Keep on Blogging

This class was overwhelming to me in the content at first because I had no way to organize it. Now I have an understanding of it and a way to organize it and my next task is how do I make the change I want to see? I think Rebekah has the right attitude that will guide me in that you need to make one change at a time in your classroom and hopefully send it to the classroom next to you. Be the mind shift you want to see. I think I kind of feel stuck at this moment in time though because I want to make the changes that I want to make, but I really can't make them at this point in the school year. I have 31 school days left at the school I am teaching at and that will be it. I am leaving this school behind for a new one in New Hampshire. Now that is daunting because it is unfamiliar territory to me. I know that it took me a solid 2 years to figure out this school's curriculum. It is incredibly frustrating to me to think that I may not be able to make some of the changes I hope to see in the curriculum even next year because I won't have a firm enough understanding of it at the new school.

I can think positively and hope that my new knowledge on curriculum will help me see through this new curriculum more quickly. And if I am blessed to be at the same grade level give or take one on either side, then I won't have to spend so much time learning how to teach all over again giving me the time to look at the curriculum more closely. I am optimistic that I will eventually get to make the changes I want to make. I will be able to start small as Rebekah suggests in my own classroom as I have learned some things that I can change now even with 31 days left. The big changes will have to wait. I just don't like waiting.

My plan and hope is to keep this blog going. It may lag a bit as the school year ends. I should have a lot to talk about if and when I get a new teaching job. I will be able to give a new perspective while working from a different state. I hope you continue to follow and help guide me.

Integrative Curriculum

First off I want to clarify something from my book talk. I don't know if I made it clear enough and the more I talk to other people about it, the more I want to clarify the author's message. It is in regards to differentiated instruction. The author doesn't argue that we should differentiate instruction based on the abilities of our students. That this is still needed. This is where our students differ, on their abilities. He argues that we shouldn't stress on differentiating the way that information is taught because the preferred method of learning is just a style preference. That we all learn basically the same way, but we all have a style preference. I didn't want people to think that I think we should differentiate instruction based on abilities of our students. Yikes!

I chose to look at the topic of integrative curriculum this week. An integrative curriculum has always been high on my list of things to look into because it always seems to be out there in theory, but I haven't really seen it in practice. I have posted the links below to the websites that I used to find information. All were really helpful.

It seems that the issue in integrating the curriculum is the current push to a standards-based education. That it is increasingly difficult to try to integrate the curriculum when under federal mandates, assessment must be done on individual subjects with certain information. The pressure to perform on these assessments has led many teachers to just teach the information on the test for their subject area so that they can protect themselves. The first and third website below argue that you can integrate the curriculum under standards-based education by working backwards. Don't start with the standard and how you are going to teach that standard. Rather start with the end goal and work backwards to see what standards you are covering.

There only seem to be pros to integrating the curriculum. The second website speaks to the fact that LIFE doesn't neatly compartmentalize all of these subjects for us. That in life we receive the assessment first and then go look for the answers and solutions. That we don't get the answers and solutions and then regurgitate them later. The site then outlines 10 reasons to teach an integrated curriculum. To me the number one reason should be the one listed in number 7 and that is the brain thrives on connections. From my reading of our self-selected book, this was a major thing. That our brains need the connections. That we work from memory and much of our memory is about making connections from one thing to another.

I personally don't see any cons to an integrated curriculum and I couldn't come across any in my readings. I think that we can only benefit from integrating the curriculum. It is our only hope of teaching all that we need to teach in a given year. It is tricky work and takes a lot of time, but it is time well spent. It is something I am going to be looking more closely at in my own work next year in teaching in a new state. How can I make the connections with the materials that I have? I think that is what is often stopping us. For example, we may not have the resources to adequately integrate science into reading because we may not have approriately leveled texts for our students on that topic.

Overall, I think integrated curriculum is the way to go. Can it survive or thrive in standards-based education? I think it can, but only with hard work and dedication to make it work.

