Curriculum should be the framework from which we build our instruction on a day to day basis. It should be a guideline to tell us what to teach, and when, to allow our students to learn what we are teaching. The reality is that in this age of high stakes testing, the curriculum itself is being used as a measuring stick to determine how effective a teacher is in the classroom. Kentucky has developed curriculum documents that all teachers in the state are to use to plan their instruction. These documents are broken down into standards that all students are to have mastered at a certain grade level. The students are then tested to see if the standards had been met. The testing generates all kinds of reports showing how many students actually mastered the standard. In turn, the teacher is held accoountable for the results of that test. While I am all for holding teachers accountable, I think that there is not enough accountability for the students taking the tests. As educators, we are always being told to make our instruction relevant, to show the students how they can use the information in their own lives. Then in the Spring, we turn around and give them a test, that has huge implications and consequences, and they are not even held accoutnable for how well they do, much less shown the relevance to their own lives on performing well on the test.

As for having control over the curriculum, teachers have little input. I am of two minds on this. I feel it is vital that there is a standard curriculum that teachers across the state have to follow. The student in Eastern Kentucky, which is part of the Appalachian Mountains, should have the same education as a student in Frankfort. This was the issue that the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) was to address. What I would like to see is that the curriculum be developed ONLY be teachers who have actually taught in the classroom on a day to day basis. Teachers who understand how unrealistic it is to teach everything we are being asked to teach to every group of students. People with limited classroom experience have no business creating a curriculum for which teachers are going to be held accountable.

On a day to day basis, curriculum in my classroomis based around those standards listed in the Kentucky curriculum documents. I take each standard and create objectives from them. Some standards encompass so many concepts that one standard could have many objectives. I then post those objectives on the board for each of my classes. I tell the students before instruction the objective of the day. I will use different formative assessments to determine if the objective was met or not. I will use exit slips, bellwork the next day, questioning, and wipe-board-like activities, to name a few. The results of the formative assessment tell me if I can move to the next concpet or if I need to reteach.

I would like to blog about something that is a little off the subject. Teachers are constantly being told to make their instruction fun and interesting and engaging. While I agree that we need to do all we can to make learning fun, when did making the learning fun become the primary goal? We are teaching our students that if something is not "fun" it is not worth their attention. Life is not always fun. Sometimes in life you have to do something you don't want to do because it has to get done.