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"How do school systems guarantee that the same skills and concepts are taught from one classroom to the next? Teachers and administrators understand the importance of aligning curriculum, instruction, and assessment. However, "curriculum design and delivery face one fundamental problem in schools. When the door is shut and nobody else is around, the classroom teacher can select and teach just about any curriculum he or she decides is appropriate" (English, 2000, p. 1). If education becomes dependent on a three-legged stool (curriculum, instruction, and assessment), then students may not receive the opportunity to learn a 'guaranteed' curriculum. Opportunity to learn, a concept introduced by John Carroll (1963), is controlled by classroom teachers."

"A guiding question for educators should be, "Would I want my child in this classroom?" Educators should constantly reflect on curriculum and instruction, while attempting to answer this important question. If college readiness is the goal, then all students should receive a quality curriculum which prepares them for the next level of learning. The recently released Common Core State Standards for Mathematics assert that "It is time to recognize that standards are not just promises to our children, but promises we intend to keep" (2010, p. 5). "

I agree with this teacher's comments. One must realize that horizontally and vertically articulated curriculum maps are ~90% curriculum design and ~10% curriculum practice. A teacher's daily lessons plans are the opposite: ~90% curriculum practice and ~10% curriculum design. Teachers' daily practices are the reason most of us get into this profession! While we are genuinely concerned with what we want students to know (content) and be able to do (skills), which is curriculum design, we are inspired and motivated by the planning and implementation of the "how" to make the knowing/doing learning expectations come alive as we interact with our students (curriculum practice). Oftentimes, the most memorable teaching moments happen in an instant in real time. These best-practice moments can be recorded in a Projected/Diary Map as an Activities/Strategies summary or as an attached Lesson Plan that is intra-aligned to the appropriate content/skills learning expectations. When such moments are incorporated into the ongoing Projected/Diary Maps, which this blogger refers to as looking "very flat and lifeless," the maps naturally transform into three-dimensional living histories of the "gift" of teaching, which the next "artists" will definitely enjoy viewing.