Resource Links:

http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-1/curriculum.html

http://suzyred.com/integratedcurriculum.html

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/103011/chapters/What_Is_Integrated_Curriculum%C2%A2.aspx

I enjoyed listening to some podcasts today about different books that peers of mine have read. Kelley in her podcast that her book asks us to think of our bodies as just the vehicle or the container for our brain. It is an idea I have never heard of before and I really had to stop and think about that one for a while. I don't know if I can still wrap my head around that idea yet. I don't know what to make of that statement. She also speaks to the fact that we shouldn't stifle creativity and it reminded me of how a student chose to think about the health material I was teaching on Tuesday. We are currently on a drug unit and we were discussing smoking and the effects it has on the lungs. As we were talking this student popped out of the circle and went to the back of the classroom and retrieved a pink and a black cube. He then came back to the circle and said that the pink cubes are like healthy lungs and the black cubes are like bad lungs from smoking. Thinking so simple and inspired I had never thought of it. What a great visual that this student created for the rest of the class. No scary pictures of lungs required.

I found it interesting that both Kelley and Tricia mention different learning styles as something to consider in their podcasts, where in mine I ask you not to consider it as much. The book I read asks you to consider the difference between styles and abilities. That we all learn basically the same and it is our abilities that distinguish us more. Willingham in my book gave the example of two great quarterbacks, Peyton Manning and Brett Farve (why couldn't Tom Brady be in the book instead?). He talks about how these two players have opposite playing styles, but their abilities are what helps them succeed. That we need to start thinking of differences in ability rather than learning style. I think Willingham did a wonderful job on this point and you should visit his book for more information about why he speaks to this fact.

Bekah in her podcast mentioned creating an oasis of calm in our classroom. That this oasis of calm with thoughtfully created rules can give students more freedom. Is an oasis of calm noisy? I think of calm as someplace a student feels safe. Is this what the book meant by an oasis of calm? My room is often organized chaos and loud. I don't think a good classroom is a quiet classroom. Plus my abilities to tune noise out because of growing up with siblings has allowed me create this kind of classroom. I respect that some students need a quieter environment and I make time each day for quiet working. Again, is an oasis of calm really a safe environment, or is it truly calm?

Technology and Portfolios

I'm going to touch on my 'Surprise Me' response to Ed about all of this technology we came across in our readings for the week. I love all of these technology ideas. The problem is I am still stuck on how to bring it to my classroom. It seems that most of the examples are for upper elementary and beyond. How do I get technology into my 1st grade classroom? I understand I could somehow link to another class in another state and Skype chat with this classroom and such. Unfortunately, I don't have any of the technology that would allow that in my classroom, and we aren't allowed to use any streaming programs. That's a huge block in that adventure. I just don't know where to look or begin with kiddos so young.

I really appreciated chapter 9 in Curriculum 21 and I liked all of the information about digital portfolios. It did make me sad about our own portfolios at our school. From the day I started I have always heard, "Nobody looks at these anyway. They just get handed to the student when they graduate." How awful is that? Even more awful now that I have read what portfolios can be. I think our district does them to say we do them, but we aren't really doing them because they aren't being used the way they were meant to be used. Can you follow that? Why aren't we scanning in this work in this day and age and making them digital like the book mentions? I am in the process of creating a website that has my own working digital portfolio on it. This way when I interview for new teaching positions at the end of this year (because I am moving to New Hampshire), I have this electronic portfolio that potential employers can visit before I even show up with my standard paper portfolio. Shouldn't we be doing the same for our students so that when they graduate they have their own digital portfolio completed to show to colleges? I'm sure many colleges will expect something like that by the time my students I have now graduate.

Educating for a Sustainable Future

This chapter was fascinating to me. I really enjoyed learning about these institutes and initiatives. I look forward to researching more about the schools mentioned to see what these ideas look like in action.

In the section on Inventing the Future it listed what students do who take the course. I just want to pull out the key words: DEVELOP, EXPLORE, DISCOVER, INVESTIGATE, ENVISION, DOCUMENT, RESEARCH, and SCAN. Aren't these the kinds of skills we want all of our teaching to encompass? These are active and engaging learning verbs. I will admit I don't always do this. It is easier to follow and use the materials I was given my first year of teaching because everything else was overwhelming. I need to make a better commitment to make sure my classroom and my teaching encompasses these kinds of verbs more often.

