One of the best things about teaching at an international school is the freedom from federal requirements and the constant emphasis on standardized testing. What a relief! I can teach whatever I want as long as it's "related to the curriculum" and includes some grammar and vocabulary.
Well, EVERYTHING includes grammar and vocabulary, and pretty much anything can be related to the curriculum. So my fifth-graders are writing about Flat Stanley and exchanging him with kids all over the place, my sixth- and seventh-graders are practicing for a 5-minute version of Hamlet, and my grade 8 and 9 students have read Ionesco (inspired by my friend Regan, the drama teacher, and her grade 11-12 students' performance of his play "Tales for People under 3 Years of Age." It was hilarious!)
It's a lot of work but, interestingly, the harder I work, the easier it gets.
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I sent your link to a teacher friend of mine. I thought she might enjoy it especially after seeing your pleasure at no 'child left behind'.
I'm the 'teacher friend' to whom Cheryl refers. I teach 12th grade English in a Maryland public school. I agree with you about No Child Left Behind... In a class I took the professor asked us to identify the current most pressing issue in education and then asked what the most pressing will be in ten years. You guessed it...the current is NCLB. The future is recuperating from NCLB. Luckily, I do not teach assessed classes so I can 'stray' from the prescribed curriculum. Right now two of my classes are collaborating with the music tech dept. and are putting poems they've written to music. It's been fun. I'd like to see some of those politicians in a classroom!
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