I hope I wasn’t supposed to read these articles in sequence,
because you know as soon as I saw “Texas,” I went straight to that article. "Can We Please Mess With Texas?" (Shorto, February 2010).
If I address the issue of text book adoption, I have to say it's all a money game. I was on the
district text book adoption committee which adopted the most recent reading text book. This must have been in late 2009 and/or early 2010, by the time it was all said and done. All of the materials were TAKS formatted (our recently defunct state test), and
2 years later, after who knows how much money, we have a new test with
basically renders the "extras," which are part of the original purchase, useless for those who live and breathe test-teaching. In addition, the state knew that there were new TEKS coming down the pike and a new assessment to boot. If there were so many requests of text book publishers to meet conservative standards, why not have them address the new TEKS as well. By the way, it’s pronounced “tex,” not “teaks.” The “teaks”
pronunciation refers to an entirely different program and if you walk into the
right conference room, you can get tangled up in a whole pronunciation
conversation.
Shorto cites Frances Fitzgerald and her 1979 book America Revised to say "if there is one thing to be said
about American-history textbooks through the ages it is that the narrative of
the past is consistently reshaped by present-day forces. America is no longer portrayed as one thing, one people,
but rather a hodgepodge of issues and minorities, forces and struggles." It is amazing that there are so many people who want to live with a definition from hundreds of years ago. There have been too many advancements in the world to keep wanting to shove us back into that box.
Shorto also cites Kathy Miller as saying something that I was not perhaps fully aware of: the notion that there are people who are not educators, who do not spend day after day in classrooms, making decisions about curriculum. “It is the most crazy-making thing to sit there and watch a dentist and an insurance salesman rewrite curriculum standards in science and history." You know, there were real classroom teachers involved in producing those CSCOPE lessons. They were based on the existing TEKS. I can tell you that where the TEKS were specific about what content had to be met, so were the lessons. And I know that I was not asked my religious nor political affiliation before starting work on the project. Were they perfect? No. But neither is any text book curriculum out there. I will say this, and it has been repeated to us on many occasions, the TEKS are the what we teach. How we teach them is an entirely different ball game. And so I pose the question: Why not impose HOTS (higher order thinking skills) questions to enhance the curriculum? After all, the entire purpose of our "new" TEKS, as I understand it, is to ensure college readiness. The direction in which students move is up to them. How does the Christianity-based language of the Constitution apply today? Wouldn’t it be great if students could stop and think about how to shape an entirely new nation? What would they, as founders, include in a declaration of independence or a constitution?
I will cite one more point in Shorto's article. He shares a discussion with Tom Barber about Prentice Hall publishers changing the language of Magruder's American Government to read "enduring Constitution" from "living Constitution." It seems quite interesting at this point that McLeroy is exercising more of a "living Constitution" approach than an "enduring Constitution" when it comes to curriculum.
Shorto's article was written in 2010. Since then, the man he ran against, Thomas Ratcliff, was elected to the State Board of Education. I realize I went off on a particular curriculum and not curriculum in general, and I may have ranted and babbled all at once. Our school district is very much affected by this whole battle, as I suppose most of the state of Texas is. However, I maintain that "up north" school districts have more resources in terms of exposure for their students and can to some extent "fill the gap" that close-mindedness creates. I worry about the development and preparedness of our students as contributing members of society if our schools are tied to certain one-sided ideals, morals, and beliefs.
The following are new articles, recent articles, about this hot mess.
I know that CSCOPE does not contain
student information.
This talks to the point that educators are capable of making curriculum decisions in the classroom, which emphasizes the comment I made earlier about the TEKS being what we teach, but teachers can still determine how we teach them.
Hi Lupita,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your views on Texas Curriculum creation. I liked your closing point “I worry about the development and preparedness of our students as contributing members of society if our schools are tied to certain one-sided ideals, morals, and beliefs.” This is an interesting statement. I have observed that when students go home, they are usually tied to one-sided views of important issues. Their perspective is typically derived from their parents or guardians. This is an important consideration in context of Tyler’s (1949) argument that “the school’s efforts should be focused particularly upon serious gaps in the present development of students” (p. 8). Hence, Tyler (1949) calls upon educators to provide a multitude of diverse perspectives to students, as this is something that they may not be getting at home. Just as you worry about this for your students’ opportunity to work with diversity, I worry about mine. Whereas my students may be adequately exposed to non-Christian perspectives, they are not exposed enough to the diverse perspectives of other cultural traits. Your mindset that while standards may dictate what to teach, they do not indicate how to teach is relevant here. This suggests that I can employ my subject(s) to teach students about alternate culture and themes amidst my content. The problem I face with this theory is that I don’t always have the time to address all the standards. That is, since the ‘what to teach’ is so broad and detailed, it leaves little room for the ‘how to teach.’ Have you faced this problem?