When I look at the schools making the change I was struck by the lack of mention of assessment and assessment results. How refreshing. I think sometimes a big barrier to making the kinds of changes these schools have made is that people want immediate results in numbers and that isn't possible. People are so afraid that the change is going to give their children a poorer education instead of realizing the education their children are receiving is already poor for the most part. We would never ask any other business to make such a whole scale change to better practice and ask them for results immediately. We would understand that restructuring takes time and have faith in the fact that the change is for the better. I wish people would have more faith in teachers and educators to make the changes necessary.

Change is Hard

So this past week we had an early release day and the second half of the day was for teacher workshop. We spent it as a staff reviewing the NECAP scores from earlier this year and looking at the areas our kids did well in and the areas they didn't. We wanted to know if the areas they did poorly in were areas we just weren't covering or maybe weren't covering enough. As a first grade teacher I was intrigued by the assessment and looking at some of the questions and how our students fared. I was completely surprised by the fact that the questions done most poorly on that we viewed were simple questions about vowel sounds. It was asking students to pick the word in the list that had the same vowel sound as the word given. I was so surprised that 3rd and 4th graders didn't know their vowel sounds. I am quite sure all of the kids in my room know them. We chant the "5 most important letters in the alphabet" as I call them everyday. We talk about how just changing one of them can make a whole new grown up word. That we really have to pay attention to the sound that we are making and hearing. They know these 5 letters are called the vowels. At this point in the year when I say, "It's time to chant the 5 most important letters in the alphabet, the...." I get a groaning response of, "vowels" because they all know them. I wonder if this wasn't done with this group or where do they lose this basic knowledge in the older grades?

At this same meeting our principal suggested trying to work the specials schedule so that next year there was a common literacy block in the morning for the whole school for as many days a week as possible so that we could blur the lines of the classroom. The idea he had was that we could use this block as a way to shift kids around to different teachers with their own expertise in a certain area of literacy and teach those kids that need that kind of instruction. We had a few who didn't think 4th grade boys, who already feel down about themselves, would appreciate being in the same room as a 1st grader. That it would make them feel even worse. Others I could tell just didn't want that "floating" classroom idea of students coming in and out based on need. My angry questions in my head when listening and observing this was, "Do you not care about the education of kids? Are you so scared to change your routine that you would rather teach these kids less so you are comfortable in what you are doing? Be the ADULT!" For those 4th grade teachers I understand their concerns, but you could use those 4th graders to teach the 1st graders the skills that they also need to improve on. They would learn it more deeply and the 1st graders would be learning with their buddy and not even know it. Are their risks and kinks that would need to be worked out...sure. There always are, but you have to start trying.

Again I go back to my recurring question it seems, "What is it going to take to make the change?" Does it take a principal not willing to hear no? Does it take the right kind of staff to make the change? Why do we wait for those "right" people? Where is common sense? Why does the fear of change grab a hold of the mind more than the greatness of change?

Effective Teacher and Teacher Evaluation

I am a member of the MEA Instruction and Professional Development Committee. I have greatly enjoyed my time on the committee and being a part of this committee often keeps me on top of the latest news in education. Here are a few "did you knows..." I learned at my last meeting this past Saturday in Augusta.

Did you know that there is a teacher incentive fund rolling into the state? This fund will be distributed to 5-10 districts to create an alternative pay schedule (i.e. performance pay). Eeeks!

Did you know there is a teacher evaluation bill that will remove the firewall currently written in state law that prohibits the tying of teacher performance to student test scores. This is because of Race to the Top. Have you heard about that? Apparently to receive funds for this (not so bright) program, you have to be able to tie teacher performance to student tests scores. Maine is trying to get funds through this national program. Eeeks!

Did you know that the Common Core Standards are nearing their final stages and will be released to the public for public comment soon (only the language arts and math). Maine has signed on. What does this mean for curriculum? The Common Core Standards are standards, but don't standards drive curriculum? What does this mean?

Did you know that 10 persistently low performing schools in Maine will be receiving notification soon and that have 4 options to improve their schools. Do you want to know what those 4 options are:
1. Fire all of the staff
2. Fire 1/2 of the staff
3. Fire leadership with significant staff improvement plan
4. Transformative model - basically a charter school within the system

Lots to think about. The committee's major charge this year was to kind of preempt the removal of the law that prohibits tying teacher performance to student test scores by coming up with a definition of an effective teacher and a teacher evaluation system. After much hard work, here is what we came up with.

