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If you teach, or if you are a parent, what is your school currently doing regarding state standards?
I've heard of some districts who now require teachers to match every lesson to the standards. In other words, any unit or lesson a teacher wants to do that isn't related to the standards is no longer allowed, even if it adds educational value or is interesting/engaging to the students.
I think that's an extreme case, but I want to know more from you:
- As a parent, are you aware/interested in how schools approach standards?
- If you teach, what is your district currently requiring? Do you have less academic freedom than in years past? How does this affect you, your students, and your career?
If you teach, or if you are a parent, what is your school currently doing regarding state standards?
I've heard of some districts who now require teachers to match every lesson to the standards. In other words, any unit or lesson a teacher wants to do that isn't related to the standards is no longer allowed, even if it adds educational value or is interesting/engaging to the students.
I think that's an extreme case, but I want to know more from you:
- As a parent, are you aware/interested in how schools approach standards?
- If you teach, what is your district currently requiring? Do you have less academic freedom than in years past? How does this affect you, your students, and your career?
PA is required to operate from the standards. Increasingly more districts are also using a standard of teaching process called LEARNING FOCUS which is a research based set of strategies and procedures for developing lesson plans. In some ways its almost scripted, but there is substantial research that shows that children learn way more effectively when this process of teaching is used.
PA is required to operate from the standards. Increasingly more districts are also using a standard of teaching process called LEARNING FOCUS which is a research based set of strategies and procedures for developing lesson plans. In some ways its almost scripted, but there is substantial research that shows that children learn way more effectively when this process of teaching is used.
In the district where I live, the teachers in all grades have to write the standards they are addressing that day on the board. In some of the schools, an administrator will come in and randomly ask a student what standard they are working on (just to make sure the teacher made it clear to the class).
It's become much more dictatorial where I work over the past 10 years. Not only are teachers held strictly to teaching the standards and nothing else (goodbye interesting lessons you plan yourself), but it's scripted to the point where you're supposed to be on the same lesson at the exact same time as the teacher on the other side of town. In theory, this is good practice and allows migrant populations (some parents change their kids through 2-3 schools in a year) to not have so many gaps, but anyone who's ever set foot in a classroom understands that not every kid or every class learns the same way or at the same pace. Sometimes you get the slow class that needs and extra day before moving on. Sometimes you get that odd duck class that would really benefit from a different lesson, or a totally different approach. That's out of consideration too.
On the one hand, I get why they're doing it. It helps get the mediocre in line. But for those good and exceptional teachers, it binds their hands and limits their ability to really do what they are capable of.
I don't understand why sticking to the standards means you can't have interesting lessons...for example, here's a 6th grade math standard from VA:
Quote:
6.8 The student will solve multistep consumer-application problems involving fractions and
decimals and present data and conclusions in paragraphs, tables, or graphs. Planning a
budget will be included.
The kids were given play money, ads from target/walmart/kmart, and told to shop for their families' holiday gifts. Then they had to write up a statement saying how they decided what to buy, how they knew what something "half off" cost, etc. They had a blast.
Here's another:
Quote:
The student will compare and convert units of measure for length, area, weight/mass, and
volume within the U.S. Customary system and the metric system and estimate
conversions between units in each system:
a) length — part of an inch (1/2, 1/4, and 1/8), inches, feet, yards, miles, millimeters,
centimeters, meters, and kilometers;
b) weight/mass — ounces, pounds, tons, grams, and kilograms;
c) liquid volume — cups, pints, quarts, gallons, milliliters, and liters; and
d) area — square units. *
Students designed their "dream bedroom", giving the dimensions in feet as well as yards and inches, calculating the amount of paint (in gallons and quarts and cups and pints) that it would take to paint the walls, and creating a drawing or diorama or description of their room in addition to the floor plan.
We are a "red flag school" to our district (we missed AYP for math last year), so we are watched like hawks. The entire school has joint planning--all 6th grade math teachers must be on a common calendar, use common assessments, and come up with joint lesson plans. All lessons must tie into a standard. We have to include certain things administration has decided are valuable (daily reflection, weekly vocabulary lessons, etc), but we still bring in all kinds of really cool, interesting lessons--at least, I think we do.
Standards aren't evil--they just provide a framework to work with. I've never felt like I couldn't do a valuable lesson. I've just had to find cool ways to teach what is required. The non-standard stuff is done in June, after testing is over.
I don't understand why sticking to the standards means you can't have interesting lessons...for example, here's a 6th grade math standard from VA:
Standards aren't evil--they just provide a framework to work with. I've never felt like I couldn't do a valuable lesson. I've just had to find cool ways to teach what is required. The non-standard stuff is done in June, after testing is over.
I agree with you that they could be implemented as an effective tool, and they definitely help novice teachers and mediocre teachers. They could also be a great tool for more skilled teachers, depending on how much freedom is allowed by administrators. I think the real test of their effectiveness is in the implementation... and how much freedom teachers are given to design or include those "fun" lessons varies by campus and district. What may work perfectly at one school district may be shut down by another that wants everyone to do it the same cookie cutter way for the sake of control.
Just saying, I've seen it happen both ways. I'm not against the idea in general, but the way it's being implemented at some schools is flawed.
If you teach, or if you are a parent, what is your school currently doing regarding state standards?
I've heard of some districts who now require teachers to match every lesson to the standards. In other words, any unit or lesson a teacher wants to do that isn't related to the standards is no longer allowed, even if it adds educational value or is interesting/engaging to the students.
I think that's an extreme case, but I want to know more from you:
- As a parent, are you aware/interested in how schools approach standards?
- If you teach, what is your district currently requiring? Do you have less academic freedom than in years past? How does this affect you, your students, and your career?
Here's my take, and it might not be a popular one: Standards make it harder for bad teachers to teach badly.
1. It halts the dumbing-down
Many teachers at the high school levels have been assigning lower-level books for years and years, teaching to a lower and lower standard, and then wondering why it is that their kids can't read. Their response? To lower the standard even more. The Common Core sets out a very clear delineation: if you're teaching high school, the texts you need to assign should be at high school levels.
2. It ensures students read some crucial texts (but not too many)
It mandates Shakespeare, one American dramatist, and core documents of the United States -- all items that students taught by decent teachers in decent schools should be reading anyway.
3. It spells out the specifics of what kind of writing students should do.
For example, my previous state standards said that students were to write narrative essays, but didn't spell out what elements needed to be in the narrative essays. Common Core does. Same with argument -- they don't just say, "Write an argumentative paper," but something to the effect of, "Use evidence to prove a central claim, address counterclaims..." and so on.
I never thought I'd be saying that standards which spell out what you're supposed to do would be good -- but after teaching this long and seeing what I have, I now think differently.
The problem with the idea of "even if it adds educational value or is interesting/engaging to the students" is this: The standards -- including the Common Core -- are a MINIMUM of what teachers are supposed to teach. The problem is that many teachers are not meeting that minimum at all, or are finding absurd ways to justify what they're doing as somehow "meeting a standard." In some states, the standards are so vaguely written that teachers can plug essentially anything they want to in there -- and that's a problem.
I am also skeptical of choosing an activity ONLY because it is "interesting/engaging to the students." Aside and apart from the fact that students find many things interesting -- but those interesting things should not necessarily have a place in a high school curriculum -- you're setting up a false dichotomy here: that material meeting the standards is not interesting or engaging, and that material outside the standards is. Perhaps you did not mean this? I'm hopeful that most teachers see no necessary conflict between activities that meet a standard and activities that are interesting.
Last edited by Charles Wallace; 05-22-2011 at 09:14 AM..
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