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Before
school began, teachers from each grade level wrote objectives that would
help prepare students to meet state performance standards and prepare them for
the standardized tests that would be given in the spring. However, teachers were
only given a half a day to write objectives for reading, math, science, and social
studies. One of the fourth-grade teachers in this school explained the rationale for
the objectives they developed:
We arrived at those objectives based on the criteria for what is going to be
tested on the [state test], the state outcomes that were developed for the state,
and the SIP, the School Improvement Plan. We used all of those as
criteria . . . . for coming up with those grade level objectives.
I was told by another teacher that this aligning of objectives
with standards was
done ‘‘at the principal’s insistence.’’ When I asked another why the objectives
were written, she dismissed the question with a wave of her hand, as ‘‘something
the office wanted.’’
The objectives of the fourth-grade teachers in this school reiterated state guide-
lines in math (e.g., analyze and create graphs, add and subtract whole numbers
through five digits, know multiplication facts and use them to solve division),
while the objectives in science were written at such a high level of abstraction
that it seemed that almost anything would be possible in the classroom. The
science objectives were as follows:
Students will have a working knowledge of
1. The concepts and
basic vocabulary of biological, physical, and environ-
mental science and their application to life and work in contemporary
technological society;
2. Social and environmental implications and limitations of technological
development;
3. Principles of scientific research and their applications in simple re-
search projects; and
4. The processes, techniques, methods,
equipment, and available tech-
nology of science.
Despite the fact that the mathematics objectives were explicit and the science
objectives vague, the actual subject matter that each of the teachers was teaching
in math and in science during the several days I visited seemed unrelated to what
others were doing. For example, since the beginning of the year one had worked
on ‘‘measurement’’ and then on ‘‘numbers up to seven places,’’ while another had
been focusing on multiplication and division. It is of course possible that these
teachers simply did not feel compelled to teach the
same subject matter at the
same time. If this were the case, it is conceivable that they could accomplish simi-
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lar objectives over the course of the year and yet not be in the same place at
any given time.
This was an ‘‘open question’’ I sought to understand. In separate interviews, one
teacher explained the science curriculum:
We’re doing the two main units in science . . . . We just know we’re both
going to be doing the theme on the ecology of the rainforest. We both know
we’re going to be doing the theme on recycling and the environment, and we
got together for like a half day on those two,
but we did not get a chance
to do a lot in a half a day.
Another fourth-grade teacher offered this explanation:
I didn’t know exactly what the thing was to teach to kids . . . . The text-
book isn’t a good indicator of what they should learn in fourth grade. We saw
the latest, as of like a month or so, we saw what we were supposed to teach
the kids [a reference to the performance standards], what they’re expected to
know, so I also think [of this] as a test year. I’ve decided for the future, I’m
going to teach recycling, states of matter, the life cycle of plants and animals,
how animals
adapt to their environment, and there’s one more thing, maybe
something else, I forgot the other thing. But that’s, my, maybe the rain, and
maybe the rainforest. OK.
The first teacher has been teaching for a number of years, and she drew on her
previous experience to link subject areas and to integrate prior knowledge into
her curriculum. The second is a relatively new teacher who is trying to formulate
a plan of action (this is ‘‘a test year’’). Both teachers operate in relatively autono-
mous fashion, without benefit of much discussion with each other or with a
broader community of teachers.
These teachers also crafted their curricula from a host of influences.
In Rockefeller
Elementary School, the math curriculum had been internally developed, while the
science curriculum had been adopted by community nomination. In Parks Elemen-
tary School, however, the influences were numerous and may help to account for
the fact that the teachers were doing such different things. There were state
standards, a School Improvement Plan (that included a whole-language initiative),
grade-level objectives, a new and old math book (one teacher confessed that she
used the old one ‘‘on the sly’’), and a science curriculum that was grounded, in
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