Schmoker, Chapter 2

"What we teach - a guaranteed and viable curriculum - matters immensely." Schmoker.  Schmoker downplays some of the more modern ideologies of  students making movie previews, video skits, wikis, silent movies, or clay animation figures and calls them "time-gobbling" activities.  He promotes what he calls a "powerful combination" of the following:

• adequate amounts of essential subject-area content, concepts, and topics;
• intellectual/thinking skills (e.g. argument, problem solving, reconciling opposing views, drawing one's own conclusions; and
• Authentic literacy - purposeful reading, writing, and discussion as the primary modes of learning both content and thinking skills

I am going to play "Devil's advocate" here.  Most teachers would tell you they have been working very hard on all three points of his "powerful combination," and yet according to test scores over the past 5 years, we still are not producing productive students in our schools.  Stepping off the soap box for a moment.
Schmoker states that "common sense should tell us that ...a decent curriculum should and could contain a "common academic core".  Schmoker boldly proclaims "sham curriculum" is quite common in our schools.  He also states, "The problem is not... resources. The problem isn't funding.  It is the lack of 'will and persistence' to implement what we already know."
I love the next part of Schmoker's book.  I couldn't agree with him more on this section.
"Our schools simply don't require students to read texts of increasing length and complexity, starting with textbooks.  This pattern begins in the earliest grades, and it persists right up through graduation." Schmoker.  

"I think we should require a research paper and a public presentation from students at the end of 5th, 8th, and 12th grades.  Their performance on these or on end-of-course papers should be among the primary data we use for purposes of accountability and continuous improvement." Schmoker.

According to David Conley, there are four intellectual standards that are paramount for success in all disciplines: (1) read to infer/interpret/draw conclusions; (2) support arguments with evidence; (3) resolve conflicting views encountered in source documents; and (4) solve complex problems with no obvious answer. (Schmoker). 
Schmoker believes we could prepare students for college if we implemented the following more rigorously:
1.  The precise amount of text and the number of books, including titles to be taught in common by all teachers for a given course.
2.  The number and length of papers assigned.
3.  Common rubrics/criteria by which students will be graded. 

Well he definitely has a lot of interesting ideas.  I haven't finished the chapter, but I wanted to give you all an opportunity to respond. More to come soon...


What are your thoughts?

Sarah