During this first week of class we read an article called “A Coherent Curriculum: The Case of Mathematics”. This article really made me think about curriculum that is being used and what I could do as a teacher. The article opened up with a great analogy:
“Consider the agricultural prospects of two countries: In Country A, the nation takes the best that’s known about growing crops and translates it into clear, coherent, manageable guidelines for farming. These guidelines are distributed to all farmers in the country. Further, Country A makes available to all farmers up-to-date tools (tractors, balers, harvesters, etc.) and training on how to use these tools that allow them to implement the wisdom contained in the guidelines. Just as in any other country, some farmers have inherently greener thumbs than other; they find ways to surpass the guidelines and cultivate extra-rich cops. But the broad availability of the guidelines and tools puts a floor beneath farming quality. As a result, the gap between the most and least-effective farmers is not very great, and the average quality of farming is quite good. Moreover, the average quality slowly increases as the knowledge of the best farmers is incorporated into the guidelines. In Country B, the situation is very different. States, and sometimes towns, assemble a list of everybody’s favorite ideas about farming. The list is available to any farmer who seeks it out, but it’s up to the individual farmers to develop their own guidelines based on the list. The ideas are interesting, but there are too many ideas to make use of, no indications of which ideas are the best, and no pointers on which ideas fit together with other ideas. Plus, using the ideas requires tools-and training about how to use the tools. Few farmers have ready access to either. The result: A few particularly skilled farmers in Country B figure out how to farm productively. They are mainly the farmers in more affluent areas-they have been able to attend great local agricultural schools and can afford the tools suggested by their training. A few additional farmers-those with a special knack-do fine anyway, despite their lack of training and use of poor tools. But most of Country B’s farms aren’t particularly efficient, certainly not in comparison with Country A’s. In Country B, the gap between the most-and least-effective farms is huge, and the productivity of the average farm is far less than its Country A counterpart.”
When I applied this same analogy to teaching it makes a lot of sense. Why wouldn’t we have some sort of guidelines for everyone to use when it comes to what to teach? There is tons of information out there available to teachers and at times it can make it very overwhelming. Now bring in a new teacher. They may have the necessary knowledge they need to teach students, but how do they sift through all of that information to bring together effective lessons. Having a unified curriculum for everyone throughout the country would be very beneficial. It gives teacher the push in the right direction when it comes to planning and all students have been given the same learning opportunities. The thing to remember is that having a coherent curriculum isn’t taking away a teacher’s freedom to teach how they would like. An individual teacher can still pick and choose what activities they use in their classroom.
As a new teacher, I am not going to have a lot of say when it comes to curriculum choices across the district, state, or country. I am sure that there are many current teachers out there right now who feel the same way. The question that comes to mind is what can I do when I first step into my own classroom? One of the solutions that can to my mind is working within the school to create our own coherent curriculum. Not only can I work with my own team of teachers but I can work with the other teams of teacher that make up the other grades in the school. If we can all create our own coherent curriculum, at least at the school level our students will be taught consistently.
I came across an interesting article. Timothy D. Kanold, Ph.D. discusses a coherent curriculum. He is the Superintendent of Adlai E. Stevenson High School District 125 Lincolnshire, Illinois. Stevenson is the only high school in the state to receive four Blue Ribbon Awards for Excellence in Education from the U.S. Department of Education. He must have a good idea of how to implement a coherent curriculum and it is obviously working well. Check out the article by clicking here.
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