Sincerely,
Edward Nelson
This was/is one of the great things about CSCOPE. The education service centers that worked on the Instructional Focus Documents (IFDs) really broke it down for us. They saw that our TEKS were very broad and could easily leave teachers spinning on how to approach them. They developed "specificity" based on the language of the TEKS. Also, some were bundled with genres, for example. So, if one TEKS addresses both literary and expository text, the way our IFDs are written leaves out the "unnecessary" language for the one bundle, but plugs it back in for the appropriate bundle. It seems like a teacher would be able to figure this out, but what was happening is that many were addressing a TEKS once by piecemeal and then checking it off as "done" and didn't go back to address it in a future lesson. I don't know if that makes sense to you. I have read these documents for so many years already, that I know what I'm thinking, but don't know if I'm conveying it properly. It isn't all a bowl of cherries, though. Although the lessons mention our basal as a possible resource, many teachers did not like that they had to figure out which story in the basal matched the lesson. It's not a teacher manual that feeds day by day instructional processes. I never understood why teachers did not see the value in having a little more freedom about what resources to use.
DeleteI am a self-contained classroom teacher. I seem to face more difficulty in "how to teach" Math and Science because as a student, those are not my strong suits. If I were more familiar with them, or rather more comfortable with them, I think I could apply more of the "how." As it stands, I try to incorporate my students' culture by using problem solving that involves quinceañeras, loteria, parties, etc. in Math. It sounds silly, but for Science, working with solutions and mixtures, we used examples such as frijoles a la charra, tamales, and menudo...foods that mean something to them. This part comes easy to me, though, because I share their culture, well, at least the basic foundation of their culture, and as a child, I experienced many of the hard ships they experience today. I guess my challenge would be to expose them to "up north," which I try to do through the selection of literature that in some way ties right back to them.
Helpful? More confusing?
Thanks for reading.
I like where you indicated that you “worry about the development and preparedness of our students as contributing members of society if our schools are tied to certain one-sided ideals, morals, and beliefs”. This goes back to the the Theme from Week 3B about teaching controversial curriculum. What scares people about student being exposed to different ideas, morals and beliefs. If a student has the internet or watches television I am sure they are being exposed to many different ideas, morals and beliefs. As I stated in my Week 3B blog post wouldn’t it make more sense for students to talk about all the different ideas in the presence of an adult who can guide their discussion. In a connected society the last thing schools need to do it hide students from all the different ideas that are out there. We need to teach them about these different ideas, how to analyze them and how to react when they meet people whose ideas are different. I also like how you brought out the point about people who are not educators making curriculum decisions. This is an issue I can see both sides of. As educators we need those outside people to help us determine what we need graduates to know. We need their advice but the should not be the ultimate curriculum writers. As a curriculum writer I want to hear from professionals what the most important skills are that students need to know. A needs assessment survey can certainly provide that but the ultimate writers should be educators. I have said many times in my career I do not walk into anyone else's profession and tell them how to do their job so don’t tell me how to do mine.
ReplyDeleteLupita,
ReplyDeleteWow! Thanks so much for providing the specific for the context of the article we read. I knew you'd have much more information for us. So, I'm left wondering the extent to which one group has more power in the curriculum creation in Texas than another? It seems to be the case that teachers are involved in the deliberations, at least at some level. However, it also seems to be the case that the ultimate power rests with the school board. Is this accurate?
I wonder, too, as you speak about the TEKS being the "what" of teaching, is how are teachers being prepared to interpret that "what" through pedagogy? If teachers are ultimately given the curricular standards upon which to base instruction, are they given total freedom for using and adapting those standards to fit the needs of their students? Or, is there nervousness about "coverage" of the TEKS such that teachers feel compelled to move at a clip?
If you were going to start from scratch and create a curriculum for your class, where would you begin? Who would be involved in the process? Did the Tyler Rationale or Doll's 4 Rs resonate with you at all?
I suppose we can deal with the assessment piece of this whole thing next time, can't we? I'll wait on that… :)
Best,
amanda