At first, I was quite enthusiastic about this new deal in the education of American students. Yes, let's hold students to new high standards, no child left behind, every high school graduate able to read and calculate percentages! And so much more! All American students will be the same because they'll all know the same stuff! They'll be able to go to college and not have to take remedial writing and reading and math, or they will be employment ready with the nimbleness and flexibility and deep knowledge our global economy demands.
We are not French or German or Swedish, though a little bit of all of those and hundreds of others. This country is deeply different, I believe. There is no such thing in the United States as homogeneity. We came from everywhere and we are still coming. We come in all colors and we speak many languages and we have many treasured traditions from family roots. We want to be a country where we are all proud, all kids are above average, and we cling to the idea that our opportunities are endless (if we work hard). And we prize our individuality.
American public education has been key in the growth of this nation. Public schools, for all their warts, have through the generations, been the glue of an over arching American culture. So many Americans learned our common language, English, in our public schools.
Throughout all the many newest greatest attempts to make our education system better, what remains are the dailiness of a kid's school experiences. A child learns the structure of the school culture: get there on time, follow the rules, watch the clock, look forward to recess, worry about tests, and maybe there will be something truly interesting or fun happening.
With this Common Core initiative, I worry, again, that this is another way of demoting teachers to being slaves of a money driven system coming down from educational publishing giants, pushed by politicians and lobbyists.
I have studied the Common Core objectives. It's all about cogent reasoning, evidence collection, specificity, commutative properties and other edu-speak crap. All of it is good stuff, actually. But in a real situation, why not produce a Shakespearean play? Why not develop an orchestra? Why not have animals in the classroom? Why not run a school store? Why not read great books out loud to students so that they would come to love literature? Why not let kids write rap music? Why not have the kids do real banking? Why not have as many kids as possible learn coding? Why not have kids cooking?
Remember 'New Math'? Moms and Dads in kitchens across America struggled with this and tried hard. "Why can't junior just learn the multiplication tables? And why is your math written horizontally?" That panacea was scrapped.
We really are all different, and perhaps we should celebrate that. I envision schools that have unique footprints. A principal could gather his/her staff considering the talents and skills needed. Science? Imagine an inviting huge science room filled with interesting stuff, animals, computers for data collection. Imagine an art room filled with every imaginable material, beautiful paper, potters wheels, printmaking. Imagine a writing center where kids write their own magazines and newspapers, develop websites and apps.
Imagine literature that is not boring and 'rigorous', dance that is joyous, music that fills the rooms, math that is so fascinating a kid will voluntarily spend all night on a hard puzzle. I occasionally read about such programs.
I do believe that if we unfettered our teachers from these test driven curricula, they would fly!
Seems that we are glommed onto Common Core. I will be into "evidence collection". As a major school time volunteer I will keep watch.
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