Search This Blog

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Building The Track While Driving the Train

How successful are you at doing all (or most) of your planning before the school year begins?

Does your school provide you with a curriculum or ask you to write your own? Do you have a scope and sequence before the first day of school?

According to the NYC teachers' contract, the DOE is supposed to provide a curriculum for each core subject. The UFT reports that schools are NOT proving this to teachers. Are you in this predicament? I am.

We should have the tracks built before start driving the train. What kind of craziness is it to try to lay down the tracks while you're diving the train?

To be clear, EngageNY is not a curriculum. A textbook is not a curriculum.

A real curriculum should include a scope and sequence. What are the units of study and in what order should they be taught? What are the standards addressed in each unit, and therefore what are the lesson objectives?

These are basic questions that many teachers seem to have difficulty answering. Is this fair to us? Is this fair to students? Why do some schools have curricula and others don't? Would you want your child attending a school where the teachers don't even have a roadmap?