Curriculum Creation, Evaluation and Salary Celebration

I’m hoping to touch on two different topics today. A little on instruction and curriculum design here, and a little on curriculum evaluation there. Okay, then I’ll add a third commentary on something that is cooler than all of the above. While I’m here, not into the meat of the discussion yet, I’ve got to say something that has been on my mind in the field of educational research and publishing. I was always taught growing up that when writing a paper one should not write an introduction that says something along the lines of “In this paper I will…” Now that I’ve read hundreds of published papers, I am shocked to see how common it is in the field of education to write that way. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it’s completely against what I grew up learning. It’s interesting to see how something that has been so ingrained in my mind over the years is so hard to change. Anyways, back to curriculum and instruction.

When I was student teaching I had my first exposure to spiral teaching. I was lucky enough to be paired with a teacher that had many of the same beliefs concerning language learning as I have. The teacher, being the only Spanish/Foreign Language teacher in the school, had full control over the language curriculum. The first time I met with him, 2 months before actually working with him, he explained how he ran his classes. I was excited that someone was willing to slow the pace of information down and teach more for understanding. Not only that, but he had designed the whole first year in such a way as to teach concepts and then revisit them a few units later, building on the information that they had previously constructed. I’ll admit there were a few things that even had me, a proponent of his teaching style, wondering how he could deviate markedly from the classic language learning curriculum. As I taught according to his plan, however, I was able to see how his plan benefitted learning. For instance, when beginning to conjugate verbs, he did not swamp his students with singular and plural conjugations. He taught a normal semesters worth of work using just the singular form, then went back and added plural conjugations. The students, already being familiar with conjugations by this time, were able to easily adapt two new rules and a few more vocabulary words were added to the ones previously used. While it is true that in a traditional foreign language classrooms there are always a handful of students who thrive and are able to continue learning year after year, there are also a majority who are lost and hanging in by the skin of their teeth (which is a really weird phrase). In his class, the majority of the students had a grasp on the language and they were confident moving on to Spanish 2. Their ability to communicate in Spanish was also superior to other classrooms I had observed up to that point, which ironically is a highly overlooked objective in languages courses. So what am I trying to say with all of that? Spiral teaching/curriculum in foreign language courses, in my experience, is better for overall learning and transfer.

Alright, now a bit on evaluation. As I sat thinking about what I had just read about curriculum design and evaluation I thought about what it would be like to be a new curriculum supervisor in a struggling district. That’s got to be a tough job to walk into a new place and start telling people what is wrong with their program. I began to wonder how well liked and appreciated curriculum specialists are. So I thought about all of the possibilities of things that might need fixing: course alignment, alignment to standards, professional development, curriculum budget, extracurricular activities, testing/assessment, etc. What is the priority? Are there some issues that, when fixed, will naturally fix others? I guess my biggest question is, “Where does one start?” Do you work on things one at a time or is it everything at once? What sort of support system is there for a curriculum specialist? I know this isn’t really a commentary directly on evaluation, but these questions come with evaluation. Another question that just came to my mind is concerning the ability to make changes. How much red tape and politics are there? Are changes made relatively quickly, or do changes/enhancements take time like a bill in Congress? These are some things I would love to hear a little more about because they can be answered by the experience of others and not so much by published theories.

The last little bit is a happy note. After reading about curriculum for awhile yesterday, I decided to cruise the World Wide Web and look for open Curriculum positions around the good ole’ U.S. of A. Although not everyone posted it, I was happy to see the salary of Curriculum Directors. Wow! I had no idea that they were paid so much. I honestly assumed it was a position that got paid similar to what a teacher gets paid, but oh how wrong I was. Again being honest, if I had to go and fix a district’s curriculum problems and I was only paid what a starting teacher was paid, I’d turn and run away. A common thread that I noticed was that Curriculum Directors are usually required to have 3-5 years teaching experience and/or/preferable to have curriculum writing experience. Where does one get curriculum writing experience? Do the powers that be accept curriculum writing for one’s own classroom, or are they all looking for a more formal position somewhere? Anyways, these are questions I’d love to have answered so that I know how to plan my next few years after graduation.

We’ve spent a long time together just now, and I’m a bit winded from all of this typing. So, as Truman said as he walked off the “reality” set: Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!