The following is an essay I wrote for a class that ended today. It was one of those classes that makes you think and question everything you thought you knew. I credit the professor for setting up a class where rich conversations occurred, question were asked, and answers were found...sometimes. It was a great time with great people. 

A Rainbow - Colored Curriculum

            Who am I and what are my core values and beliefs? If John Gardner’s saying, “we teach who we are” is true, then this question is worth some serious consideration. If I were to write an equation for myself it would look something like this: mom, wife, sister, daughter, family member, friend, religious, learner, human rights supporter and occasional activist, teacher, reader, writer, musician, world traveler, adventurer, anthropologist, archaeologist, artist, depression/anxiety survivor, perfectionist = Emily Rae Echols Tomkins the Eternal Optimist. I am a rainbow of beliefs and experiences. These facets of my existence provide the multi-colored happy lenses through which I tend to view the world. As a result, these aspects of who I am cannot be sieved out before I enter the classroom — nor would I want them to be. The human experience (my human experience) provides a depth to the learning that occurs in my classroom because consciously and unconsciously, it colors every educational choice that I make, from how I relate to others to decisions regarding curriculum. 

            My long-term vision for my students sees them interacting in their communities as fulfilled, thoughtful, caring, empathetic adults who tend to make the world around them a better place. On some level, I realize that this is purely selfish. I didn’t really care about the self-fulfillment of others until I became a mom. I cared about people and valued kindness, but my own development and happiness was priority number one. Having a child fractured the insulation of my selfishness; it was only then that I realized the world needed to be a better place and that I had a moral obligation to help move it in that direction. At the time, I was a retail manager leading an unfulfilled existence, unable to change the world in any meaningful way. As a mother, this became unacceptable. I had to make the world better for my child and live my own life as an example of a life worth living – I chose to become a teacher.

            My role as a teacher allows me to help children develop their individual, unique potentials and hopefully become self-fulfilled as a result. I believe human development and fulfillment occur through a variety of learning processes. Self-reflection, creative expression, problem-solving, playing, and communicating are just some of the learning paths that foster growth, development, and self-fulfillment. On a day-to-day basis I try to implement curriculum choices to promote the kinds of learning experiences that lead to the realization of these goals while also meeting individual learning needs.                                                                                   I started the year having my students respond to guided reading books by answering questions. They had all week to get their responses done and could choose from a variety of questions to answer. I felt I was moving in the right direction because my students weren’t limited to a specific format, they didn’t have to respond in writing to everything they read, and they had more choice in the types of questions to which they responded. But as time went on this routine began to feel static and uninspired. My own love for reading is such that I can’t imagine a life without books. Was I really developing that same kind of love for my students? The answer was “no.” I started thinking about ways that I could increase the level of student engagement and make reading more dynamic. I realized that my approach was limited to written responses so…                        

             I decided to experiment. I asked the students in one of my guided reading groups if they would like to do something different. We were reading a book about foods that had been created by accident and I asked the kids if they would like to “accidentally” create their own new foods as a kind of response. Their levels of engagement went through the roof! They were talking about their book outside of guided reading times, discussing their ideas for food creations, and thinking through problems encountered during the process. I could see many other students in the class peeking at this group surreptitiously while trying to maintain the illusion of independent reading. Many students came up to me later and asked if their group could do that, too. The answer, of course, was “YES!”                                                         

              We moved on and never looked back. One group responded to a “How To” book about drawing by drawing pictures and explaining the strategies they had learned from the book. Another group worked together to write and perform a play based on a book they’d read together. One group created a video summary of The Whipping Boy. Yet another group designed and created new forms of transportation using toys and diagrams. I was also changed as a teacher in that I had to rely more heavily on those rich conversations as a method for assessing student understanding. It forced me to hone my listening skills as students spoke because I couldn’t simply go back and read their responses later.

            In our conversation with Peter Johnston, he mentioned that no matter what the grade level, he felt the key to reading was the engagement factor for students (personal communication, July 17, 2013). Based on my own experiences in the classroom, I have to agree with his assertion. When students are engaged in the learning process, you can feel it; you can see it on their faces and in their body language — it’s a wonderful experience. This is the ideal toward which we strive. It is easier to believe in these ideas during the summer, removed from the daily grind and the unholy pace of the school year.

               During the school year, it is too easy to get caught up in the assessment/accountability factor. Am I going to have enough grades for infinite campus and report cards? Do my grades actually reflect what my students know and can do? Do I have student examples for conferences? Can I show growth for this student over the course of the year? Are my kids prepared for the Dakota Step?  I’m not saying that teachers should stop assessing students. Assessment, whether diagnostic, formative, or summative has a valuable role to play in providing an education tailored to meet individual needs in a timely manner. But perhaps we need to be more thoughtful in how our students are assessed and how those assessments are reported. Darling-Hammond (2009) notes that, "According to the FNBE, [Finnish National Board of Education] the main purpose of assessing students is to guide and encourage students’ own reflection and self-assessment. Consequently, ongoing feedback from the teacher is very important. Teachers give students formative and summative reports both through verbal and narrative feedback." (p. 21)

In a sense, as I try to design a language arts curriculum that truly engages my students and opens their minds to growth and possibility, it is equally important that I open my own mind to what constitutes assessment and shows growth.

            I need to give myself the freedom to move away from a heavy reliance on written assessments that test each student individually. In focusing on the number of grades, as opposed to the quality of thinking required by those graded assignments, I may have unwittingly narrowed my curriculum to concepts and facts that are easily assessable — facts as opposed to critical thinking. Peter Johnston (2012) points out that,

most conversations about schooling work from the assumption that a curriculum is a bunch of certain facts to be efficiently delivered to the students, and that a teacher’s   problem is to deliver the true facts so that they stick, are well organized, and can be assessed. (p.59) I feel as though I’ve been mired in the world of black-and-white test taking for so long, first as a student and then as a teacher, that my own comfort level with assessment and giving grades now resides firmly in the land of easily assessable answers.

            While I have little control over the high-stakes testing imposed upon my students by the state, my own assessments and graded materials can, and should strive to promote self-reflection, critical thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving. As I approach the new school year, this is one aspect of the curriculum that I want to constantly evaluate. I believe using the backward design approach will help ensure that my assessments promote higher levels of thinking rather than supporting a regurgitation of the facts. This type of design demands, “that we think about a unit or course in terms of the collected assessment evidence needed to document and validate that the desired learning has been achieved,” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p.18).

            My own personal experiences provide a colorful background for how and what I teach. My love of reading, and a desire to instill that love in my students, leads me to constantly strive for meaningful student engagement with literature. I want my students to question, think, defend their ideas, and be willing to change their opinions when presented with new information. These desires stem directly from my training as an anthropologist. And yet, as is evident, these same experiences have led me to view assessment in a very narrow manner. Yes, we teach who we are, but as self-reflective practitioners, we also strive to understand how our own experiences color our choices, for better or for worse, and work constantly to improve the very personal art of teaching.