Teacher Effectiveness: That the MEA believes effective teachers enhance student achievement when they:
1. have high expectations for all students;
2. apply knowledge of the content taught and how to teach those subjects;
3. acknowledges participation in professional development;
4. encourage positive academic, attitudinal, and social outcomes for students;
5. use a variety of resources, including available technology, and appropriately selects from them to plan and structure engaging learning opportunities;
6. monitor and evaluate student progress, adapting instruction as needed through a variety of appropriate measures and multiple sources of evidence;
7. create a learning environment that recognizes and supports individual differences; and
8. collaborate with teachers, administrators, other professionals, students, parents and guardians.

Teacher Evaluation: that the MEA believes a comprehensive teacher evaluation system involves teachers and stakeholders in developing one that:
1. focuses on teacher growth and effectiveness;
2. uses a combination of measures to evaluate multiple dimensions of teaching;
3. acknowledges participation in professional development;
4. recognizes use of best practices in pedagogy and content as stated in current literature;
5. recognizes collaboration with teachers, administrators, other professionals, students, parents and guardians;
Furthermore, the system must use current best practices for evaluation that
6. involve multiple observations by trained professionals during the school calendar year resulting in formative feedback;
7. require a minimum of two appropriately trained evaluators to ensure support, fairness, and equity;
8. identifies trained, mutually agreed upon mentors and other targeted resources for teachers to improve their instruction;
9. distinguish among teachers by grade level and content area; and
Finally, and evaluation system MUST NOT be based solely on teacher performance, value added measures or any single measure of student achievement.

Thoughts?

Let's Start with Teaching English

As I was reading Curriculum 21 I was incredibly intrigued by the Upgrading Content chapter. I really liked the new perspective on each content area as well as the value placed on each. It should not just be reading, writing, and arithmetic. That there is real value in each content area and real skills that need to be learned to be a 21st century citizen. I did have one area that struck me most as an area desperately needing to be in our curriculum, the idea of teaching our own native language like you would a foreign language. Oh my is this ever needed. In my classroom of 18 I have 4 kids that receive speech and language services and 3 out of the 4 are their for language instruction, not just articulation (speech). In our tiny school over 10% of our students receive some type of speech and language services. Some of these are due to developmental disabilities. The rest I think is to poor models at home and no direct instruction in how to speak our own language. We can do our best during the school day to correct them, but they spend far more hours at home with no correction and parents and siblings speaking the same way.

English in its proper form is a dying language. With the advent of text messaging, instant messaging, the rapid e-mail, etc. the use of grammatically correct English is decidedly missing. Even among professional adults you see the creeping of poor English instruction manifesting itself in their writing and public speaking. I'm surprised I haven't had any 1st graders trying to spell the word "we" in their writing "wii." As a grammar nut myself (and I do make mistakes too), I am afraid of what type of public speakers and writers we are creating. I would be interested to see the writing of high school students. Do high school teachers in all areas see this poor English formation?

I think that we need to start teaching English like a foreign language and teaching a foreign language at the same time. This needs to be added to the curriculum (and will probably be somewhere in my idea of what an elementary school curriculum should include for our final project).

It's Always a Numbers Game

So there were so many great ideas this week. Many of them a repetition of things we should be doing at any school level, with some specific to the scheduling and needs of a high school. I keep feeling like I have heard all of this before even before this course. I want to know what is it going to take to make the shift to this? When will it start going from ideas for a better education to a plan to actuality? I feel like we are always in this block because the people who make the decisions are not people who have any educational background. We are fighting with a public either nostalgic about their own education and don't want the change, or could care less about education. Are we just waiting for the right politician(s) to be the face of change in public education? There are all these little pockets of greatness as we can see from our readings, but how can we get it to a country of greatness?

