I
have a few observations:
For
secondary teachers, often with five classes and over a hundred and fifty
students every day, this doesn’t seem doable.
When would they have the time to do this planning? Well, commercial
outfits will just move in and sell canned curriculum to districts. Sigh.
As
far as students go, if the students are excellent readers, and highly
motivated, I can see these integrated courses being interesting.. For the average student—who is a mediocre
reader and not very motivated—I can see these kind of reading assignments being
overwhelming, which means many, probably most, students won’t do them. They’ll read a summary of the books on the
Internet, or ask their better-reading friends.
Cross-curricular
work doesn’t get at the heart of the education crisis. It is mostly just a re-packaging of current
practices. For students to be truly
educated, they need to form a love and habit of reading. This only happens when students are allowed
to choose most of their own books.
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