It seems like every week I come across another article that tries to point out where “school reform has gone astray.” Many of them are penned by teachers, angry and confused by the adoption of charter school laws and rapid changes to their state’s accountability systems. Others are written by reform-minded folks with legitimate concerns about the direction that the…
Tag: Content-Based Curriculum
Students Need Deep Exposure To Content Knowledge. This New Project Can Help.
Some of the best teaching advice I ever received came from an undergrad professor I really admired. “Don’t try to teach the standards,” she instructed me. “Teach to the standards.” Hidden within that pearl of advice was an important caveat. State standards only tell us what students should know and be able to do at each grade level, but they…
Knowledge Still Matters, Even In the 21st Century
As someone who usually subscribes to the all-things-in-moderation philosophy, I think there needs to be a healthy balance between the whats and hows of education. But anymore, it seems like all I hear about is the latter. By whats, I mean the content being taught; the texts, the essential concepts, and so forth. As for the hows, I’m talking about…