Degree of Teacher Control
A teacher’s effectiveness in implementing any curriculum will be greatly influenced by her knowledge about child development, the skills and experience he brings to the classroom, and her personal belief system (Hill, Stremmel, & Fu, 2005). As a new teacher, you might appreciate a curriculum that provides lots of direction, support, and instructional resources so that you can focus most of your energies on developing your skills and insights about how children learn and behave. Over time, teachers often develop a comfort level with a curriculum to the point where they can “tweak” it to more effectively meet the needs of individual children.
Some teachers see structured models as limiting what they can do with children’s imaginations, individuality, and intelligence. A highly experienced teacher may not need the kind of instructional support and direction provided by the curriculum. He may actually become frustrated if he is not permitted to exercise the personal knowledge and skills acquired through practice over time. We mentioned earlier that the degree of control a teacher has to interpret the curriculum can vary considerably by setting; that is, in some classrooms diverging from the set curriculum is not an option, while in others the teacher has more freedom to embrace more flexibility and creativity (Frede & Ackerman, 2007).
In all cases, children need and deserve teachers who understand them, are highly knowledgeable about the curriculum options, and know how to make good decisions on their behalf.