Curriculum Case Study: After a Shift in Curriculum in One Tennessee County, ‘Everyone’s Playing Field Is the Same’
February 25, 2020
“We are only in our third year of using Wit & Wisdom, but already the teachers in Lauderdale County see an enormous difference in students’ writing compared to previous years. They are noticing how complete the sentences are that our young students are using, and they appreciate the agility with which students are making connections to things they learned before. We are confident that test results in the years ahead will validate the decision we’ve made to implement a high-quality curriculum. In the meantime, our students and teachers are excited about the learning journey they’re on.”
– Shawn Kimble, Superintendent of Lauderdale County Schools
Curriculum Case Study: How One Rural Tennessee School District With 25 Percent Student Literacy and Nearly a Quarter of Kids Living in Poverty Is Turning the Tide
February 25, 2020
“We hear a lot in education circles lately about “shifting the cognitive load” from teachers to students. This shift is something we’re witnessing in droves with the adoption of this new structured curriculum. Perhaps the most profound, oft-heard reaction teachers have shared with me about their experience of using Wit & Wisdom is their surprise and excitement about the level of work their students are doing.
– Lauderdale County Schools Superintendent Shawn Kimble
Academic gains, new ideas and empathy: What's at stake when the books students can read are restricted
November 14, 2021
"Books might actually be one of the few places left where young people might be able to meet people unlike themselves, where they might be able to live vicariously in someone else’s experience and see how they are unlike in a lot of ways as well as what they have in common," Susan L. Groenke, professor of English education and director of the Center for Children's and Young Adult Literature at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
— The Tennessean
Blount County Schools educators support Wit and Wisdom, offer alternatives
October 12, 2021
"Elaine Hurst said her sons not only have been in schools using Wit and Wisdom but she read the books with them at home. “From a mother’s perspective it did not alarm me or make me feel uncomfortable. I am still very proud that we use these real texts with our students instead of a basal with text and passages that don’t have a lot meaning. Building knowledge for these students and giving them perspective of the world to me is something I am very proud of.”
– Elaine Hurst, Blount County Parent
Misguided Attacks Shouldn't Derail Tennessee's Curriculum Momentum
August 7, 2021
“It’s understandable if parents want to protect their children from sadness, but it’s impossible to teach history accurately without mentioning events that could evoke it. (…) You could argue—as many have—that information about historical topics, pleasant or unpleasant, should wait until children are older. But if students encounter history for the first time in upper grades, it can be hard for them to absorb it and engage with it at the level the curriculum expects. Teachers have told me it’s not uncommon for high school students to confuse, for example, the Civil War and the civil rights movement. If they’ve learned about these events earlier, that’s much less likely to happen.”
— Natalie Wexler
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