Taking Charge of the Curriculum

This past Sunday, I had an experience that was strangely similar to going down the massive hill of a roller coaster. Except it felt like I didn't have any of the safety harnesses on, and I was gripping on to the one bar of sanity right in front of me for dear life. All of this was because I was lost in the district's various class curriculums, and I had no idea what I was going to be doing for any of my classes the next day.

At first, I thought the district's plan was streamlined to the point where all I would have to do is go through the steps and plan some activities for the students in order to build some depths of knowledge. Planning shouldn't take very long I thought to myself. I'll just wait until Sunday. Then I noticed how many resources the curriculum called for. It got to the point where I was wasting time looking for books I didn't even know the school had, then wasting more time looking through the book for that one work sheet the district plan called for. Looking back, I was spending about 30 minutes of planning for just 10 minutes of class time. I'm not much of a math person, but that ratio didn't sit well with me.

My first response was to give up and chant "Woe is me" straight into the next morning. I eventually picked myself up though, took a little walk around the school, and I got in contact with the head of the English curriculum for the school district. It turns out she was making a trip out to my site within the next couple of days; and when she arrived, we talked a little bit about the curriculum, how she went about teaching it when she was still teaching, and some general pointers for me. What it really came down to though is shifting my thinking about what and how to plan. She told me that, in the end, I'm the professional. I work with the kids day in and day out. I know what they need to know. I'm the one who decides what gets taught from the district's curriculum. If there is a worksheet that I'm having difficulty finding, then forget about it. Often times there is a portion of the class book the students use that can be used to test student comprehension with what is going on in class. Before I knew it, the district's curriculum became less of a code that needed to be followed, and it became more of a guideline. As it turns out, that's what I needed to know.

I've now taken charge of the curriculum. It's no longer the district's curriculum, but rather it is what I decide to teach. Of course, I still look at it to sort of lead me the way, but that's all it is doing. I can't depend on a virtual plan made by someone else to blaze the path in front of me. I have to blaze my own path.