UbD Ch. 13" Yes, but..."

"The work is dificult and requieres constant revision. It is particularly difficult for teachers who have to unlearn their prior practice. " Mark Wise

This quote was very meaninful and personal for me because as I have mentioned several times throughout these assignments and posts and through conversations, I started my journey in education back in 1991. That is a long time to develop bad habits. I have worked in the system at many different districts, and my longest assignment lasted from 1998-2003 before NCLB in San Jose Unified. During this time our district had adopted Success For All, and we were all trained in the program and instructed to only use the SFA model. Everything was to be planned thematically at the kinder level which is the grade level that I taught. All of the planning and guesswork was already done for me I was told. I was told that all I needed was to use the SFA Thematic Teacher Manuals and pull in some additional resources and that would suffice for creating all of my instructional plans. Scripted programs like SFA and OCR allow little wiggle room especially when implementation (police checks I used to call them...or the implementation staff from SFA was better known as the Gestapo) visits were made by the SFA officials or other district big shot administrators. We were always told to perform for these people like a bunch of circus seals and make sure not to deviate from the script while the visitors were present. They always came into the classroom like a bunch of hostile invaders look you up and down, your classroom, and your students. Then they would start to whisper back and forth, make notes on a clipboard, either frown or smile and then later at a staff meeting to debrief you would begin to hear their extensive list of infractions and all their picking apart of things that you had so meticulously planned and followed. After a while I began to think that they did not care too much about achievement or learning. Well they did care about achievement as long as the numbers were good or rising and you were helping them look good. Did they really care about learning? I ask myself that now, and I would have to say that no. They were interested in the process of these programs like they were going to magically save these low performing schools. When it did not happen, the program was dropped and another scripted program was sought to take its place and on and on goes the cycle. It seemed fake to me. I did not feel supported, and I felt picked on for minor details that fell outside of the script. As a sub teacher in Alum Rock for the last four years, I witnessed the same pathetic cycle unfold... a big shot from the district a few cronies maybe one or two from the county office of ed all coming to put in their two sense about OCR. Again I saw the teachers scrambling around like circus seals trying to do everything just perfect during the performance and once it was over, it was business as usual. THere is something wrong with this scenario. It is not about where your question comment board is in your room on the right wall or whether or not you have your workshop menu posted in a certain way that is important. Where were the essential questions? Where were the big ideas? THey were no where to be found. I would get discouraged wondering what I was doing in the middle of an environment that seemed so fake. Many times I felt silenced as a teacher and I did not feel like I could go on my own and do my own thing outside of the script.

Reading this UbD book has been an eye opening experience. It forced me to think in a different way... away from the teaching and focused on the learning. Ihave been a teacher who has been trapped in the process of scripted programs, and for the first time I see a path that takes me on a different journey and to a different destination. I like the destination of UbD. Do I understand all of UbD? No. That will take time and a lot of practice. I need to break my bad habits learned in SJUSD and Alum Rock. That will take time. I have been trained in being allowed to develop bad habits. A lot of co-teachers are also trained in that way. I know this is a process that will not yield results overnight. I am eager to change, but I know this process will require patience, and a lot of persistance. Thank you for introducing me to the backward planning design. I am willing to learn and see where that openess takes me in terms of my teaching and my students learning.