Ch. 4 - Situation Analysis

This chapter seemed to be all about the potential problems that might arise when trying to create or change curriculum. With that in mind, I instantly thought of the math curriculum and how that's been changing in LKSD within the 13 years of teaching the subject. I know Renee isn't all into the Saxon math curriculum (just yet), but I thought that was the best math curriculum we've had. Once you get over the line-by-line say what you've got to say situation, it's a really good program for younger kids. What I loved about it was that there was a lot of repetition and review. It's not like Harcourt where you go from one topic to the next (with very little review) and continuity. We had Saxon for a number of years within this school district and when they decided to change to Harcourt, I don't remember a pilot or a bunch of teachers saying, "Wow, this is great! Check it out!" All I remember was we had to re-learn another math curriculum. I don't think a study was done to say how "bad" Saxon was for our students. And if so, Rachael can correct me if she knows, but when it comes to math, it seems we don't have much say. Now the talk is into something called Singapore Math. Rachael and I briefly talked of this, or she brought it up in our class, but I hope our math doesn't change because I'm creating material to supplement Harcourt math now.
Anyway, when I was reading this chapter on situation analysis all I could think of was how I couldn't see what the district was doing about math. I know we have a cool social studies curriculum to follow, which as Kristen pointed out is totally teacher based and driven, but with math? I don't know.