Warning: this is kind of a long rant – if you read the contents of the link as well. Just more grist for the mill:
We have had, over all the years, many questions about curriculum. The ones we’ve developed here as a group always seem to get outdated, buried back in the archives, scrolled out into the past, and I don’t share them here because with each new year we learn more and the older models no longer serve.
An aside: If I ever try to make points about our profession here on my PLC, the reader must keep in mind that they are my opinions only. For example, what I say about curriculum below is just my idea about what it is. I can’t speak for everyone. This is the kind of profession where we have to draw our own conclusions about what is best for us and our students, because we are all different. There is no one ideal way to teach, bc we are all different and we must take into account our own teaching personalities and styles to insure the best experience for us and our students.
To extend that thought, teachers working together within a department should in my opinion never all have to do exactly the same thing, because each teacher is different as mentioned in the above paragraph. There is no harm in that. In fact, the students will always learn more if each teacher is allowed to teach according to what they think is best. The idea that teaching the same thing in the same way at the same rate of speed is a horribly destructive idea that has been responsible for more failed pedagogies than could ever be counted.
Why we always try to do the cookie cutter thing in FL education has always mystified me. Language simply doesn’t work that way. When we all teach the same material in the same way, we take a hammer to the research. If the cookie cutter way of teaching worked, we would know it by now. It has failed. Why not blend our teaching methodology with our own personalities? It’s worth a try, given the massive, almost unbelievable failures of the past when the cookie cutter approach has been used. Massive. Failure. Against. The research.
So here is the latest question about curriculum, and it is my prayer that somebody actually sends us links to what their own curriculum looks like, so that the teacher who asked this question can at least have a starting point for crafting something to hang on to. I don’t have the answer myself because my position has always been that the real curriculum is the language and nothing less, as per this too-long collection of unedited writing on the general concept of curriculum:
It is my fervent hope that someone in the PLC can provide a curriculum that helps provide a response to this teacher’s question. Here is her question:
Q. I have a question to ask you, seeing as how I am making my way very slowly through your book. (There are literally not enough hours in a day…) I am trying to piece together a curriculum for myself and for administration. I hate the idea of topic-centered content. Is there a curriculum you use that indicates what you hope to cover at each level? I am struggling to have consistency in my day to day work, and don’t really know anymore what each level should look like. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Hope you are well!
A. I will ask the PLC community. Someone might have something you can use. One thing I have noticed about submitting curriculums to admins is that they never actually check to see if the glove fits the hand, to see if the curriculum you submitted aligns with what you are actually doing in the classroom
Thus, you can take – and I have done this a lot – any curriculum, even if it’s what you are not actually doing in your classroom and submit it to them and they won’t even read it. So that’s the first thing to know – the chances are next to zero that an admin even has the time to see if your “curriculum” aligns with your classroom instruction.
As for your own needs to have everything planned out per year, I can’t help you with that because my position has always been that the real curriculum is the free language in a free and unfettered (no word lists, no alignment w a textbook, etc.) environment of NTCI. So I will ask the group and maybe somebody will respond with something you can adapt for yourself.
You are right about topic-centered content. It’s horribly boring and handcuffs the beauty of NTCI. It laid waste to TPRS, and it wasn’t even Blaine’s fault.
We must craft our own curriculums for ourselves, ultimately, and that is truly difficult and yet quite simple, depending on how we respond to pressure in our buildings.
For more ideas you may want to check out some of the articles in the “Curriculum” category on the right side of this page.