Creating a really good curriculum takes time

I had the good fortune to be trained at the Bank Street College of Education in New York, where curriculum development was treated with enormous respect and much time and attention was devoted to planning the work that would be done with children. This was the 1980's and the standards movement had not yet lowered its mighty hammer on playfulness in the schools. After an initial three years teaching at a progressive school in Brooklyn, I returned to teach in Bank Street's laboratory School for Children, where hours were devoted in conversation each week to figuring out where we would take the curriculum next. We thought about what interested the children and what would challenge their thinking most deeply and appropriately. We invested a lot of time into finding authentic materials and designing authentic experiences so that children would be able to do their own investigations and draw their own conclusions. It was a grand moment for us teachers and in retrospect I marvel at all the time we had. There were team meetings; vertical meetings; one on one weekly meetings with the curriculum director. We visited each other's classrooms and took notes on what children said during class discussions. We closed school early once each week to meet and plan curriculum. The center of the curriculum was always either science or social studies. We integrated other subjects as much as possible - math, reading, the arts. The school was alive with inquiry and really no child was left behind. That background has served me well in the teaching work I have done since leaving Bank Street. I learned the tools of the trade and have felt free and able in the years since to put together meaningful curriculum no matter what the subject I was teaching. My biggest question now is what the standards-based movement is going to do to my teaching now that it has finally caught up with me (there are now national standards for language teachers). I like the direction taken by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) in terms of the standards they have set. I just worry that all the data collecting and analyzing is going to get in the way of the time I need to spend to create the curriculum that excites me and the children. One interest for me in this course is in getting a better handle on what the Common Core is - I am possibly heading toward leadership positions - maybe starting my own school - and I want to be sure I understand current mainstream thinking.