In my very first education class, Dr. Chapman told us that if we were in education long enough, we would see all the old trends become new again.
I am officially there...and I'm only fifteen years in. I am not sure I completely believed him on that day but as my academic career continued, I began to suspect that he was correct and the longer I taught, the more I began to recognize the approaching signs.
The déjà vu started with the introduction of common assessments a few years ago.
During my first year at my current school, I was introduced to something called QBA or quarterly based assessment. The department developed a bank of multiple choice questions that assessed the curriculum outlined in the district approved skills continuum. An administrator (I think) created a test using this bank--four times per year--and the students were assessed.
A new trend appeared and our test bank was thrown away.
When my young department head, who was still in high school when we were administering quarterly based assessments, extolled the brilliance of these new assessments, I turned to my senior colleague--one of the women who explained it all to me when I was a rookie---and remarked, "QBA?" She nodded and mourned the loss of our old test bank.
Today cemented Dr. Chapman's claim. I spent the day in meetings. First was an all day departmental "retreat" in which we completely re-designed the English I curriculum map...again. The exciting new innovation was the exact same unit design that I used at the beginning of my career---the one that I used until very recently, the one that I surrendered reluctantly. My notes from this meeting are...."go back to what you used to do; go back to what worked."
I believe that's going to be my takeaway.
