De-militarizing Our Curriculum: A Hard Look at Pacing Guides

There's a question that I haven't liked confronting in my classroom this year, a really hard question. Here's what it is:

• Is it possible to teach the same thing to all students while ensuring that they are getting what they need?

Our education system is founded on the premise that this is possible, that you can successfully teach thirty students the same thing at the same time while simultaneously addressing their individual needs. 

I've recently gotten into having a lot of house plants. I am terrible at keeping them alive. I over-water them (apparently), I don't give them enough light (according to the internet), and my bamboo is out of control. Thank goodness my fiancé takes charge and doesn't let me near them anymore. However, I do know one thing: if I watered my plants the exact same amount every day, only the ones who thrive with that exact environment would survive. The plants on the fringes, the ones who need special treatment, would die. 

Fortunately (hopefully?), no students are dying in our classrooms because we teach them all the same thing, but I think a lot of passion is dying. And creativity. And love of learning. Like the plants, the students who work well with what we are offering, they're fine. It's the fringes that suffer the most: the groups of students who need our help the most, the student that could go on to be an entrepreneur but she's failing just because she doesn't want to do what we're trying to make her to do, the student who has an incredibly creative mind but they can't show us that because we're asking them to read something they aren't ready to read.

When we teach to the average student, we push a lot of other students aside. 

So, what needs to be done? 

We will never get closer to true equity in our classrooms unless we give up the false notion that holding teachers accountable for teaching the same thing is not the same as holding students accountable for learning the same thing. 

I'm not saying that it's bad for teachers to be teaching the same thing; I'm saying it's harmful if they have to. 

What is framed as a scaffold is too often a prison in disguise. What is framed as accountability really is just hiding the true problem. 

What's the solution?

My previous two posts (part I and part II) talked about this already. Equity begins with grading practices. If you know exactly what every student needs to learn by the end of the course and there is a clear method of accountability for that learning built into the grading system across different classrooms, you don't have to teach the same thing and students will still be held accountable for learning the same thing. 

I truly believe that if an entire school switched to a standards-based practice, you could get rid of pacing guides and have better results, both in terms of achievement and engagement. 

What is the benefit of unshackling our classrooms from pacing guides?

Increased student engagement and motivation.
Too often students fail courses because they don't like a book, or maybe just because they don't see the task as relevant to their own life. Free up the curriculum so that you can allow students to pursue alternate routes to the same learning that would be more interesting to them, and you'll change the outcome for that student.

Increased teacher engagement and motivation.
It's hard enough teaching students something when you are passionate about it. Teaching something you hate? That's going to be a long unit. If I just have to follow along, I have to fight to avoid falling into a slump where I just want to skate by. If I am allowed the freedom to pursue and develop units that I love, I will go above and beyond what is necessary.

Source: https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder328/500x/38638328.jpg

Increased achievement.
If you are telling me that teaching every student the same thing produces the best results we can, be sure to take a look at the student at the 5th grade reading level trying to get through Gatsby. What good are we doing forcing that text down their throat? All it's doing is reinforcing that they can't learn. Why don't we just give students texts at a level that helps them feel successful? Research has shown that students have to independently comprehend 95% to 98% of the words in a text in order to show growth in their comprehension. If we want to see increased achievement, we have to stop pretending every students is the same and start having hard conversations about the zone of proximal development as more than just a buzzword to throw around.

Source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cm9lJAnVMAAvvOH.jpg

Increased ability to innovate.
Has anyone ever ridden one of those weird bike cart that you pedal with three or so other friends? If not, let me describe the process of trying to get started: lots of yelling, a ton of confusion, and you move like an inch before everyone gives up. It feels like it takes an eternity to actually get the wheels moving. That's sometimes how it feels trying to innovate when everyone is tied to a pacing guide. If everyone is doing the same thing, innovation can't happen. One of my favorite quotes is, "If everyone thinks alike, no one is thinking." Pacing guides exemplify that to me more than anything else.

Source: https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/59513971/correction-guy-relax-im-sure-the-same-pacing-guide-from-1987-still-works.jpg

Increased accountability.
Wait, what? Aren't pacing guides supposed to be the pinnacle of accountability? I mean, yes, if you are holding people accountable to following along, but I don't think compliance is the ideal type of accountability we're looking for in our schools. We want to hold (a) teachers accountable for quality teaching and (b) students accountable for learning. Focusing less on the guide and more on instructional strategies and assessment methodologies will not only increase accountability but also increase the quality of teaching all around because the discussions no longer can fall back on simple alignment of activities. Now, the discussions have to be focused more on more broad pedagogical approaches, which really are the valuable discussions to be having.

Increased trust.
Let's be honest here: pacing guides exist because of a lack of trust. I want to be careful here because I think that it has been the case, sadly, that some teachers have broken the trust of their supervisors by taking shortcuts and being lazy. Nonetheless, the fact remains that pacing guides take the place of trust. It is easy to feel secure and trust someone who's just following along. To trust a teacher to develop and deliver high quality instruction? Now that takes real trust, and to know that you are being trusted as a professional simply helps you trust that your supervisor believes in you, wants you to be as successful as possible, and that deserves your trust back.

Source: https://media.giphy.com/media/cdic9OtMgldOo/giphy.gif

So, what now?
Well, we're not going to overhaul the system today. We can ask questions, and we should be asking lots of questions. On one end, we should be asking these questions in our PLCs and curriculum meetings. That's where the long-term change will happen in our schools, but in the short term, what do we do?

I don't have all the answers, but here are a couple ideas:

1. As often as you can, encourage student choice. If you are supposed to give an assessment, identify the assessment criteria and create alternatives. That way you can still report out accurate data, but you can promote creativity and choice in your classroom.
2. Identify what must be done and what can be dropped. Not everything is essential on a pacing guide. Free up some time to do what connects with students.
3. Ask to be a pilot class. If we can't convince people to give up the pacing guide, come up with an idea an offer to be the pilot class for it. If you call it a "pilot," it sounds much better than going rogue. Develop a workshop model or call it a project-based class. As long as it sounds pedagogically sound and innovative, you can probably pilot it.
4. Promote standards-based grading. If standards-based grading isn't in place, there's no way anyone will feel comfortable letting go of pacing guides. That has to happen before any changes will happen with pacing guides.

As I draw this to a close, I hope it didn't sound too pessimistic. Yes, I want to be critical of the status quo, but only because we are so close to what we could be. We are so close to being a system that encourages creativity and innovates, a system that inspires students and lets them come to a classroom that embraces their individuality and interests. We just have to let go of the past before we can move forward, and we'll never let go of the past unless we approach the present with a critical lens.