Maps

For the last year or two we (teachers in our district) have been doing this thing called curriculum mapping. This has been very complicated...it's new to us and we have to work together in departments and grade levels...lots of give and take. Many "newer" teachers like myself often feel that we are struggling to find a balance between how we like to teach and the teaching methods of teachers who have been around for a while. It has been very difficult.

I heard today that our district is giving us a map they've developed for us. Now, I see the value of all our schools/grade levels/subjects teaching the same concept at the same time. My problem is this...if, and that's IF our district leaders intended to give us this map, why did they ask us to spend hours of difficult work doing this? I have to do some more research and find out how true this is for the math department (it could just be happening in Language Arts) before I get upset. I also need to see the proposed map before getting upset.

This is something I feel strongly about...I really love teaching. However, when copious amounts of time is spent working on something that most likely will not be used anyway, thereby leading me to feel that I've wasted my time, I get upset.

I will be finding out more about this before I really get upset.