Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/3058
RIGHT: Mountain Empire Teachers Association member Mary Weaver at Descanso Elementary School. INSETS: Students at Descanso Elementary School involved in PE and art classes. combination class, Sheridan thought it would be the worst year of his career. “I felt like I was al- ways behind. After about six weeks, I realized that the problem was that I was trying to teach the entire grade 1 Houghton Mif flin language arts pro- gram and the entire grade 2 program. “When I stopped worrying about the adopted curricu- lum materi a ls, I was able to design lesson plans that worked for me and for my students. The key was de- signing plans that a l lowed me to build on what stu- dents knew and were able to do, rather than trying to shoehorn a l l students into one of two standard molds. It turned out to be a great year.” september 2009 | www.cta.org 15