Curricular integrity matters, especially in the Time of COVID. Before and after this pandemic, PK-12 instruction in our schools was and will be based upon district-approved courses of study. Adherence to the adopted curricula assures that instruction is standards-based, developmental, and contains necessary modifications making it accessible by all children. Instruction during the pandemic is not a bridge over the disruption of schooling, but must be a clear roadway through the disruption that connects all children with the requirements of their pre- and post-pandemic educational needs. All children need to be receiving their district’s approved curricula now regardless of instructional delivery.
Let there be no doubt that March and April, 2020, put almost all school districts into an emergency mode. With statewide, local or school board orders to close campuses to daily school attendance and shift to virtual and remote education, the issue of what to deliver was secondary to the issues of how to deliver. The first concern was how to connect school-based instruction with at-home children. To abuse the term, virtually all teachers were virtual instructors and all children were virtual students. We learned the mechanics of synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning. Curriculum was then attached to these new delivery systems. And, in the early school months of the pandemic, connecting children to education, any education, satisfied our immediate needs.
I hear from parents in our local school district that they believe the remote lessons their children were provided last spring were better than the lessons children are receiving this fall. Further questioning clarifies that those early lessons were perceived as more fun and entertaining, easier to engage in, and took less time and effort to complete. Children were on-screen for less time and happier with their on-screen time last spring as compared to this fall. When asked if the lessons that were more pleasing were clearly connected to their child’s ongoing lessons from September through February, it was clear that most were not although some were close in nature.
I also hear that lessons this school year are clearly connected to the school’s curriculum. They are similar to the lessons children in elementary grades and secondary courses received when they were in classrooms at school. These lessons use the school’s curricular resources and are connected to the school’s assessments of learning. This is curricular integrity.
Why is curricular integrity important? A child really has one school year per grade level and one semester or year per secondary course. A spiraling curriculum and academic development does resurface content, skills and dispositions that were taught earlier, but every re-emergence is an elaboration of complexity and sophistication. The spiral assumes that grade level learning has been accomplished.
Additionally, time and expectations do not stand still for the pandemic. This year’s fifth grade students will pass to middle school, eighth grade students to high school, and this year’s seniors will graduate. This will happen without an asterisk indicating that their academic progress was less than otherwise due to the pandemic.
Our schools owe it to our children to maintain curricular integrity so that their learning is of a quality that meets the needs and demands of their respective futures.