THERE IS NOTHING WRONG HERE

It seems obvious that you teach the curriculum. Or, in many schools, you teacher to the state required tests. What the students need to learn does not seem to be an option. But, what they need to learn is the problem I face everyday. If they could they would, but they don’t seem to be able to. Even in my small structured classroom of 6-8 students teaching the curriculum or to the test is difficult. I have to remind myself everyday that the young bodies and minds I see everyday would rather be in a regular ed classroom and not in a sped room.

The state department of education, in its infinite wisdom, has raised the passing score on the MCAS from 220 to 240. The students in my classroom struggled to get a 220, a 240 will be out of reach for many students. They are still struggling with reading comprehension and vocabulary at middle school. I have to reteach the same basic math skills every year to the same students. Then there is still science and history they will face on the MCAS in 10th grade.

So should I keep teaching the curriculum or teach to the test? I have decided neither. If I follow the curriculum the students will not really learn any skills or add to their knowledge base. If I teach to the test they will not be learning any real skills or add to their knowledge base. So teaching skills and adding to their knowledge base is what I will do.

These skill are the obvious ones like math fraction skills and vocabulary development. But, other more important ones are: following directions, finishing a task, asking for help, using a model to solve a problem, generalizing a skill, finding useful information. Most of the students in my class will attend our vocational school and what is really important is that they lean how to learn.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.