How can we make it work?

One of my heroes/ role models in education and curriculum writing is Michael Clay Thompson (as if anyone who knows me is unaware of that fact).  I first heard him speak four (?) years ago at the NC Association for the Gifted and Talented Conference.  It was a game-changer for me.  I immediately began reading every piece of his curriculum and writing that I could get my hands on.  See, for a long time I had felt that there was something missing from my instruction.  My kids seemed to enjoy my class, I had generally good results, my test scores were good enough to keep me under the radar, but something was missing.  I didn't really feel as though I was making any sort of difference, long-term, in the lives of the students I taught.

One particular piece of information that has stuck with me since discovering this curriculum, however, is not something that I was teaching to the kids.  This valuable little tidbit was tucked away amidst a paragraph written to teachers, and addresses education in general.  The reason it stuck with me is because it explains why I felt like I was not making a difference; why education in general is not making a difference to the students we work so hard for.  I don't have the direct quotation here with me, so I shall attempt to paraphrase:  Education will only work when we stop reteaching skills students should have already mastered.    We must expect mastery and hold them accountable for information they should already know.  I read the statement, then I read it again, and again, and something just *clicked*.

Here was why I felt I was spinning my proverbial wheels.  It was impossible for me to go on into the curriculum for my grade level because I was spending so much time "reviewing" things they already knew.  Rather than holding students responsible for information they should already have, I was attempting to teach every piece of the Language Arts curriculum, beginning with things they should have mastered in elementary school.  And, of course, this was what had ALWAYS happened to them, from the beginning of their school experience.  It was not necessary to master anything, because you just learn it all again next year.  It is boring because there is never any new information.

So I stopped.  I taught my curriculum, and that is it.  Any information that was brand new in seventh grade is information that I review, briefly, but overall, I move on.  Well, talk about a rude awakening.  I was informed by several students that it was "unfair" of me to expect them to remember things they had learned a long time ago.  They had all summer off!  They weren't supposed to start the year off having to remember stuff!  Generally, grades dropped.  School was "hard," and my class was "hardest."

I feel as though I am fighting an uphill battle.  This is the way education is supposed to work, yet this is not the way we teach.  Expecting students to memorize is unreasonable and unfair.  Expecting them to know the parts of speech without needing a booklet of cheat sheets is just too hard.  Expecting students to learn the language they speak and will use to communicate for the rest of their lives is irrelevant and too time-consuming.  I am running out of time this morning, but this rant has only just begun.  Thoughts?  Am I unreasonable in expecting mastery?