Three Shmeee, blah dee blah dee standards.

Despite the title of my blog post, I really do think that there is some validity in the standards (both nationally and statewide) that influence the way that students and teachers interact with the curriculum. While on the state level the standards may seem broad or even over-arching, there is some merit to the fact that the standards help teachers focus in on something. We all know that Theatre, English, Math, heck, all of the content areas are broad and full; there must be a way to organize content as students move through their educational life. Aside from helping students learn the different content areas, teachers can also use the standards as guidelines not obstacles. I learned in a recent workshop that we should make our obstacles our opportunities-- it's the same way with teachers and standards. Rather than complaining about the way that standards are set up or imposed on us, we can actually use them to help us explore the different texts surroundign our classrooms.