Here are two things I know for a fact:
1. People hate change.
2. People love to complain about their jobs.
I don't care who you are, whether you're a teacher or a sales rep or an investment banker. Everyone loves to play the my-job-is-harder-than-yours game. As a young teacher who has been in the field less than five years, I agree with all those other teachers out there in the Twittersphere. Teaching is a hard job. If you want to get things done your way, you have to play to whatever politics there may be in your district, cross your fingers that you have a supportive administrator, and then pretty much just make it happen with your own blood, sweat, and tears (and probably your own funding). I get it. I chose an underpaid and underappreciated profession. But I also didn't choose it because I thought I was going to be overpaid or even appreciated a normal amount. I chose it because I love kids, and I'm passionate about creating more curious, creative humans.
A lot of people in a lot of states are up in arms about Common Core because they believe it squeezes creativity and inquiry out of the classroom. I would like to disagree about that and provide evidence to support my disagreement. My school is in its second year of implementing Common Core State Standards. As our team created our seventh grade curriculum, we really chose to focus on how to move to a more inquiry-focused, student-led model of learning. Yes, we changed our core texts to increase the rigor of our students' reading. Yes, we are still subject to quarterly standardized testing, like many other districts, and, yes, we were able to cover all the standards in depth by the end of the school year while still allowing students choice in both reading and writing projects. My classroom is far more creative and collaborative now than it was during my first year of teaching and implementing Common Core has helped our English department move to a much more team-oriented, cross-curricular approach.
I realize that the introduction of the CCSS has been a rough transition. Not every educational leader understands that the standards are a framework from which to build a curriculum. I'm fortunate to have very supportive adminstrators. Not every teacher has that. But I guess I'm frustrated because people are really playing the blame game here. Instead of taking ownership of the fact that teaching is hard, and teachers don't have a voice, and all the rest, why don't we take ownership of the fact that, at a grassroots level, we can create change? No, we can't change our states' decision to use or not use Common Core, but we can open our classroom doors and our hearts and our minds to impact the lives of our colleagues and our students in a positive way. We can choose to smile and share victories in the teachers lounge and on Twitter instead of complaining and saying teaching's almost not "worth it" anymore.
We all have frustrating days and weeks and months. Life is hard sometimes, whether you're a teacher, a principal, a student, or a parent. Rather than get caught up in the negative, let's all get caught up in the positive. In fact, let's create the positive. Let's create some positive, and then post it on Twitter and share some positive. That's going to be my goal for 2014. What about you?
Thanks for your post!!! I hope others are reading it!
ReplyDeleteSaw this on FB and wanted to say Thank You SOO much!! I am sharing it with others. As someone working in an education cooperative providing PD on Common Core, I appreciate teachers in the field that realize change takes time and hard work. Your students are lucky to have you as their teacher!
ReplyDeleteYou're awesome! It's a blessing to work with you and your team.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say your "team" created your seventh grade curriculum, would you mind clarifying who that includes? Do all seventh grade teams in your building/district follow the same curriculum, or are you able to personalize by team? Are you using the Bill and Melinda Gates document as a guideline, or just the CCSS document? It sounds like you have an ideal situation!
ReplyDeleteHi Carolyn! Our "team" is made up of three seventh grade English teachers, one special ed. literacy teacher, one literacy instructional facilitator, and our library media specialist. We are a mid-size district with one middle school, serving about 800 6th and 7th grade students. Our team used both the Gates model and the CCSS, as well as a list of grade-level appropriate texts from lexile.org. From there, we pieced together four 9-week units that we felt strongly met all the standards and exposed our students to a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts and styles of writing. Most of our units also have cross-curricular connections that allow us to collaborate with the other content-area teachers. For example, we teach a science fiction unit that we created with the 7th grade science teachers that coincides with their unit on the solar system. We created the first draft of our curriculum map two years ago, and it continues to evolve at the daily, weekly, and quarterly level as our team continues to explore new ideas and instructional models! I hope this answers your questions. Thanks for reading!
DeleteThanks for the info! I wondered if your team was the cross-curricular group of teachers--per the middle-level concept--or your language arts department. I'm in Rogers, so I wondered how y'all were doing it in LR (or wherever you are that's close to there!). Ahhh...so you are a single middle school. We have four in Rogers--mine has 900 kids in grades 6th-8th. I like the rigor and depth of the CCSS, and yes, of course, we are most definitely a work in progress. Our middle level reading curriculum group, including me, will start working this month to hammer out how we do things. We started with the Gates book, but those units don't mesh well with the PARCC suggestion of four. We talked about cutting the science fiction unit altogether...love that you are working with your science teachers on it! Are you working with your social studies teachers, as well? If so, what ties are you making with them? So far, in reading only--and only regarding long texts--we do Soldier's Heart during the study of the Civil War/first quarter, then Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which doesn't really correlate with SS, then the play, "Miracle Worker," and then The House of the Scorpion...any helpful hints you've found along your way to share? Don't want to tie you up in a long discussion, but if you have the time to share, I'd love to hear! Thanks again for the response. C
ReplyDeleteWe work with our social studies teachers as well! 7th grade social studies does ancient civiliizations, so it was difficult at first to find common ground. However, they now teach Greek and Latin root words as a way to integrate literacy into their curriculum. We do our third quarter unit on texts related to the Civil Rights Movement, and this unit does allow for cross-curricular planning in social studies because they are learning about India, Ghandi, and nonviolent protest at the same time that we are studying Dr. King and nonviolent protest in the American South. It's a great opportunity for our students to make cross-cultural connections. We also teach A Christmas Carol and when we learn about the inventions of the Industrial Revolution, social studies teaches about ancient inventions. Again, a great opportunity for our students to make connections across history and cultures. I think the most important thing we did as a literacy team was reach out to the other content areas for ideas. As soon as other content area teachers knew that we wanted to create a cohesive curriculum that reached across content areas, they were excited to start brainstorming ideas with us. Our literacy team has common prep during the day, which makes common planning much easier for us.
DeleteThanks much for sharing! I love it! Sounds like we have some similarities...we need to do a better job pulling from our other content areas...reaching out is key, for sure. Really like how your kids are getting Greek and Latin roots in content areas...
DeleteTHANK YOU for saying what another colleague and I have been saying for two years! Our instruction is different now, but it is more rigorous and lends itself to more collaboration, class discussion and creativity than I have ever had before. Again, thank you for posting!
ReplyDeleteFabulous contribution, J. I really love what your school has done with CCSS and the Gates model. Having worked in your district, I observed first hand how that teamwork is paying off as your curriculum continues to develop. I also see this in the district I work in now, on all levels of secondary ed. It seems the English Departments have taken the helm, but many departments are involved and doing similar coordination. Way to go...and keep that positive attitude forever. Having a passion for what you do provides momentum as you continue. I love the field of education and hope I will never become negative about it. If I do, I'm out. Students need to feel our positivity...make it a good day or not, the choice is yours. :-)
ReplyDeleteExcellent effort at lighting a candle vs. cursing the dark. I would think your students are fortunate to warm themselves around the creative and supportive sparks you must work to provide in your classrooms. Any and every new initiative is a challenge, just as every day in the classroom is a challenge, for students as well as teachers. Thank you for continuing to work at meeting them.
ReplyDelete