bjournal::juxtapoz

Warning! Strong personal feelings follow…

I am a teacher. I love that. I may not be the best at my job, but I am working on it because it is something that I love. I also feel like what I am doing is important (but maybe everyone feels that way) and that if I want to continue to do what I love, I should get better at it. Consequently, I spend a lot of time trying to make myself a better teacher.

Since this is where I am coming from, I get really confused when fellow teachers see professional development (which is required by the school) as a burden rather than an opportunity. It pains me to know that for so many of them this is an 8-5 job and that anything asked above that is ranked somewhere between ‘inappropriate’ and ‘offensive.’ It also pains me when an idea like curriculum mapping- an idea aimed solely at being a better teacher and helping students (aka, our jobs)- is met with such fervent disgust because it might require a bit of our time beyond which we would normally give.

Quite frankly, if, as a teacher, you aren’t constantly reflecting on what you teach, how it addresses the goals of the class, and how it all fits together, you already aren’t doing your job. If you are already doing that, than an exercise like curriculum mapping is trivial

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