I get a lot of questions about why anyone would be against giving teachers better curriculum. I tried to explain the most idealogical position, which is usually shared by those in higher Ed… but of course influences K-12 discourse.
It gets expressed like this. Consistently with accusation or implication that anyone who wants to improve curriculum is against more prep time, more PD, better schedules, etc etc. Which is untrue, of course. But most ideological battles are waged with straw men, not realities.
@karenvaites It’s a maddening point of view based on the idea that K-12 education is for educator self fulfillment rather than educating children and, secondarily, serving society as a whole. It is exactly why people are tired of education being adult, rather than child, focused.
@karenvaites Why I don’t understand us why teachers complain they don’t have enough prep time but when you give them ready prepared materials, they don’t like that either.
@karenvaites Pretty sure most ed research says there ought not to be one size fits all curriculum and scope should exist for teacher autonomy and agency
@karenvaites I'm an academic, teaching 27 hrs this week, including Sat. along with that I have a bunch of meetings and yes, have to align loo and coffee breaks with those sessions. Weird how some folk think we don't actually teach in uni.
@karenvaites Elem/ secondary divide here too. It's reasonable for a skilled 6-12 teacher who teaches 1 or 2 courses to develop a curriculum, w/ colleagues, that pulls from many sources to teach US history or biology. Totally unreasonable for an elem teacher to do that in all subject areas.