Curricular issues in HS

[Anonymous]

Hi, I’m doing a project and I was wondering if any teachers would like to chime in.

What are key curricular issues you have seen or feel exist nowadays in our area in particular or our country as a whole?

Bonus points if you also include issues that also affect learners with special needs.

I’m supposed to create a presentation to speak to the school board about specific curricular issues. Thank you in advance for your sweet and altruistic collaboration!

[Anonymous]

Teaching to the test, rather than teaching to encourage critical thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teaching to the test, rather than teaching to encourage critical thinking.

That’s one of my main points. I tell my teachers that all the time and their answers is that “Job’s on the line if our SOL scores aren’t where they need to be.” This is unfair for both my teachers and myself. Well and my classmates too but many don’t give a darn.

Embedding technology is another focal point, especially during Corona.

[Anonymous]

Not having textbooks. It makes it hard to refer back to get information when you need help solving a math problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not having textbooks. It makes it hard to refer back to get information when you need help solving a math problem.

Guess I would drop that under the lack of resources tab. Rather shocked DCUM hasn’t imploded giving you suggestions. They’re always full of complains and “suggestions”.

[Anonymous]

Another vote for a dire lack of teaching critical thinking skills, brought to the general public by the quest for 100% rote memorization of facts as assessed by standardized tests (NCLB).

This gaping hole in 21st century education is how we got into this mess of mis- and disinformation. Well, that and social media.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teaching to the test, rather than teaching to encourage critical thinking.

That is pedagogy not curriculum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another vote for a dire lack of teaching critical thinking skills, brought to the general public by the quest for 100% rote memorization of facts as assessed by standardized tests (NCLB).

This gaping hole in 21st century education is how we got into this mess of mis- and disinformation. Well, that and social media.

Rote memorization in a ES (which they no longer do) would free up kids to think critically and learn to argue persuasively in HS.

[Anonymous]

I’m a teacher and parent and not sure if the other posters are teachers.

My main issue with curriculum is how much has been cut out in math classes. I can tell you the rigor is not the same as it was even 5 years ago. I teach in a high school and SOLs are no longer the focus so teaching to the state standards are not to blame. I saw the change happen slowly when classes became open enrollment, more parents demanded advanced math quicker and the content was watered down. This has resulted in students not having a proper foundation when and if they reach the higher level classes, but they think they should be prepared because they “earned” high grades. The content was watered down.

[Anonymous]

What I meant in my post is that SOLs are not the focus in most high school math classes. I’m not sure it read that way from what I originally wrote.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for your contributions. I’m taking pre-calculus and I do feel in a way like the above post. The content sometimes seems too easy and a lot of the times the teacher says it’s because the standards keep getting lowered to push more students into high level subjects and then that gets the school high ratings and accreditation’s?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teaching to the test, rather than teaching to encourage critical thinking.

That is pedagogy not curriculum

Yes, but they go hand in hand

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you so much for your contributions. I’m taking pre-calculus and I do feel in a way like the above post. The content sometimes seems too easy and a lot of the times the teacher says it’s because the standards keep getting lowered to push more students into high level subjects and then that gets the school high ratings and accreditation’s?

I’m the math teacher from above. School ratings would not be based upon your class grades. They would be more likely be based on SOLs, AP or IB scores. Personally, I think pushing students ahead and inflating grades will eventually hurt school ratings since students will not have the proper foundation and will not score well on AP and IB exams.

[pettifogger]

Anonymous wrote:Hi, I’m doing a project and I was wondering if any teachers would like to chime in.

What are key curricular issues you have seen or feel exist nowadays in our area in particular or our country as a whole?

Bonus points if you also include issues that also affect learners with special needs.

I’m supposed to create a presentation to speak to the school board about specific curricular issues. Thank you in advance for your sweet and altruistic collaboration!

The main curricular issue (not just in high school) is the lack of proof and sound logic when forming an argument. This is especially true in math class where formulas are almost exclusively presented as cold hard facts without enough motivation, with derivations/intuitive justification happening very rarely. As one might expect, this leads the students (and teacher) into believing that math is all about math facts (hence the overused term "math facts", "learn your math facts", "we need to drill those math facts", etc.), when it's really about imagination, intuition, patterns, and creativity. Most students follow this line of gospel into adulthood, some decide to become teachers and propagate the "math phobia" to the next generation in an endless cycle.

Pedagogically, math is taught in a very sterile way, again using facts but offering very little key insights and justification for *why* the presented facts are actually true, how they fit together as a whole, and how they are connected to other parts of mathematics. Geometry, a critical and wonderful part of mathematics, is woefully absent from the curriculum; what passes for it in the one year students get to see it, is a dumbed down approach which instead of using the natural free form essay argument structure relies on an artificial "2 column proof" format, pigeonholing kids into believing that coming up with an argument/proof is akin to following a recipe, step by step. None of the delightful geometry proof problems that could be given to students are ever given, mainly because those problems would require too much of them according to the "educators", (or whoever created the silly curriculum), and they wouldn't nicely fit into their 2 column proof format. As a result students spend the bulk of their time unintuitively filling in blanks (in you guessed it, 2 column format), instead of actually learning how to form coherent geometrical arguments.

Calculators are used exclusively as a crutch instead as a tool for further exploration or to even check work. Students end up relying on them for everything, which over a long period of time reduces their natural number sense abilities. This is akin to walking around with a physical crutch all day despite your legs working perfectly fine. After a while of doing that, the gait and posture permanently change for the worse. This wonderful impact of calculators is nicely highlighted in AP calculus class (in high school considered as the highlight of math status and achievement, for some opaque reason), when juniors and seniors are taking the class but can barely do arithmetic at a high school level (and would certainly have no idea how to solve the most elementary problems given in modern middle school math contests).

I could go on and on, but if you really want a full picture said in an infinitely more elegant way than I could muster writing, you may want to consider spending two hours reading Lockhart's Lament. It is probably the most spot on summary assessment of the state of math education in the U.S that I have had the pleasure (and sorrow) of reading:

https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

P.S: A whole essay could be written just on the ills of geometry class. This is even alluded to in a well known problem solving book with a chapter aptly titled "Geometry for Americans". https://ibb.co/KFRPZtP

[Anonymous]

Wow. Great post. I would say don’t forget HOW curricula is often selected - not by rigor but by bribery. Just look at the Curriculum 2.0 scandal in MCPS, the Discovery Channel bribery scandal in MCPS, the Lucy Calkins scandal in APS... there is real money in choosing a curricula and not enough oversight. (Making sure the latest science of learning is factored in). The evidence is clear on phonics - yet so many schools continue to parrot whole word. I would spend some time as well focusing on teacher training - these hair brained ideas are getting their start in these misguided graduate schools of ‘education.’