How long to write a curriculum, maybe?

Curriculum writing, in keeping with the spirit from last reflection about teamwork, is also a team activity. Writing a good curriculum means gathering a large wealth of education practices and ideas from a solid team and consolidating them into a single document to outline a plan of attack to bring students the education they need. I struggle with biting off more than I can chew, so I’m going to explore a potential timeline for building a curriculum.

Since a curriculum is a time consuming process for all parties involved, it would be best if the brunt of the work was done during the summer, I think. If we give the final draft a month to be finished before the school year starts, the final draft needs to be done during the last month of summer break. We’ll need a first draft before we can begin the final draft, so writing that will take the front end of the summer. That leaves brainstorming, idea presentation, design, and team-gathering for the better part of the previous school year.

Team-gathering should happen first. If I make sure to think about the team before getting into the nitty-gritty of the curriculum, I can ensure that the finished product is good for all team members. Gathering the team could take up to a month, so as of now we’re starting the process in May or June, as school is finishing up.

After team-gathering, we should begin the process of brainstorming and sharing what strategies, as well as designing the curriculum or redesigning if need be. I can imagine that taking a month or two. That puts our start date as sometime March or April, but maybe teachers are too busy then to begin thinking about the curriculum writing process. If that’s the case, curriculum writing might need to be a multi-year process taking place in the summer. If there is a curriculum already, then I bet a team of teachers could absolutely maintain it with 2-3 months of work per year. But if there isn’t, writing one could take 2 or 3 years, and I should plan accordingly. The success of my students depends on my ability to do so.