Something happened in Indiana this week, and while I don't have a wide audience, I hope others will write about it too because it should not have happened, and it should not happen elsewhere (There are ten other states considering similar proposals). The Indiana house passed Bill 1134, which would require teachers to publish their lesson plans for the entire year by June 30 of the preceding year. If you are not in education, you might not know how crazy that is, so let me help.
First, let's address why this happened because it didn't come out left field. When Glenn Younkin and Terri McAuliffe were running against each other, a discussion was sparked about how much control parents should have in what public schools teach. I know this is shocking, but both sides went to the extreme, with McAulliffe saying parents should have no say, and Younkin promising that certain things would never be taught under his administration. Yes, this is basically about fear of CRT. In spite of the fact that CRT has never been taught in a K-12 school, some parents are terrified that their first grader will soon have their brains molded to its shape. Neither the parents nor most of the lawmakers could recognize actual CRT because it is only taught in law schools and philosophy classes (It's like being worried that your elementary school student will learn Torte reform), so they label any book, movie, or lesson that even mentions race as CRT. Because social media and politics cause us to fear "the other side," many assume that every classroom teacher entered it with a political agenda and the only way to protect their child is to scrutinize everything. They do not trust the very people to whom they send their children every day. They trust teachers to keep their children physically safe, even marching to demand that they return to the classroom during a pandemic, but they don't trust them to teach English, Math, or History. (Remember the spring of 2020 when they realized how hard teaching was and expressed nothing but love for teachers? Good times.)
Nothing campaigns as well as fear, so politicians jump on board, fomenting that fear into votes and then into bills. Did they consult classroom teachers when writing this law? Based on the wording, I'm going to assume they did not. If they had discussed their thoughts with educators, they might have learned the difference between curriculum and lesson plans. I could easily give you a broad overview for next year. It would let you know that we would be discussing atomic structure in early September and the properties of acids near the beginning of December. Most school systems have their curriculum posted for public viewing, but again, that is pretty broad. It's a list of objectives and major resources. Lesson plans are an entirely different thing. When I am very much on my game, I write my lesson plans for a week on Monday and Tuesday of the previous week. Even then, things will likely change a bit by Friday. I might have an idea over the weekend that requires editing them.
What the lawmakers (and I assume the parents who are supporting the law) don't understand is that lesson plans are active. Curriculum is relatively static (or at least slower-changing), but the daily practice of teaching is not. When I first started teaching, I couldn't predict how long it would take to reach an objective. I'd plan a lesson, thinking it would take a class period, and it might take 20 minutes or 3 days. I simply hadn't been teaching long enough to estimate it. After 23 years of teaching, I now have the tools to adapt to that, keeping my left eye on the clock and expanding or contracting as needed, but there is no way to expect that of all teachers. I have had days where I taught my 6th-period class differently from my 3rd-period class. I taught them the same thing and achieved the same objective, but I did it differently because it wasn't working that well or because my 6th-period class had more students with special needs. I've had to change lesson plans based on the weather. If you are a parent, ask yourself if you want a teacher who is animated or animatronic. Do you want them to have a creative idea for how to help your child and then realize they cannot implement it until next year because they didn't have it on the plan last summer?
Many teachers are not even hired by the end of June, so unless the Indiana legislature has a plan for early hiring in a time when teachers are in short supply, they are in for a surprise on June 30. Laws like this are not going to help with the impending teacher shortage. Teachers are hard workers by nature and are driven by the idea that our work is meaningful, but we resent being asked to do meaningless work. We know that whatever is posted in response to this law is meaningless because it will change after we meet our students and find out what their needs are because that is what education is about.
And therein lies the crux of the problem. This law is not about education. It's not about keeping students from feeling uncomfortable (We don't mind that math or PE makes a lot of them uncomfortable). It is about control. It is about government control, ironically coming from the side of the aisle that most abhors government overreach. It is about wanting the right to scrutinize and then object to what they read in the plans. (I don't know what they think a teacher is supposed to do if parents object in opposing ways, which absolutely will happen.) I'm not against parental involvement, but I am against control by anyone who hasn't been in the classroom. I would not lobby for a law in which my doctor has to list what medications he intends to prescribe to me a year before my physical. I respect judicial nominees who refuse to answer hypotheticals because they have not yet seen the details of a case. I don't expect to control how an airline pilot reacts to turbulence. Let me suggest that if you, as a parent, want this level of control, you should probably homeschool your child.
If you live in one of the states where laws like this are being proposed, please contact your lawmakers. Let them know that you want your teachers engaged in the meaningful work they are trained to do.
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