Curriculum

In “Lost at sea”: New teachers’ experiences with curriculum and assessment" by D. Kauffman, S. M. Johnson, S. M. Kardos, E. Liu, & H. G. Peske (Teachers College Record, Vol. 104 No. 2, March 2002), we describe how curriculum and assessment are important determinants of new teachers’ experiences and sense of accomplishment. Overall, the new teachers we interviewed received little or no guidance about what to teach or how to teach. Left to their own devices, they struggled day to day to prepare content and materials. Many said that they would prefer greater specification of their curriculum, rather than greater autonomy, although they reserved the right to modify what is provided. The standards and accountability environment created a sense of urgency for these teachers, as state officials made it clear that teachers were publicly accountable for teaching their students the prescribed content and skills. However, state and local standards and testing objectives, which served as a surrogate for curriculum in many schools, offered neither strategies nor materials for teachers. Thus they did not constitute a curriculum, though they were all new teachers received. The absence of a coherent curriculum has implications for student achievement and teacher retention, in that students may learn less from improvised curricula, while new teachers who might have succeeded with more support may leave teaching in frustration. This suggests an urgent need to carefully orient new teachers to the curriculum, rather than simply turning unprepared teachers loose in schools. Greater specification of what to teach and how to teach it can occur without scripting lessons for new teachers, however. New models for professional culture in schools may engage new and experienced teachers in collaborative, ongoing efforts to develop curriculum and improve teaching practice.