The Heist: Neoliberal Education and the Theft of Time

In education, time is a scarce commodity. Through prescriptive policy, and scripted curriculum in some jurisdictions, policy makers attempt to steal local teacher and learner control over what is taught, how it is taught, and what is learned. That theft amounts to a heist. While clock-time cannot (and should not) be disregarded, this paper offers a critique of conventional views on time as it is embedded in neoliberal education policy and practice. In this paper we ask how education can better contribute to more durable learning by taking up alternate conceptions of time. By dispensing with high levels of standardization and prescription and instead focusing on an education of experience, relevant to learners and not bound by chronos, schools might encourage la durée, or durable learning, resulting in education focusing on teaching students how to live well with others in a meaningful .

Learning to Surrender: Creative teaching and learning practices

Independence and critical thinking are crucial for survival in our contemporary world. Learners and new teachers in training should be trusted to discover and develop their own voice in teaching and learning and be encouraged to surrender expectation to produce predetermined outcomes by strictly following scripted curriculum because it is detrimental to learners and teachers alike as it does not foster independence and critical thinking. Through engaging in creative teaching and learning practices that encourage imagination, questioning, observation and reflection we can see beyond what is perceived as normal and understandable and seek new ways to interpret reality and experience things of everyday life as well as learn to listen to our students and support them in their own discovery.

How―and Why―Middle School Intensive Reading Teachers Make Adaptations to a Scripted Curriculum

The adoption of highly scripted curricular programs to promote literacy has become increasingly widespread. Little is known, however, about the extent to which teachers implement these programs as prescribed or, instead, make adaptations to the curriculum and its delivery. Even less is known about teachers’ reasoning behind this decision-making. Using qualitative thematic analysis, in this study, the authors investigates middle school intensive reading teachers’ challenges and solutions to implementing the curricular program mandated by their school district. Analysis of 10 teachers’ descriptions of their instructional decision-making highlighted the tensions teachers must navigate to provide effective literacy instruction to students with and without disabilities in a high accountability context. The central construct of negotiation was identified as an explanation of how and why teachers made (or did not make) curricular adaptations.

A window to teachers’ ICT practices: Discerning between teaching and the complex science of pedagogy

Resumo Utilising Loughran’s notion of the complexity of teaching, this study set out to explore how teachers used information and communication technology (ICT) in their classroom practices. The study is grounded in qualitative research methods. Data capture included a mix of semi-structured interviews, observations and document analysis. Data was analysed using content analysis methods. Findings were fourfold. First, small pockets of innovative teachers changed their pedagogy. Second, teachers’ beliefs suggest (mis)understandings about their ICT induced teaching, which they perceived as changed pedagogy, but actually only their mode of curriculum delivery changed. Third, most teachers seemed to reposition their practice using technology to facilitate the demands of a scripted curriculum, thus merely changing their teaching practice. Fourth, teachers’ apprenticeship of observation is further perpetuated through pre-service training that does not promote pedagogical experiential change.

On and Off Script: A Teacher’s Adaptation of Mandated Curriculum for Refugee Newcomers in an Era of Standardization

English Learners (ELs) make up 9.6% of the total student population in the U.S. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). Students with interrupted formal education (SIFE) are a subgroup of ELs who have had at least two fewer years of schooling than their peers, and function at least two years below grade level in reading and mathematics (DeCapua, Smathers, & Tang, 2007). To meet the demands of high stakes testing, schools have been increasingly implementing commercially published, scripted programs for ELs/SIFE (Reeves, 2010). Against this backdrop of the standards-driven and testing-based system, this article reports one of the key findings of a yearlong classroom ethnography of SIFE in an urban public secondary school in the United States, focusing on the experiences of the students and their teacher with two types of curriculum. Drawing on critical theory and culturally relevant/responsive pedagogy, the data tools include classroom observations, interviews with students and the teacher, and the videos of classroom interactions. Findings from our analysis demonstrate that the teacher played an active role in ensuring students learning through her role as a negotiator of the scripted curriculum. This study reaffirms that teachers can find ways to resist the totalizing effects of scripted curriculum.

Against the Script With edTPA: Preservice Teachers Utilize Performance Assessment to Teach Outside Scripted Curriculum

This article reports on how the policy context shaped the development of two elementary preservice teachers’ (PSTs) literacy instructional practice. While student teaching emergent bilingual students in urban, high-poverty classrooms that utilized mandated scripted literacy curriculum, PSTs completed edTPA, a Teacher Performance Assessment, for their credential. Participants’ edTPA lessons represented the only time PSTs taught literacy outside the mandated curriculum’s script and in ways that were more aligned with their—and their teacher education program’s—ideals. Findings from this study show that it might be possible for PSTs and teacher educators to appropriate edTPA for their own purposes.

Teaching Blindfolded: One Teacher’s Struggle to Meet the Needs of Her Somali Students in the Era of High Stakes Testing and Scripted Curriculum

<p>The following case study looks at one teacher’s struggle to meet the needs of her Somali<br />students’ in the era of high stakes testing and scripted curriculum. It documents the pressure<br />on teachers and students to improve the average school state mandated test scores and to<br />ignore the intellectual and vocational resources of the families in the community (Gonzalez et<br />al., 1995). Consequently, more and more schools are adopting a prescribed curriculum with<br />scripted lessons to replace inquiry lessons. This study discusses how this curriculum adoption<br />often forces teacher to ignore students’ needs and cultural background and teach to the test.</p>