Battling Curriculum Mandates from the Powers That Be

I thorougly enjoyed Ayers's chapter on curriculum adaptation. When I learned previously this quarter that teachers did not get to come up with their own curriculum because they "don't have the expertise" (pish-posh, if you ask me) I was floored. That was one of the things I was most looking forward to about formal education that I could not get from most environmental education jobs.

I have written curriculums for camps before for my environmental ed jobs, but many of the curriculums I just have to work with. I thought, foolishly, that as a teacher in "real" schools I might have the liberty to create my own curriculum. I think it is just ridiculous that teachers cannot write their own curriculums. I'm all for objectives and goals, but how a teacher meets those goals should be up to him or her. I must honestly say that I doubt there are science curriculum writers who choose school science curriculums that understand science and all its intricacies better than me, an experienced scientific researcher and holder of--gasp--a science degree!

My guess is the science curriculum writers have Doctorates or PhDs in education or even more likely, they are private corporations with only the goal of making money, as the curriculum writers are in Perlstein's book Tested. The best person to write a science curriculum is a scientist. Partnering with an educator would be wise, however. I think the best teachers of science are scientists themselves, not education experts. Relying on non-scientists to dictate science standards and science curricula is what has destroyed science education in the United States. Who writes the science curriculum in collegiate studies? Scientists. And despite the failure of K-12 education in the science arena, our universities are still considered the best place in the world to study science, according to Ong in an article I read for a different class. If we bring scientists into public education of children maybe we'll be able to enhance science education in K-12.

Currently, the science education in K-12 in much of the U.S. is absolutely abysmal, though I hear it has made some progress recently (not convinced yet). I had one--ONE--good science teacher in my years of public education. And I didn't get her until the second-to-last year of my public education. And guess what, she was a scientist. She had a degree in Microbiology and had pursued undergraduate research and I think she started grad school in science before switching to education.

Few K-12 teachers have an expertise in science. In our cohort of 22, there are two of us (I asked in Jan's class first week) and only one who has a BS--me. But for scientists like myself, who sacrifice wages and prestige in the science world in order to improve the science education for the broader populace, why am I not allowed the freedom to write a science curriculum I consider to succeed at reaching goals set in the state?

I graduated with a 3.67 GPA and bubbling complimentary references from nearly every professor I had from a solid Honors and Interdisciplinary Science Program designed by the university to meet the needs of frequent employers of program graduates. I was the dream graduate for many jobs in science research. The only science course I did poorly in (did not get an A or a B) was Organic Chemistry. Through my research, I caused policy changes in three states. My undergraduate thesis is considered one of the primary sources on ecological conditions conducive to invasion of butterfly bush on the U.S. West Coast. My research has been peer-reviewed (science researchers) published in prestigious horticultural journals. I was offered four--FOUR--free rides to different Masters in Science programs just on the basis of one presentation I gave at a conference. How can any science curriculum writer say that I have no right, no skill, no talent, no ability relvant to writing a science curriculum? How can they say I "lack the expertise"? It's insulting.

Granted, some people may not feel like these are true measures of my scientific prowess because I was educated in a traditional way, a wrong way, a not as-good way-according to many articles we have read this quarter. I must argue that just because I succeeded in the education system I experienced-and not one that was more inventive-is no strong argument against the reality of my success. We learn about these innovative ways of teaching in order to understand that some of the more traditional ways of educating do not work well for all children, not to throw traditional methods out the window. Traditional methods work well for some kids, and there is no shame in that. A teacher must have a toolkit of teaching methods and pedagogy ideas in order to reach all students, not be confined to just the new stuff or just the old stuff. No teaching method should ever be totally thrown out the window because it probably worked for someone and could work again.

Ayers wrote much about how no pre-written curriculum is good enough to equate to a good education for all students. He mentioned repeatedly that a teacher should just throw out the written curriculum and start with a theme. Many of his ways of making the curriculum meet students at their level reminded me of Interdisciplinary Curriculum writing we did in our Middle School class. I think they make total sense. I think it is best to have a theme for your curriculum and form activities from that theme and then match activities to standards set by those who set standards (policy-makers?). This method will be more relevant to your students and more interesting for the teacher and his/her class. So here's the first big question: is that legal? Can a teacher really do that? If he/she can, then I am less insulted. The second big question: how? How can we make the curriculum meet students at their level while at the same time satisfying standards and not losing our jobs for taking such extravagant liberties (sarcasm)?