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For the past three days I have been at school participating in a curriculum project. What this will eventually lead our district (K-12) to is a vertically-aligned curriculum in which students get the same standards-driven instruction per grade level, and there are no gaps left between the grade levels. They’ll learn what they need, when they need to. This may seem like common sense to some of you, but let me tell you, it’s not. It’s very difficult to align curriculum vertically, especially if there has been little to no administrative direction given to the teachers as to what material and when it will be covered. Our assistant superintendent (ghsprincipal.edublogs.org) is giving us that direction. This was her first year at this position in our district and she is making sweeping changes that will ultimately lead to a vastly improved district. As difficult as it was to go back to school early on in our vacation, and as much as my colleagues and I grumbled about the tedious work, it was well worth it. We analyzed data, looked at standards, discussed the importance of certain units, and looked at what we have previously been doing and tightened it up a bit. It’s not longer teaching a book for the love of the book (like the kids love it anyway…seriously, half of them just pretend to be reading while they’rereally staring at the page thinking about things I’d rather not think about them thinking about), but rather teaching certain topics and skills and concepts using the book as a vehicle or mode to deliver that instruction. Now for my non-teaching readers, this probably makes little sense, but trust me it’s a big breakthrough! Today I was looking at my units and changed many of them around to better meet the needs of the English 9 standards. I had to leave out some of my “oh, but they’ll love that lesson and it’s so fun” activities and add more rigorous assessments, but I believe in myself enough to put an entertaining twist onto it. I realized at the end of the day (it took me one whole day to input just one unit and half of another), that this work will actually make my classroom a better learning environment for our students.
I think I might actually even do some work tonight–in July! Craziness.
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Hi there,
I was at High School’s New Face with you the past few days. I’m just trying to find people to add in my “professional learning network”! I teach English 10 and 11 at a school for mostly emotionally handicapped kids. I’d love to share ideas or thoughts with you. I’ve spent all morning wading through Sheryl’s information and now don’t quite know where to begin!
Diane Aronow (daronow@onboces.org)