Superintendent's Day!

Today I went to my host school, Owego Free Academy, to sit in on (and I actually participated in!) a meeting of all of the ELA teachers from grades 6-12. The meeting was mostly focused on NYS Standards, and each grade's particular curriculum. I was so glad that we had reviewed them in class on Thursday because they aren't imprinted in my brain yet! The teachers had a lively discussion about the fact that some of the curriculums hadn't been revised since the early 90's. Apparently, they've been having difficulties with the administration. They want to develop a more general curriculum that would list what skills and understandings students should have. As it stands, the curriculums are too specific: they state exactly what books teachers have to read, and what themes/literary devices/etc. students have to learn in every unit.

Anyways, one of the teachers said that when she started teaching AP, she wrote a curriculum using the UbD method. The administration handed it back to her and told her she needed to rewrite it in the same specific format that everything else is in.

It was so nice to see that the things we're learning and reading are being used in the classrooms that we'll be teaching in (not that I didn't have faith...). I've been feeling like there was a disconnect between the idealistic things that we sometimes read, and the realistic classrooms that I've been in. I think that reading these articles are the foundations that we need to change the system. We need to be well-armed in what we know because we might have to fight our own administration someday.