I personally feel like lately the focus in Education is overhauling curriculum. But is that what we are doing? When I was doing my student teaching I went to many curriculum meetings where instead of coming together and creating a fresh and interesting curriculum for the students to engage in, all that happened was that people went though their school years and wrote down what their curriculum was so there was a record of it. This did not make much sense. I also noticed that the assignments that were being assigned were the "classic" assignments, papers, text and questions, and general overview assessments. I did not see many projects or "activities that broadened students' views of the world, themselves, and their futures" (TWBIA 105). As an English teacher I want my students to truly understand what they are being asked to learn. I want to create a fun and learning atmosphere in my classroom. If I can do that then I know my students will succeed.
The school that I was teaching at needed an over haul on their curriculum. In fact the curriculum was not in line with the other two high schools in the school district. None of the schools knew what the other ones were doing. TWBIA says on page 109 that "when curriculum is at its best it takes on something of a life of its own." Where I was there was no life, it needed a soul, it needed "spunk".
