Speedlinking: Conversations that Matter
Via Marco over at Autono Blogger: A mismatch between curriculum and student desires
And the one I enjoyed the most, even though I totally felt his pain: My textbook doesn’t work
I found this post in particular to be the of the most interest to me, and underscores, in my opinion, the desperate need teachers and schools have of being relevant to their students.
Books are useful. But if we force students to march through them, with zero personalization or lesson crafting…we’ll simply miss connection with the majority of the folks filling the chairs in front of us.
Yes, there are outside constraints - curriculum. It tells us what to do, what to talk about, what not to talk about, what to spend time on, and what not to spend time on. It tells us what matters. It’s a part of most teacher’s lives…but the question…the need still remains: engage. Be relevant. Create connections with your students. If we don’t, it’ll be more than the text book that’s broken don’t you think?
We could follow the rules like Marco did..doing everything by the book, which would keep the curriculum happy…but what about the folks the curriculum is there to serve???? Clearly something is missing.
