Finding Balance

Today I am struggling with finding balance.  I adore digging into a standard and determining how to teach it.  Being creative and thoughtful in my lessons is something I get excited about.  But I am presently struggling with a fine balance between using the structure of a curriculum and going it alone with only standards and resources.

The structure of a curriculum: Algebra 2

This course is my PLC and the bulk of the classes I teach.  I feel really stuck in doing what my colleagues are doing.  A student in my class should receive a comparable education to that of a student in the classroom next door.  Yes, the route there can look different, but the destination, the learning, must be the same.  This is at the heart of why we have standards to begin with.  But, I find the book all over the place with concepts.  I am constantly asking myself, why is the book doing this?  Knowing this curriculum often has a big build up to the key concepts, I want to give it credit, but if I can't see the connections, the why, then where does that leave my students?  Not following the book, however, could have dire consequences.  Well, dire might be a bit of an exaggeration! But, there will be consequences when a curriculum teaches in a spiral fashion often surprising a person with the why later on.  For instance, I taught diamond problems for two years before I finally understood their connection to factoring with an area model.  I had simply been doing the diamond problems because they were a good way to practice integer multiplication and addition, not to mention some number sense as students would find the missing value.  My mind was blown the day students learned how to factor using their diamond problems to complete the area model.

Today I am struggling with how to finish the current unit that has been all over the place in Algebra 2.  I know where students need to be, but I don't like how the book is presenting the learning experiences for these standards.  How do I pick up the pieces of a disjointed curriculum with one week left of the unit?    How can I prevent this from happening again?

Standards and resources: Probability and Statistics

I purposefully chose to teach this class because it lacked a good curriculum.  Yes, there is a textbook, but I'd hardly call the typical math examples and practice problems of a traditional textbook a curriculum.  This course allows me to be creative and teach the standards with inhibition.  This comes with problems.

1. Time:  Where can I find the time to build a course from the ground up while teaching it?  
2. Priorities:  If I want to spend more time on one concept over another, is that ok?  What are my priorities and what I am bound to?  
• I spent more time on the first two standards than I thought I would need to.  Without having the whole course planned, how will I know if I can get teach what students must learn?
3. Rigor:  Am I teaching this course to the right level of rigor?  How can I be sure?
• I am the only teacher teaching this course at my school which makes determining expectations for learning difficult.   There is no data to compare, no common assessments.
4. Obligations: To what extent can I let my personal beliefs play into what and how I teach?  
• I believe in creating informed citizens armed with the skills necessary for life outside of school.  This elective course seems like the perfect place for me to build those skills with students.  Collaborating, digging through information, using the internet in all it's glory to analyze data seems like a no brainer in this course, but it is against the norm of the closed book, device powered off assessments students, teachers and the community have come to expect in schools.  What are my obligations as a teacher?

I can't decide which dilemma I am struggling with more.  Being completely free in Probability and Statistics (while being completely fearful I am not doing what is best for these kids), or being bound by a curriculum (while being completely fearful I am not doing what is best for these kids).  

This is my 10th year of teaching.  I just keep thinking I shouldn't have to work so hard/put in so many hours, but I don't know how to do my job any other way.  

My biggest question is this:

What can school systems do to fully equip teachers to teach their classes?  

This question is completely loaded and pretty much impossible.  I know school systems are bound by funding, time and people, not to mention countless expectations of the use of those three resources.  

So maybe I should ask: 

How can school systems better equip teachers to teach their classes?  


I still hate that I am asking what the school system should do, since I have no power to change it, but after my years as a curriculum coordinator, I can't help but ask this question.  For two years I worked outside of the classroom seeking to do just that, better equip teachers, but I know my work fell short.  So, now that I am back in the classroom, I can't help but wonder what an effective school system/school/department could do to ensure teachers are prepared to teach their classes.  Spending an average of 12 hours a school day during the school year preparing, teaching, assessing, grading, etc. just isn't sustainable and that is what our best teachers are doing each and every school year.

Until they burn out.

Let's pray they don't burn out.