I have been teaching for nearly 25 years and every few years the Victorian Education Department trots out an amazing new ‘curriculum" that justifies the salaries of the Minister and the bureaucracy.
Most recently we have VELS ! Victorian Essential Learning Standards. Don’t get me wrong - this new plan is full of great ideas ! So was the last one – Frameworks II, and the one before that Framework I and the one before that etc. etc.
The trouble is that none of these curriculum standards or guidelines actually detail a course of study. They are just "standards", "guides", "support". The Department doesn’t work with publishers to produce approved courses of study. It’s senior officers openly express disapproval of any single published textbook or course.
Each school around the state is expected to cobble together a patchwork quilt curriculum that meets the new standards from a range of sources that don’t !
Teachers "at the chalkface", desperately need national courses of study so that we can begin to spend some more time on teaching, rather than continuously "re-inventing wheels".
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comment or Send a Message
You can use this form to send a message OR make a comment as your contribution is NOT published automatically, but sent to Stephen for
consideration.
You can select "anonymous" from the drop down menu below if you do not have a google account.