CURRICULUM INFORMATION
STATE AND FEDERAL STANDARDS
There is an excessive amount of standards that New York State requires for students. Due to this high level of content, please refer to the following links for more information on curriculum standards.
Core Subjects/Learning Standards: http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/deputy/Documents/learnstandards.htm
Although this is what New York State says children of each grade level should know, every child is different and learns at his/her own pace. In order to determine your student's strengths and weaknesses observe, talk and interact with him/her.
ANOTHER VIEW
“But for the children of the poorest people we’re
stripping the curriculum, removing the arts and music, and drilling the
children into useful labor.
We’re not valuing a child for the time
in which she actually is a child.” – Kozol
There is currently an on-going debate regarding the emphasis that the state and federal government are placing on standardized testing. The renewal and reform of the No Child Left Behind Act reinstates the emphasis on teaching to a math or English Language Arts test. This often results in inadequate instruction time spent on other traditional subjects (social studies, science, art, music, physical education, etc).
Jonathan Kozol, an education expert, in his book The Shame of the Nation, wrote, “A principal's ability to claim that children in her school are learning to play violins or to read music, or performing in a dance ensemble or choral group, or participating in a beautiful theatrical production, will not protect the school from sanctions or humiliation if its scores in math or reading do not satisfy the stipulations of the state” (119).
He goes on to quote a teacher as saying, “the stripping away of cultural integrity and texture from the intellectual experience of children, denial of delight in what is beautiful and stimulating for its own sake and not for its acquisitional equivalence, is a perennial calamity” (120).
TUTOR’S ROLE
Unlike teachers, who are required to stick to strict daily schedules, we as tutors and mentors have more lee-way when it comes to how we spend our time with students. Rather than having to work with children on a specific knowledge that will be tested, we are able to exercise instructional freedom "...to stir the children to pursue a small exhilaration in directions that may lead them to a place the experts haven't yet had time to name" (Kozol 77).
If a student expresses an interest in monkeys, you have the freedom to help him/her learn to read from books about monkeys, and then allow him/her to peruse this interest in a way that will excite him/her (draw a picture, write a story, perform a puppet show). Furthermore, next time he/she sees a monkey that passion for learning will be reignited. Teachers, on the other hand, may be required to connect every lesson to a state mandated standard. If a lesson does not fit into a standard, the teacher will not have time to teach it.
For more information on The No Child Left Behind Act, standardized testing and curriculum go to the following websites or view the resources page on this site:
Department of Education, No Child Left Behind
National Education Association,
No Child Left Behind
Democrat and Chronicle Article, "Schools skirt 'No Child Left Behind' rule"
Read:
Closing the Achievement Gap (PDF)
Sources: Jonathan Kozol, The Shame of the Nation
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