We are
currently in a time of major transition in the elementary school system where
specialized classes are slowly being eliminated to make way for generalized (or
interdisciplinary/integrated) classrooms. Integrated versus specialized
classrooms is something that has been debated and experimented with throughout
educational history, yet time and time again boards of education continue to
change their mind and go back to previously explored methods. Attempts at
improving each method are of course applied wherever possible, but I truly believe
that changing methodologies as often as we are is only hurting our teachers and
students and consequently the working society abroad. We should be sticking with
the specialized classrooms for a number of reasons.
The
integrated system has been misinterpreted by schools and boards all over. What
we should be doing in this format is have teachers who teach the same
class work together to make sure that all the subjects line up so that they can
relate to each other. For example, if you are in an ecology unit for science
class, then the other involved teachers can make sure that language arts
involves writing/reading about ecological topics, social studies involves
talking about environmental issues such as global warning, and math includes
patterns and graphs that represent important ecological issues. What is actually
happening instead however is that teachers are being forced to teach all the
subjects by themselves (excluding Phys Ed, Music, and French) and none of the
subjects line up with each other whatsoever.
I have
been involved with a middle school that utilizes the integrated curriculum for
the last 3 years of my life, and it is clear to see that most of the teachers
are not comfortable teaching more than 1 subject. Many teachers seems to
struggle with both instructing and answering questions in math/science; but I
have also seen a few teachers struggle with teaching the language arts
effectively too. Speaking specifically with math, we are aware of the ongoing
numeracy scores issues in Canada as the scores continue to drop and show no signs
of improving. Teachers who don’t fully understand math themselves are being
forced to try to instruct and engage their students in higher level math. How
is this going to help our numeracy scores at all? I’ve heard on more than one
occasion teachers say “we are doing well with our writing right now so we’ll
just catch up on math later”. Subjects continue to get shoved aside and there
is simply no time left to discuss in detail these left behind subjects. As
well, the resources required for teachers to teach all these subjects are
astronomical. Microscopes, calculators, computers, textbooks, and the list goes
on. How are we supposed to fund all these materials? How are non-science
teachers supposed to know how to carefully maintain microscopes and slides? It
is completely unfair to force teachers to change what they have done and been
trained for their whole life. Finally, when it comes time to switch from
elementary to secondary school, students are forced into a setting completely
different than their used to. Virtually all high schools involve class rotary,
if students have never been exposed to this before then they will have to make
even more adjustments than already required (it’s tough enough already going
into grade 9 without this major change!).
In
theory the integrated curriculum sounds ideal, but it is simply not practical
since it isn’t being implemented appropriately. If schools were better able to
represent the integrated curriculum, then I would be able to support it a
little bit more. Instead we should be focused on improving teaching methods
rather than rearranging the classroom set-up. I am sincerely hoping that this
switch to integration is not long-term.
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