Curriculum vs materials

I always cringe when people talk about needing new curriculum. This came up recently in my local news when Seattle began discussing the need for new arts curriculum. Curriculum is what a teacher teaches. Sounds simple enough.

What does a teacher teach? The state standards and Eventually this will likely be the Common Core Standards. Either way, teaches teach various grade level standards. Materials are created by a publisher to help a teacher teach those standards. This helps districts keep kids across a district on the same relative page, while also helping those teachers that just don't know what to do to meet standards. Think of them as a one size fits all big box store of teachers. Similar to a Target where you can get many things of varying degrees of quality.. And some things not at all.

Materials are useful. I use Units of Study to help teach reading and writing. I love them. I also use TCI to teach social studies. I like that too, but I use it as a reading text and not a social studies text so the teacher's guide is somewhat useless. Regardless they are not my only resources, as they alone don't help me address the state standards. If there is a hole, or something is moved by too quickly, I can adjust to meet the needs of my kids.

Materials are not made for specific states, nor for your specific kids. You need to teach the standards. You also need to meet the needs of your kids. If you don't do either of those then you aren't teaching. If you use the materials then you need to make them your own, with your style and knowing what will work in your environment. Otherwise what are you, a script reader? Perhaps a warm body? Teaching is an art, largely made up by the personality and knowledge you bring on a daily basis.

I love teaching. Sometimes the semantics make me crazy.

Sub plans for yourself

I'm in the midst of prepping for a short leave of two weeks (possibly less). My wife and I are expecting out first child which is incredibly exciting. Simultaneously I am incredibly nervous about leaving my classroom. The only time I've had a substitute is when I was a new teacher visiting other mentor teacher classrooms. Otherwise, 1 day with a sub? No more than 2.

I love my grade level and want the best for my kids. Just doing worksheets or busy work is unacceptable- as it always should be! So how do you make sure the sub helps your kids get to where you want? That is the big $1,000 question.

My plans have my objectives and have an overall layout. I've broken down tasks that I might have kids do seamlessly. Instead I've built in extensions to keep kids moving and interested. Our work is with the colonies, so they'll do some additional research beyond the textbook in graphing population growth among other things.

The irony in this is that the leave was to start last week. Instead I've been using the plans. It helps me see where my planning needs some work, and how I could do things differently.

We've Got Issues

We're in the midst of our 5th grade CBA- curriculum based assessment. In this they need to select an issue, research it, analysis positions, and call for action. The project is ambitious, but worthwhile. My understanding is that some classes will do this as a stand alone assessment, and it will take 2-3 days.

I've taken to teaching this as a unit on issues. We'll discuss issues in our local community, go through what stakeholders are, and determine how we filter out information. We started earlier in the week by looking at a road near school that is ridiculously busy yet had no sidewalks. Instead it has a painted line as separation- helpful I suppose. We went through why this is a problem, who might care, and what could be done. Afterwards I modeled using search engines and our research databases (god help me if we type I the question again!!!).

How is it going? We're slowly moving the horse. Some are really pumped, and want to employ all of these skills. Others say "I'm not sure what issue to do can you pick one" or "there aren't any issues that impact me." The latter of those statements is particularly frustrating. They will say that we use too much paper or that school lunch doesn't taste good and turnaround to say those issues aren't a big deal to them. I will steer them into a choice between issues and let them do the rest, as it isn't my project (I already know that I can think about issues). My focus needs to be on pushing all of them, even those disinterested, to analyze information and explain. You can't say what should be done just because you think it sounds good!

Why I enjoy book groups...

Reading is a tough nut to crack. You can get it, or seem to get it, for a period of time before really missing the mark. In my experience you typically don't have that with some math skills- got dividing with remainders one day and then not the next. I will have kids that get it and then suddenly pop out the oddest of responses to questions.

"Getting it" is vital to book groups. When kids are responsible for coming prepared to a meeting the ante is raised. Moreover, the bar is set higher with a group of peers. No one wants to show up unprepared and stall out the group because they plowed through 60 pages without truly reading- word calling if you will.

I'm not sure what has done it, but my book groups are super. I've worked hard to get kids in high-interest books they have self-selected as ones they'd like to read. I put kids in groups that are not dominated by one voice, but definitely have someone who cares about reading. If need be, those are the kids leaned on to move conversation or push thinking further. The last thing is I've cut out lots of the writing kids pass in. It has steadily decreased over my first 2+ years. Instead, kids will stop and jot in journals daily with a smaller assignment once a week (2-3 over the course of a novel study). Kids have shown up well prepared, excited to talk, and willing to interact respectfully. You can't beat that.

