up with new bulletin board materials more often :)
jane