Chapter Five:The Curriculum

Generally, this chapter of Teaching Young Adolescents was very straightforward and will be useful for my future classroom. I liked that it was organized in a way that was specific and easy to follow. Specifically, I found it memorable that the authors pointed out,

"If the term authentic assessment sounds rather silly to you, we concur. After all, if the objectives and assessment don't match, then that assessment should be discarded or modified until it does match. In other words, assessment that is not 'authentic assessment' is 'poor assessment' and should not be used" (p. 196).

I had never really thought of this until reading the chapter, but it does make a lot of sense. All assessments should be as authentic as possible- to assess what the students know according to the instructional objectives.  In fact, I believe it's important for everything in the curriculum to be as authentic as possible- to better prepare students for real world situations.