This was all spurred from the 9 minute video. They again mentioned how the U.S. ranks internationally on certain assessments. I do agree that our education system falters in that we have too much of the LOTS (lower order thinking skills) and not enough of the HOTS (higher order thinking skills). We aren't creating deep thinkers and reasoners. What I really dislike though is the idea of numbers. My math background tells me that you can make almost any number look as bad or as good as you want it to and I don't like us looking at a single number. We are looking at our ranking, this number, as an epic failure. We should be instead focusing our attention on what it is that we are doing right and work from there in trimming the areas that are not helping us build the kinds of young adults we need to sustain us.

I also wonder about the general population of these countries that are scoring so high. How homogeneous is their population in comparison to ours? Does the natural and expanding diversity of our country account from some of our troubles? Also, how large is the area they cover in relation to their population? In other words, how densely populated and geographically similar is their country? I personally feel it is a lot easier to create systems that are more effective when your population is more homogeneous and your country is somewhat smaller geographically. I can't really articulate why in an intelligent argument at the moment, but I just have this gut feeling that this is part of our problem in the U.S. that is not often accounted for. I am not saying that we can't create a system and curricula that are demanding and rich, but that doing so may prove to be a lot trickier when comparing our population to the populations of those countries who are succeeding (according to the numbers).

I think I will leave it at that...

Common Planning Time

It seems to me that no matter what I read this week for the class, it all seemed to mention somewhere about the need for professionals to sit down on a regular and consistent basis for planning and curriculum development. This seems like such an easy fix to make and I wonder why so many schools don't seem to be doing this. We have NO common planning time where I work and now I feel like I am not fully meeting the needs of my students because I don't have the opportunity to sit and talk about the curriculum on a regular basis. Talk about what I am doing in my classroom, what the others are doing, what do we want to try, how can we improve. Why don't we have more common planning/meeting time during the work day?

After reading Curriculum 21 I really enjoyed the globalization chapter and what we need to do to make our students more globally prepared. I thought it was well-organized and easy to understand. I think it still seems overwhelming though. To me I think the biggest obstacle in getting this new global education in terms of connecting with other schools globally is the technology piece. How are other countries meeting this technology need? Are they really meeting it for all, or are they just meeting it for those students who live in the most populous areas? On the resources available to teachers on p. 24, I could only check off 4 of those items as being within my classroom. I alone have a laptop computer at my disposal. The other two computers sitting in my room are rather old and run sluggishly. I have an e-mail account. I have a digital camera, but one I bring in from home because the one the school has provided is a battery eater and outdated. Then we have an IPOD and IPOD docking station for our classrooms. How do we get all of the technology that is out there to do these wonderful global ideas? How do we reach the rural areas? Maybe I am wrong in my thinking that we need the technology in place first before we can easily and readily globalize our curriculum like it was described in the book.

Current Trends in Elementary Education

First I want to begin by speaking about the Kiran Bir Sethl video that we were asked to watch. Wow! So simple and so powerful. There were a few key phrases that jumped out at me while I was listening:
* blur the boundaries between school and life
* aware, enable, empower
* i can
* children as protaganists
* you have got to believe....you can

All of these things are so simple yet form the foundation of a very powerful curriculum that engages students and provides in depth learning experiences that are meaningful. I hope our education system can aspire to be this.

The article Elementary Education: Current Trends from Answers.com left me with many things to think about and many things that made me stew. The beginning of the article mentioned how local and national attention on elementary schools continues to be directed at making an education system that is educative, meaningful and positive. My first thought is how can learning be meaningful is all that we are doing is testing. That isn't meaningful or positive. It is an education in how to take a test. It also mentioned how our schools still resemble the "vernacular of colonial America." How can this be a good thing? It's a little concerning that our schools still resemble those schools. I think the basics of some of those schools were sound and important, but we should be much further along.

The article gave a new definition of curriculum I had not previously seen, "Curriculum may be looked at as a negotiated set of beliefs about what students should know or be able to do." My first response in my notes was, "Hmmm...." I am still not sure what to make of it, but it is giving me something more to think about. It also goes on to mention the current testing environment and standards based movement that some people in the business world think that this testing is necessary to make sure that all children master at least the basic essentials. I immediately cringed at this because they aren't mastering anything except how to take a test. Mastery learning occurs when the learning experience is meaningful and mastery involved higher level thinking. Mastery is not memorization.

