Disruptive Reading

 Disruptive Thinking

Chapter 12

     I continue to slowly make my way through Disruptive Thinking by Kyleene Beers & Robert E. Probst.  (Let me be clear, my pace has nothing to with the book, and everything to do with other things that take precedent).  Like the previous chapter, and as they promote, I am reading with BOOK, HEAD, HEART.  

     In chapter 12, they discuss relevance vs. interest.  Interest is fleeting, relevance is interest taken to heart.  In order for students to not think school and reading is boring, as educators we need to make curriculum relevant.  We need to be asking students:  What do you want to know?

     They go on to discuss a conversation between the authors and teachers.  A teacher states:  "But I can't always worry about relevance because I got curriculum to cover."  I know I have felt this when I was in the classroom, always a race to cover the curriculum and hit all the standards, incorporate all the district mandated protocols.  Though in my early years of teaching (before state standards), getting through curriculum was important, but I definitely did not feel so out of breath and pressure than I have in the last five years.  In addition, I could incorporate more creativity into the curriculum so that students did take the content to heart.  There is NO time for that!

     The discussion amongst the authors and educators continues, with a young student teacher sharing her own experience believing,

(and rightfully so) if the curriculum wasn't something to help scores on the state test, it was not taught.  Even now, during a worldwide pandemic, we are being asked to make sure what we are teaching will improve test scores.  Yet we have an overwhelming amount of students who are not doing or completing work, and thus failing.  This is district wide.  In fact, our district gave all students who earned a fail an incomplete, and told teachers to give them work to make up that fail.  

     I find this contradictory to the training we received at the onset of the pandemic - discussing project based learning and student directed curriculum.  Truly, there needs to be more training so teachers feel comfortable shifting to a more student relevant curriculum.  In addition, collaboration with teachers across the curriculum must happen too.  

     At one time in my career, we created teams: math, science, ELA, and history.  As a team, we shared the same students, came up with the same class rules, and instituted thematic teaching.  Building on top of that idea, and based off of Disruptive Thinking, CHAPTER 12, students are interested in social issues.  If, for example, students are interested in environmental problems, than all subject area teachers can collaborate on creating a relevant unit of study for kids.  I think teachers would be willing t do this if there was no so much pressure of test scores and ensuring students raise them each and every year.