Curriculum

In Early Career English Teachers in Action chapter four is all about curriculum. I’m assuming most people who are reading my blog know what a curriculum is but for those that don’t it is basically a set of plans for what a student will learn and how they will learn it.

In the introduction for this chapter Lindsay Ellis brings our attention to some pretty important points about how the curriculum system has changed in just a few short years.

The first point she mentions has to do with a school that didn’t have a set curriculum plan but rather just told the teachers what books to teach and let them teach them how they wanted to. I think there is both positives and negatives to this system. A positive is that it allows the teacher to be able to teach the way they want to and be more free and comfortable in the classroom. But a negative that could come out of it would be not knowing what to do. As a first year teacher with no other teachers experienced in what we are teaching I would be lost. I think it would be easier to teach the books better if teachers had experience in the books they are teaching. Even for new teachers being able to talk to other teachers and finding out what works and what doesn’t is huge when it comes to helping the students learn the material better.

Now a days in middle and high school teachers are seldom given a book and told to teach it. Like it was said in the book I read curriculum is seen as too important to be left to the hand of just one teacher. Today in high schools teachers gather together for meeting after meeting discussing what they are teaching and how they teach it. Unlike the old days where the teacher was able to teach a book the way he or she wanted. In high schools today administrators are more focused on testing and what is required for students to know by the time they finish that grade.

I don’t necessarily agree with that. I think we should be more focused on students and how they learn and what works for them to understand topics rather than putting all our focus in to test grades.