I hereby propose a moratorium on the word important in any GPS enduring understanding or essential question.

Today I attended a very good session for third grade teachers on “unpacking” a standard. When it got down to writing essential questions, it was amazing at the number of EQs that contained the word important. What got me to thinking about the issue was an EQ that my team wrote on the writing standard. We proposed, “Why is writing so hard?”, the idea being that we would tap into the students’ dislike/fear of writing and springboard into the various solutions as suggested by the elements of that standard.

The crowd reaction at first was one of excitement, but then it was suggested that the EQ was too “negative,” and the next thing we knew, the EQ had been amended to “Why is writing important?”

Well.

If the purpose of an essential question is to provoke discussion and exploration, and it is, then why in the name of all that’s engaging would we shy away from a provocative question like “Why is writing so hard?” and replace it with some teacher-talk like “Why is writing important?” There isn’t a kid on this planet who doesn’t see right through the “important” BS: it’s just a trap to enforce the student’s compliance with the teacher’s view of things. It is humbug of the most offensive sort.

I completely understand that not every teacher would want to lead off with such an in-your-face EQ, but honey, please. Most of the EQs were simply lesson plans in disguise. Do you really want to dig into whether “following the rules of grammar helps you understand written and oral communication?” ::yawn::

So we could have rewritten the question, “Are there ways to make writing easier for me?”, or “What can I do to make my writing better?”, or any other question that actually sounds like it might be asked by a student, preferably a question that produces some interest in seeing it answered.

Therefore, teachers, a new commandment: Thou shalt not write essential questions that merely embed thine unfiltered instructional agenda without any attempt to understand how a student in thy care might actually think.

Because that’s important.

Yesterday, I got to go to a session presented by dedicated fellow professionals here in Coweta County, the purpose of which was to nudge our teachers one more step into getting ready for the GPS.

First, let me say that the information was spot on, very important stuff, and that our presenters were sharp and prepared.

Second, let me say why I think it was not enough.

The purpose of the session was simply to introduce the vocabulary of the new curriculum: performance standard, essential question, enduring understandings, task, elements, etc., etc., etc. This all fell squarely into our View #1 of learning, taxon memory, in which the brain is confronted with what appears to be random, non-contextualized information, and it very appropriately resists learning it.

So here we had a very large room of dedicated teachers, most of whom I wager have been dreaming of a curriculum like the one we’re getting, and yet most of whom I’d wager again left that room still without the basic vocabulary of that new curriculum. Again, not the fault of our presenters.

What would I do differently, if my wand still worked?

• Smaller groups. Plenty of discussion and sharing. It’s too easy for 100 people to abdicate responsibility for the information when there are 150 people in the room.
• Examples of implementation at every step. Sure, there’s ELA2R1, but what will it look like when I have to do it with students?
• Recognition of concerns, rooting out of misconceptions, confirming understanding, you know, the very things we’re supposed to do with students

Sure, easy enough for me to say, but my wand doesn’t work and there’s not enough funding or staffing to do it this way. Ah well.

And I will say this: Backwards design begins at home. Yo, State Department of Education, before we can design instruction that will fulfill these standards, before we can do our performance task, we have to know what the assessment is going to be! I can have all kinds of evidence of understanding on the part of our third graders about the travails of Frederick Douglass and the dynamics of slavery, but what is the CRCT going to ask about?

If we’ve agreed that curriculum is that structure we think will cause learning, and I guess we have, since no one has left any comments to the contrary on my previous posts, then it should be pretty clear where our two views of learning, our two systems of memory, fit into the picture.

If we think that learning is a basic set of facts to memorize, then the structure of our learning will be long compilations of all the things we need to know. Actually, let’s call it the things we think children need to know. Quick, what’s the valence of carbon? What, you don’t know that? I bet you learned it. Why don’t you know it?

If we think that learning is a construction process, then our curriculum ought to be a set of knowledge goals centered around providing opportunities to construct that knowledge.

Clearly, of course, our curriculum must be a combination of these two views. There are some things we just have to know: the alphabet, addition facts, the names of the states, etc., etc. Where it breaks down is when we have to agree on the limits of that knowledge. This breakdown is what leads to all kinds of compromise and to 23-year curricula like the QCC. I mean, if we don’t teach them the causes and effects of the Alien and Sedition Acts (or, as my son refers to them, “Patriot Act 1.0”), then how will they know it? I can feel the panic rising even as we think about it.

One of the goals of the GPS was to simplify, to reduce the sheer number of things we had to make sure the children memorized, to try get the curriculum down to the thirteen years we actually have the children captive.

Another of its goals, if I understand it correctly, is to provide a structure for students to begin to construct actual knowledge that is deep, meaningful, accurate, and longlasting.

So… does it do that? And if it does, what does that mean for media specialists?