I could go on and on. There was mention of poor student performance as being a failure of the education system, the idea that 87% of all U.S. teachers believe the standards movement is movement in the right direction, the immigrant population and how this effects our education system, all of which I had some thoughts on, but I will stop.

I'm not sure where we are supposed to mention the article we found about current trends in curriculum in elementary education, but I am posting the link of my article here: http://www.ecs.org/html/offsite.asp?document=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edexcellence.net%2Fdoc%2FMoats2007.pdf

This is a fascinating article about the movement in reading toward "scientifically-based" reading instruction as a better and more "proven" method toward the instruction of reading. It is interesting the number of schools abandoning their own curricula for these "scientifically-based" basal reader programs with their scripts and assessments. This is a movement I don't support and this article provides more information about this.

Comparative Education

After reading the articles for this week I was struck by one big unifying factor of all of the areas where students seem to be flourishing in their educational systems...the trust placed in teachers in developing local assessments to meet local, state, and national standards. In the U.S., teachers seem to be placed further and further down the totem pole in their value to the system. Canned curricula that tell you what to say and how to say it with a string of assessments are the norm. We can't be trusted to make our own local assessments and to evaluate our own students' learning. We are merely the speaking box and manager of behavior. We aren't supposed to have to think. And with NCLB and high-stakes testing, our roll has been reduced further to some degree to a person preparing students to take a multiple-choice test that will supposedly indicate their level of learning. (Sorry for my rant.)

The Zhao interivew article, "Playing 'Catch-Up' with Developing Nations Makes No Sense for U.S." had many statements that just jumped right out at me and made perfect sense. One statement was the idea that when learning is tied too strictly to one criterion people will always try to game the system. We see this with NCLB. Some states set their requirements so low they appear to be doing wonderfully, while others who set them high are apparently failing miserably, but still could be performing better. Secondly, that narrowing to one criterion will drive the system and that doesn't drive equity. That, "equity is ensured more by teachers, by the classroom than by standards." To me this is one of the major failings of the NCLB legislation. It failed to realize this important bit of information. That it wasn't and isn't the diversity of standards across the country that are failing our children, but the equity in the quality of teachers and schools.

I particularly liked from the article "What Would it Mean to Be Internationally Competitive" by Linda Darling-Hammond and Laura McCloskey the information about how these countries who are succeeding are not using their assessments to punish and sanction schools. They use the assessments as information for curriculum improvement and because of this can set higher standards. They work with schools, not against them.

The main threads of all of these articles was that assessment was tied to performance-standards more than paper-and-pencil tests. That standards and learning were geared around higher-level thinking skills: creating, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, etc. Skills that are the most sought after and most needed in today's world. Teachers are trusted and important to the designing of assessment and education. That learning also was geared toward the areas strengths. Their niches. What they do well. When will we finally catch on?

What Curriculum Should Be...Hmmm

Well I can't say that I have a solid answer even after reading the 3 articles. A common message that seemed to underlie all 3 articles is curriculum should be student centered. The Alvin Toffer article on edutopia.org had this to say: "you need to find out what each student loves. If you want kids to really learn, they've got to love something." The weblogg-ed article had this to say: "I think I’m finally getting to the root of my continued frustration with my kids’ education which is the system’s inability to help them find and nurture the areas they truly have passion for. It would be nice if the institution were the place that connected my kids to the experts they desired and needed to support their learning, wouldn’t it?" Finally the edutopia.org article about the virtual classroom had this to say: "Some form of blended learning -- online and in the classroom -- will likely become the norm, as students take one or two online courses to supplement their traditional schedule."

The idea of blended learning, with some learning occurring in the classroom and supplemental learning occurring online seemed an intriguing idea to me. I think this could be a solution to some budgetary problems when it comes to funding education. If I am not mistaken, Maine spends the most per pupil of any state in the nation. Where is all of this money going? I think a huge cost in Maine is the fact that we have vast rural areas requiring us to run schools with few students, but having the same heating and busing costs. Blended learning to complete online learning seems like an alternative worth looking at. Of course, just like the articles state, you have to make sure you TRAIN your teachers to do this kind of teaching. That this is important. I really don't have enough information from these articles to really give full support of this idea as a model that would work in Maine. My big question is how do you get around NCLB or integrate NCLB into this kind of model? How do you convince the "system" in Washington to change? Many of the people who lead us nationally and locally succeeded in the traditional curriculum because their very nature allowed them to. They often don't see or understand why it fails so many. Is this really as big an obstacle as I see it to be?

