If only I had a resource of a whole curriculum I can just pick up! Often I hear that sentiment, especially from people with full lives and varied ambitions.
This holiday I curated the resources I have acquired over the years of teaching. Literally 100s of 1000s of files reside in myriad folders, some of them good. Most are dislocated, aimed at passing exams, and of little value in inspiring curiosity.
I remember in my first qualified teaching post being given a pile of resources for teaching A Christmas Carol. I sat down for many evenings, keen to link these resources into a cohesive throughline, a firm foundation of thought over the different pipes of inquiry.
Instead, I found the blocks of learning were misshapen: a worksheet here, a booklet there, a video over the rainbow. Resources were planned to fill the lessons, and students did work. Lessons were observed, work was marked, and reports were written. Plaudits were received, but it all felt aribtrary and ill-fitting, a bunch of blocks cobbled in a temporary path, with nothing particularly emphasised, no particular views enjoyed or saved for future use.
For some colleagues across my career this would be the end of the story: the time is filled, students feel they have learned (or at least that ‘schooling has happened’), and another year might pass.
For me, I want an easier time in the future. I want a mastercrafted sequence of learning, with carefully curated views of thought, nuanced activities that build upon each other.
What teachers like me, and likely you, want is a cohesive direction of work. They want clear and detailed instructions of the ambitions scheme of work, with notes of the potential pitfalls, ready to see the vistas ahead, and seeing examples of what they might experience.
What teachers need is more than a series of great individual resources.
I am writing this book.
I write with critical credibility because I have not advertised on my site for ten years, not trusting the general education world with something to which I can put my name. I write with critical credibility because I will write of the issues as well as the benefits of the work.
