I interviewed three teachers about national, state, and local goals and objectives. The teachers, Jamie Beavers (Journalism), Sarah Baranowski (World Geography), and Elizabeth Iredale (Chemistry), all teach at Midway High School in Waco, Texas (http://www.midwayisd.org/Campuses/HS/). In all three interviews, each teacher discussed how state goals and objectives, specifically the TEKS, influenced their curriculum and lesson plans.
My most in depth interview was with Ms. Beavers. Ms. Beavers told me that since her class, Journalism, was an elective course instead of one of the core subject courses, she was not required to focus as much of her time on TAKS preparation and other testing objectives. Nevertheless, she proceeded to explain how she still based her curriculum on the TEKS and thus indirectly assisted her students to prepare to take the TAKS test. For example, she explained that her journalism students must learn to write �succinctly and with accuracy�, which could help them on writing portions of standardized tests, since such tests usually allow only a small space to write their response. Additionally, Ms. Beavers explained that for the photography portion of her class (darkroom and computer manipulation), students are taught small lessons on the chemistry of developing chemicals and the physics of light, both of which may help them on the science and math portions of the TAKS test. Further, Ms. Beavers explained that she also teaches a great deal of journalism history in her class, including such topics as photographers and reporting techniques, some of which might appear on the social studies portion of the TAKS test. For me, it was very interesting to hear how Ms. Beavers incorporated state goals and objectives in her class, even though she does not teach a core subject.
I then asked Ms. Beavers which aspects of the goals and objectives impacted her class the most and which impacted her class the least. As a Journalism teacher, she told me that she felt that the state writing goals and objectives impacted her class the most. Since her students write several news, feature, and editorial articles during the semester, she tries focuses much of her lessons on writing objectives. Ms. Beavers felt that math goals and objectives impacted her class the least. In her words, �Journalists don�t do math, at least not higher math like trig and calculus. We journalists like to keep things simple!� I believe this interview helped me to see that elective courses are important for students in more ways than one. Not only do they allow students to learn about and enjoy subjects that they chosen to take, but they can also indirectly contribute to helping them meet state goals and objectives. In the case of journalism, students can see practical uses for learning such objectives (i.e. reporting the news.)
Ms. Baranowski told me that the World Geography department follows the TEKS state goals and objectives very closely in order to get students ready to take the TAKS test. She explained her lesson plans focus on these state objectives in that she adds TAKS-like questions to her tests and she gives her students �TAKS warm-ups� that are based on the TEKS objectives. She added that Midway ISD is passionate about having their students do well on the TAKS test and wants all students to succeed. (I�m sure this is the motto for most if not all school districts!) I then asked Ms. Baranowski which aspects of these goals and objectives impacted her the most and which impacted her the least. Her reply was that all of the goals and objectives (for her content area) impact her class at about the same level. She explained that TAKS practice items on tests and warm-up activities affect how she uses her classroom time. In her World Geography class, she has her students do some type of TAKS practice nearly everyday, whether it is in the form of notetaking or a �bell ringer activity.�
As with the World Geography department, Ms. Iredale told me that the chemistry department plans their lessons around the TEKS objectives. For her class, she has her students keep a handout of the TEKS in their notebook, which is organized according to the TEKS objectives via dividers that deal with individual TEKS (students file assignments under the TEKS divider tab that the assignment addresses.) At the beginning of each unit, Ms. Iredale refers to the students� TEKS handout so that they can see what TEKS objective(s) the lesson will address. When the TAKS test is about two to three weeks away, Ms. Iredale will begin to review her students for the TAKS test by conducting daily reviews during her warm-up question time. Students are allowed to use their notebooks to look for information about each TEKS objective. Concerning national goals and objectives, Ms. Iredale mentioned that the No Child Left Behind policy as affected primarily her content mastery, 504 (students with disabilities), and SAT students. However, based on her observations, the policy has not made a dramatic difference (yet) in the general education classrooms, other than simply stressing the importance of using the specified modifications for each student. Even though we only had to interview two teachers, I wanted to include Ms. Iredale�s information because I liked her idea of having students keep a notebook that allowed her students to track their progress in meeting TEKS objectives.