Curriculum

After reading the chapter "Curriculum" in Early Career English Teachers in Action, it raised a few concerns. First of all, in the introduction Lindsay Ellis talked about how she did not have many teachers that shared their curriculum due to a small school size. She spent a lot of time writing the curriculum on her own, which scares me. There was a teacher Nancie Attwell that had a great curriculum and was very confident, yet it did not work for all of the students. I do not feel that I would be prepared to do that coming in as a first year teacher and would definitely need some direction. 

I learned in David Jagusch's story that curriculum is something that you learn to develop over time. You have to be open and willing to change it according to where you are, who your students are, and what works the most successfully. Every group of students you have has to be treated in a new way, and none are the same. You have to care to get to know your students for who they are, observe other teachers, and learn from your own experiences. This is also worrisome because it is a lot of trial and error which takes time. Check out this article, it talks about the importance of curriculum in all aspects of the teaching realm.

Sierra Holmes was lucky to find a school system that valued what she did- whatever works best for the students. I loved that she was more concerned about improving the students' writing and gave them back their paper with comments instead of a grade. She was able to take away grading and gave the students credit for improving and working hard on their writing. I think that the flexibility she had and the allowance that the school had lead to better results. The students actually wanted to work on their writing and ended up improving much more than they would if a grade was associated. This also worries me, though, because not all schools systems are allowing of this. I need to remember to ask about the goals of the school staff when interviewing for a job.

I am excited for this part of teaching, but it may be the scariest part for me because I am not formally trained for it yet... :)