THIS IS IT! This IS MY overarching CURRICULUM for kids. Be an Explorer of the World–wherever you are in the world at any given moment.
If I can help kids see and approach their wide world DAILY through this lens of discovery, observation, questioning, pattern-seeking and curiosity…I will have done the job I believe in my heart to be an educator’s highest calling.
Kids become emboldened and enlightened when they get the chance to experience this type of learning and it changes kids at their core for the rest of their lives. They become lifelong learners… and lifelong learners are the people that change the world!
The detailed, lengthy and often void-of-life curriculum/standards that educators get handed each school year are uninspiring and too detailed; they are lacking in the spirit of the things that are CENTRAL to inspired learning and living… and that’s being kind!
Every August it’s the same story. “Here! This is what you’ll teach for the year. Oh yes, and there’s a test over all of it and you better make sure the kids’ scores are high. A lot is riding on the scores. Your scores will be printed and compared to those of other teachers.”
The system dictates our focus as educators from the get-go! Our focus is about information and tests; it’s not about the kids and the best ways for them to learn or amazing ways to give them choice and say and opportunities. It’s not about teachers free to collaborate and plan with each other connected, thematic, AWESOME unit plans for the kids. You get my drift?! This routine will start again this August and our educators and kids will continue to be run by the high-stakes tests and the curriculum/standards that feed it.
I’ve always been struck by how LIFELESS the curriculum/standards are and how we educators have no hand in crafting them! I would make them simpler, broader, and have them include more about the WORLD outside the school doors–community knowledge. Thus, each community/area/region would have differences in their curriculum. Kids should be able to walk outside the school doors and talk about things that surround them; problem-solve and take action as needed. Could they do that now?! No, because they’re rarely outside and they’re not given time to explore, discover, and look for patterns when they are outside. This takes time and the curriculum and tests rob us of that time…they rob the KIDS of that joyous time.
The HIGH-STAKES tests in place, and largely accepted and not avidly discussed/ debated/acted on by teachers, are the PROBLEM. A high stakes test tied to any curriculum necessitates teacher (and thus student) energies are focused at whatever is on the test. This means kids are sittin’ and gittin’ and doing a few active things perhaps and then testin.’ Repeat. This ensures teachers are stuck in their rooms all scurrying around to cover everything during the year before the BIG test; and through all the other tests we’re mandated to give.
What RUNS our schools? The high-stakes tests and curriculum/standards do. Period. That needs to be flipped on its head! Kids’ well-being, learning, and opportunities for leadership and choice should rule. That should be the pulse we’re all running off of, not the pulse of the test.
When all is said and done, if your district funding or ranking, or your own pay is determined by student scores on a long and mysterious high-stakes test written by people somewhere else in the world making lots of money off the kids, by the way, then the TEST will be what’s RUNNING the SHOW. The TEST will determine how EDUCATORS and thus KIDS spend their days at school. The TEST will determine how our citizens view schools and learning–often negatively.
The high-stakes tests are responsible for something else I see as a problem: keeping the status quo of boring classes offered at the high school level; classes that are lifeless, not chosen by kids (were they asked what classes they’d LIKE to TAKE?) and not tied to real world. If I could craft my own set of classes for kids to take at high school, there would be MUCH MORE CHOICE, a much wider variety of classes, including classes that tie closely to jobs/disciplines. Kids know so very little about what they want to BE when they grow up. Big part of the reason is they waste time in classes that are not anything they’re interested in and are not aligned with THEIR learning goals for the real world of jobs and beyond. What they rally want to say….GIVE ME AWESOME things to learn, GIVE ME CHOICE, GIVE ME TOOLS and TIME, GIVE ME A SAY IN MY OWN LEARNING AND MY OWN DAY!
WHO says we need high stakes testing? I’m being honest and frank here. Why can we NOT throw high-stakes testing out the window? What would educators say if we could vote on this one issue? I say we don’t need it. I say it’s time to chuck it out the window. Give us curriculum/standards, but give us a say in those and don’t tie them to high-stakes tests for goodness sake!
You cannot ‘test’ being an Explorer of the World. Thus if the high-stakes testing continues tied to detailed, lifeless curriculum/standards, we will remain chained to the test and our high schools will remain chained to boring sequences of classes largely predetermined with little TRUE CHOICE and EXCITEMENT for our kids.