Groups That Run Themselves

I'm trying something new for round two of literature circles/novel study. Instead of imposing page limits per week I'm going to turn control over to the book groups. Previously I'd assign 30-70 pages to be read over the course of the week. Some of that was during social studies and some of it was assigned as homework. This time is a little different.

I'm ceding control for a few reasons. The first is the length of this study. We are going to cruise through our books in 8-9 days. Instead of 2-3 weeks we are condensing it a bit, and more of the reading with happen in class. The second reason is because of how quickly they read. With some kids crushing, and understanding books in 2 days or less I needed to try something different. That leads me to my third and final reason...

I want kids to have more ownership over the process. They need to feel like a part of the process. It doesn't make a big difference if they are chapter 3 or 6 by the time they meet. They will all finish by the end of our schedule. But giving them a chance to decide as a team creates a bit more buy-in, and more ownership over the process. What I need to devote myself to is being sure to provide 15-30 minutes for 3 group meetings... Tough to cede valuable time, but it should be worth it.

Recurring themes

One of the best parts of teaching over a period of time is that you can find patterns. I enjoy data and like looking for patterns, themes, and connections. It is just how my brain tends to work. One theme that pops up often is this: I love projects, but dislike the time investment. This tends to come up around midwinter break, or whenever I embark on a project.

Therein is the struggle. Everyone wants their teaching to be engaging and interactive. I'm not sure of anyone that gets into the profession thinking otherwise. Often that leads you to some sort of outcome that isn't a worksheet, and is difficult to quantify or measure (but you do because it is called assessment and not fun time). The largest impediment for me is time. It is less the time to teach, but more the time to put the skills into practice and create a presentation or analytical essay. You also have the time on the back-end scoring work (seeing gaps in instruction).

We recently worked on our explorer projects. We developed a rubric for evaluating explorers, mined information, compared explorers leading to this "thing". Kids did a great job and really grappled with whether the explorer they chose was truly a great explorer. But getting there is a tedious process. Couple that with technology and a desire to add bells and whistles and you begin to stretch a 2 or 3 day project into 5-7 days. That is just the assembly part. The legwork beforehand is another few days since you're reading and categorizing information, determine important information etc.

As much as I love the work they do, I wrestle with time. Do another project or give it a rest? Some kids need a little more practice reading and responding instead of more free-form analysis. I want innovation yet know there are some content pieces I need to get to. Time, projects, and my inner struggle are my recurring themes. Judging by how I write about them, and when, this will continue for a while.

Down the Mysterly River by Bill Willingham

Recently I was browsing through the bookstore looking for something new. Faced out on one of the shelves was the book pictured to the left: Down the Mysterly River. The cover looked interesting, particularly as my kids love to read anthropomorphic stories like the Warriors, Seekers, or Wildwood. Something about animals that can talk generates a fair amount of interest.

It took me about 3 weeks to get through this story. I didn't necessarily become disinterested with the book as much as I was doing other things- reading blog posts, blogging using the mobile app, twittering... etc. During this break I finally finished the story in 2 short sittings, and am pleased to report that it was worth the time I spent working through it.

This has the characteristics of many fables, fitting with Willingham's previous work (writes the comic Fables). Max the Wolf (a boy scout) appears in a land far away from his boy scout troop. There he runs into a talking badger named Banderbrock. Together they go on the run from an odd group of people who are seemingly out to get them (the "Blue Cutters"). While on the run they pick up a bear named Walden, and a yellow tomcat named McTavish. No one knows where they are, or why they are there. But together they start to make their way through an odd land full of talking animals, yet teeming with danger. Their journey takes them to, and down, the large river in the middle of Heroes Wood called the Mysterly River. The journey involves great peril as they seek out answers to their many questions at the Wizard Swift's castle. Only time will tell if they'll make it.

Knowing that the author previously wrote fables provides some significant background knowledge. You recognize that the stories of the animals and Max have fable-like characteristics. They are approachable, and seem to speak towards the ideas of being kind, loyal, and truthful. The characters were also largely true to their animalistic nature. McTavish is a bit of a monster, as you'd expect a tomcat to be. He bickers with Banderbrock the badger, but also has the fighting spirit of badgers (not that I've ever encountered one). While it definitely gets a little heady, readers will like how the "mysterly" has resolution in the end.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Takes a while to really settle in, but enough action to capture the minds of a variety of readers.