Not long ago
I had a conversation with one of my fellow grad students (who just happened to
be young enough to be my grandchild) about my dislike for Common Core. He made the observation that resistance to
the CCSS was mostly an age thing. In his
eyes if you were a more experienced teacher (read: old) you were against the
standards and if you were a bright, young little to no experience teacher you
absolutely loved them. This guy could
not understand how I could be so stupid, stubborn, and pig-headed (his exact
words) as to not see how these standards were going to change teaching,
education and probably the entire world!
Fortunately,
we had a very wise and experienced professor leading the class discussion and
she challenged my colleague to explain why the Common Core standards were so
great. We all listened politely to a
long explanation and defense that included all of the best of the
education-speak of the day; rigor, critical thinking, scope and sequence, and
no more status quo! It occurred to me at
the end of his speech that he had not taught in a classroom yet so I am not
sure he really knew what the “status quo” was, but he was surely against it.
Next came my
turn to defend my views. I explained that I didn’t object to the Common Core
standards, and in fact the standards really did not affect my classroom because
I teach Art and there have been wonderful state and national standards around
since the late 80s. I really could not
defend my dislike for any particular standard or even the whole group. But what I truly dislike, no I would say hate,
is the way the Common Core standards are used.
To make my point I had to discuss a little bit of my experience with
teaching in Indiana off and on over the past 30 years. As an Art teacher I have been riffed
often. I teach an unnecessary subject in
the eyes of an administrator that has to make budget cuts, so I can say that I
have taught in five different school systems in my 25+ years of teaching. The first time I was riffed in the late 70s
everything was all about the “Back to Basics” movement. We could only spend time on Math and Language
Arts, everything else was unnecessary.
In the early 80s there was the push for vocational programs. If you could not prove that your subject
would result in your students walking out the door of the school and
immediately landing a job then your subject was unnecessary. The next thing was any subject that wasn’t going
to be a part of the high-stakes graduation exit exam was a complete waste of
time and of course unnecessary. It has always
been the same thing; Math, Language Arts anything else is not needed. Forget about educating the whole child, we
had to get back to basics; there were skills to learn and tests to take. No time for those unnecessary subjects.
Now here we
are again with another assault on the curriculum. Narrowing it down to only the most noble of
subjects and ridding ourselves of the waste, the unnecessary subjects like
science, art, music. I continued the
defense of my position on Common Core by explaining that it may be OK to think
the standards are fine, great, useable, and the best thing ever created. I am sure that there are young or
inexperienced teachers that find them great, but I don’t think those young and inexperienced
teachers have had the opportunity to see how these standards will be used as a
weapon against public education. Just
like the “Back to Basics” or vocational movements of earlier years, the Common
Core is a tool make public education so awful with high-stakes testing that the
public will scream for the privatizers to rescue their children from grips of
educational hell. Standards are not
going to save or destroy education, but the way they are used will surely put
an end to our cherished public school system.
Teachers,
the unions, and even administrators have fought back against the forces that have
constantly tried to narrow the curriculum and dismantle our public education
system, but this one seems to be a little fiercer. There is big money behind this movement and
their weapon of choice this time is the Common Core standards. So to the defenders of CCSS I can understand
if you like them, but please look at why many of us don’t like how they are
used against teachers and students.
Let me first say, Common Core does not diminish the importance of science, art, or music. The state standards are still in place for subjects other than math and ELA. I understand that everyone has their viewpoint on Common Core, but you still did not state why you dislike it so much. Are you familiar with CCSS? If so, are you familiar with the need for different ways of teaching math and ELA. Students simply are not truly learning just because they are given a worksheet, they learn through experience. This experience is provided through hands-on, relatable activities. Just look at the list of countries by student performance:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/dec/03/pisa-results-country-best-reading-maths-science#_
-Third world countries are doing much better in reading and math than the United States is.
Obviously, something has to change in education. Would you rather keep teaching students the same and see the same poor results?
Teachers must be malleable as life-long learners. I don't understand why every teacher is not on board with Common Core.
Be sure you know where that train's headed. Common Core State Standards are on a route not chosen by experienced, practicing teachers, and we don't have teachers driving the train, either. Good teachers always have good standards. Too often, they must forego them in favor of someone else's standards, regardless of suitability to students as presented. Education management has a role here, and must bear the bulk of responsibility for success or failure, however measured.
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