Blogs on Curriculum

It's five minutes before the bell. My psychology students are reaching for their smartphones after our mini-field trip to the main campus library for an introduction to online reference materials.

"Wait," I say. "Before you go, I have a short question to leave you with."

The students sigh but smile, setting down their phones.

"What's left?" I ask, pausing for effect. "What is left?" They wait for me to continue. "Online, you've now got instant access to what everyone everywhere knows and thinks. In the past, to know anything you would have had to spend hours finding and memorizing it. Now it's right there on your smartphones. So what's left? If everyone has access to all this information, what is school for, and how could it possibly give you any kind of edge? What's the future of education?"

As full implementation of Common Core State Standards nears, educators are searching for answers to three questions: 1) What are the CC State Standards? 2) How will they change what I do? and 3) Why are they here? Some of the details are frustratingly elusive as various groups -- publishers, school districts, states, and universities -- jockey for positions in the first post-NCLB initiative.

Teachers: How often do you think something like, When I was a kid, I always did what my teachers told me to do and never questioned their authority, or I hated silent reading, or I loved learning about ancient Greece/making dioramas/participating in science fair? And do these reflections surface when you're making decisions about what to do in your classroom around instruction, management, or curriculum?

I have a confession to make: at some point this year, I realized that there’s a difference between the teacher I would love to be and the teacher I currently am.

Most teachers want to do interdisciplinary projects, project-based learning and every other education phrase with the words "exploration" and "project" in it. Despite evidence to the contrary, their reality of having to teach directly to a standardized test (ultimately affecting their municipality's perception of them) casts a longer shadow on them than even the bravest of us want to admit.