CURMUDGUCATION: Teaching: Too Hard for Teachers

CURMUDGUCATION: Teaching: Too Hard for Teachers:

Teaching: Too Hard for Teachers

What exactly is a teacher's job? I have generally felt that I know the answer, but in these reformy times I have moments when I wonder.

I had one such moment today, reading this piece from The Hechinger Report entitled "Common Core's Unintended Consequence." The subheading of this piece by Jonathan Sapers tells us what that dreadful, unintended, potentially tragic consequence might be-- "More teachers write their own curricula." Clearly an unexpected tragic side effect of Common Core is that some teachers have forgotten what their proper place is.

OMG! How did such a terrible thing happen!!

According to many teachers, experts and advocates of the Common Core, traditional curriculum sources haven’t been meeting the demands of the new set of math and English standards that have been rolled out in more than 40 states in the past few years. More and more teachers are scrapping off-the-shelf lessons and searching for replacements on the Internet or writing new curriculum materials themselves.

Yes, it's true. Because of a failure of the education materials publishing industry, teachers out there are being forced to find their own teaching materials. Some are even-- choke-- designing teaching materials all by themselves! Oh, the humanity!!

The Center on Education Policy (CEP), a nonpartisan research group, reports that in roughly two-thirds of districts in Common Core states, teachers have developed or are developing their own curricular materials in math (66 percent) and English Language Arts (65 percent). In more than 80 percent of districts, the CEP found that at least one source for curriculum materials was local — from teachers, the district itself or other districts in the state.

Local materials!?! Good heavens! How can teachers hope to create teaching materials?! Don't they understand that they are only teachers?? Do they imagine that just because they went to college and got a degree and completed student teaching and have spent some amount of time in a classroom with students-- I mean, do they think all that qualifies them to create instructional materials?!

Whose fault is this?

Authorities (by which, of course, I mean people other than teachers, who are clearly not authorities CURMUDGUCATION: Teaching: Too Hard for Teachers: