Ed Weekly, Blog #10, 3-9-11

The following is a review of the Ed Weekly article titled, "Leaders Urge Shared Curriculum Guidlines Across States", Volume 30, #23.

This article talks about having a curriculum that is similar in content across each of the states in the U.S. The plan would provide guildlines for each state to follow in the major subject areas such as English and Math. I could sense the panic amongst some in this article feeling that this curriculum reform would stiffle their unique teaching style. The other side of the issue states that individual lessons and teaching style are still open for each teacher to use at their discretion. The new state to state curriculum would simply state a list of things that need to be mastered at each grade level. For instance, in the shared curriculum each 5rd grader will know how to do long division before moving on to the next grade. Or every kindergartner will be able to identify 10 geometric shapes before meeting the curriculum guildlines.
I think this proposition is brilliant. I don't believe any teacher should be able to have free reign of subject, criterian, testing, deliviery method and content. Teachers are very unique, individual people who mostly believe that the what and how of their teaching is decided by them. This is wonderful for the teacher, but not so wonderful for some of the students. The population that suffers the most from individual teaching style and diverse content is those students who move often. For these students, having a curriculum that is organized by grade level and is consistent from state to state is a must. I was "the new kid" many times throughout my childhood and I experienced moving from state to state quite a bit. I found myself always trying to catch up or killing time because I was ahead of the class. As an adult, I look back and realize that I have many gaps in my knowledge base due to moving. It was common for my family to move half way through a school year. I often missed critical info from the class I moved to and the one I moved from simply because of timing. I would love to see a uniformed curriculum used across the states. I think that it would clarify what is expected of then school, students and teachers according to the established across the board curriculum.