Current mood:	working
Entry tags:	curriculum development

Connotations
There is a recurring step in our teacher's guides that begins: "Partners discuss relationships."

Now, what this actually means (as the text goes on to explain) is "pairs of students have a discussion about the relationships among set of vocabulary words they have written on cards in front of them." It does not, of course, mean that the third graders should be informing the kid that sits next to them that they want to spend recess with other people, or that they should be evaluating whether or not they want to sit next to the same kid long-term, in the fourth grade. It does not even mean that third graders should be talking about whether they "like" or "like like" each other. But it sure sounds like it to me.

However, I am apparently the only developer who thinks it's amusing to instruct third graders to do this. I know because I got a lot of weird looks today when I tried to explain why I was laughing at the teacher's guide yet again. Oh well.