Curriculum

At High Rocks, curriculum is a living, evolving thing—a starting point for ideas, adaptations, and expansion—not a definitive set of instructions. Any curriculum “comes alive” (or doesn’t) because of the person teaching it. Good curriculum is a tool for a teacher’s professional development—a guide that helps a teacher, new or experienced, learn by doing.

A curriculum, in that sense, is a teaching mentor; helping each teacher who uses it to think through their goals, troubleshoot their ideas, and create ways of doing things that use their own unique strengths and passions. This curriculum not only invites the person doing it to analyze and personalize the lessons, but in fact requires it. We believe that the process of thinking beyond “what you do” to “how you do it” and “why you do it” is one of the hallmarks of a great teacher. Our curriculum is designed as a tool that walks teachers through this thought process in the course of designing activities, while at the same time supporting and guiding them to design high-quality activities and lessons based on theory, context, and the experience of teachers who’ve come before.

In other words: it’s a method, not a recipe.

In this section, we provide working documents to be used as resources by mentors and teachers working in our programs. Click the links below to open the document:

• Becoming Stronger Teachers – Our Educational Model
• Lesson Plan Format
• Sample Lesson Plan – First Day of New Beginnings
• Event Planning Checklist
• Bag of Tricks Quick Reference Guide
• High Rocks 101 Handout