No No No

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Home : 2008 : April : 8

No No No
By ugggh

NO to pacing guides unless they are totally voluntary. The problem is (at least in our district) that the word "guide" is totally ignored by administration and by certain teachers who have a vested interest in their creation.
It is expected that all schools will follow the guide and it is required and followed up on at the program improvement schools.

Yes, pacing guides can be helpful for new teachers. However, pacing guides are ONE STEP AWAY from a ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL, SCRIPTED PROGRAM that stifles creativity and inhibits multiple-subject integration, thematic teaching, project-based learning,

and the "teachable moment" approach. (Can you say, "The superintendent is coming to our school today at 10:45, and she expects everyone to be on page 189 in the Houghton Mifflin book when she arrives???) Why the heck did I go to college all those years and learn to think for myself. Just let me do my job.

I don't know how it is in other states, but here in California the ONLY way to come even close to covering the standards (let alone teach them to mastery) is to use an integrated approach. There is simply too much too cover in the time we have available.

Moreover, aren't we supposed to be doing "data-driven" instruction? Isn't that what this whole testing frenzy is all about? Shouldn't the actual data be guiding my instruction? Shouldn't I be using critical thinking skills and professional judgement to address the needs in my own classroom?

I don't know about you, but teachers at our site spend an awful lot of time these days giving district assessments and then analyzing the data until we're ready to puke- all in order to provide meaningful intervention for students who are behind. One of the problems is, there's no time to implement the intervention, because we're already a month behind the silly pacing guide, and we have to move on. Another problem is that the most meaningful and actionable assessment data comes from teacher-created tests that reflect what is actually happening in the classroom, not district tests that reflect where you should be according to the pacing guide!

Bottom line: There are too many experts out there. They are all right, and yet they are all wrong. Just let me teach. I don't tell them to do it my way or else... why should they say that to me?