What Do They Mean by Curriculum?

Gosh, there are certainly many things to find when searching for the definition of curriculum. The definitions I've found tend to be very broad and don't really give me much more than I already knew about what a curriculum was. Wikipedia gives curriculum this definition - In formal education or schooling (cf. education), a curriculum is the set of courses, course work, and content offered at a school or university. The Webster-Merriam Dictionary gives curriculum this definition - 1 : the courses offered by an educational institution; 2 : a set of courses constituting an area of specialization. John Kerr gives it a slightly different, and to me, a slightly more useful definition - All the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the school. Then as I dug deeper I found that people have even broken down the definition of curriculum into 4 or more parts, types or approaches. This link had a very lengthy list to define curriculum - http://www.uwsp.edu/Education/lwilson/curric/curtyp.htm. Whoa. My head is spinning now.

I guess if I could pick a definition that spoke to me the most personally and one I would use to guide my own thinking at this point would be the definition given by John Kerr that I referenced above and italicized for easy finding. Of course, I could be completely off base in my newer thinking on curriculum after my research into just the definition. I reserve the right to change my preference and definition with newer thinking.

I think for the course I am finding that my biggest question I want answered is, "What should the curriculum include?" I think knowing 'what' a curriculum should include, although I fear that there is no easy answer there either, will help me better in determining what a good working definition of curriculum is. I work as a grade 1 teacher and plan on staying in the elementary arena at this point (but who knows where the winds will take me next year). Due to the area I work in, I think my inquiry project question will be, "What should an elementary school curriculum include?" I am borrowing this from Ed's list, but I think this is the best way to direct my own learning.

Is My School Regular?

Certainly my schooling was regular. I have taken a few courses and done some reading and my view on "regular" schooling has definitely changed with new information. I had the opportunity to take a course titled Students At-Risk and Their Families and I was lucky enough to have 2 alternative education teachers in the course. The class took on many discussions about traditional or "regular" schools versus "alternative" education. We discussed why "alternative" education seems to help those students who are most at-risk. What is the "regular" system failing to do?

There are certainly better ways to organize many schools. I believe the regular system does severely hinder higher level learning. We seem to put students through fact factories instead of engaged, meaningful, learning zones. I teach at an elementary school and I could think of a few ways to help the learning experience. First, interruptions to the day are always interrupting learning. We constantly have a stream of announcements and dismissals coming over our PA system. What is the necessity of this? Couldn't announcements be better saved for the daily bulletin or e-mail if they are non-emergencies? Couldn't student dismissals be called directly into the classroom instead of to the whole school? These constant interruptions disrupt the flow of learning within the classroom. Then there are the specials that occur at random times that you stop learning for no matter how meaningful or wonderful. It also changes the routine of each school day. This makes consistency difficult. Make the specials at the same time everyday or at the beginning or end of the day, not randomly scattered through the middle.

Then there are the separate subjects. Writing and reading are pretty well mixed and flow as one big block with a snack break somewhere in the middle to refuel their brains. It's connected and meaningful. Reading and writing is student directed with student's choosing what they want to do with each of these. After that it is a mess. I have a math program and science units to teach with a limited time to do each and it is just a conveyor belt of information so I can get them done and get the assessments done. I'd love for them to become more meaningful, more project based, more higher-level thinking. I think this is a productive change. Learning information doesn't have to be an unconnected array of small bits of information to say that you taught those things. Make long-term meaningful projects that teach those same skills in a real-world way.

The school I teach in is definitely "regular." I think it strives to be different, but finds the task of changing overwhelmingly large. I also think the task is daunting in the face of NCLB as well. I think many schools may face this same problem, and in the face of these problems, would rather leave it as is for now. Save the headache for someone new.

I personally would like to know more about curriculum development and such. With that knowledge I am sure these things will change above with my new knowledge. I hope this wasn't a rambling mess and it answered some questions. With the start of the course my mind is always a jumbled mess of thoughts that slowly organizes itself to some degree by the end into more coherent thoughts.