What a week!

It’s been an interesting week…proposed national standards in English and math were released on Wednesday while the cover of Newsweek magazine suggested that firing teachers was the way to "save" education in the U.S.

Sounds like it's time to call the psychiatrist! Middle school guru, John Lounsbury, suggests that when we are faced with vexing curriculum issues, we should call the psychiatrist rather than the curriculum coordinator. Why? Because many of the issues that pop up as curriculum related are really about our inability to think about things in new ways.

Keeping the old models as Heidi Hayes Jacobs described in her new book, Curriculum 21...structures like schedules, grouping patterns of both students and teachers, and how we use space and time. Most high schools, for example, use a traditional class schedule that dictates what and how any content will be delivered. In similar fashion, why don't more schools (including middle schools!) use the middle school team as their model for organizing professionals?

Time to call the psychiatrist...to get us to think about more than adding or dropping a course...about more than changing the length of class periods...about more than typing papers on computers instead of typewriters...and calling that curriculum development.

In the meantime, take a look at the proposed national standards linked above to see what you think, particularly about the standards in your area of expertise. And take a look at the Newsweek article as well...and some of the lively discussion that is taking place about it online.