The below is my final post in a string of posts related to Common Core and education in general
"Winning the testing game" and "losing our
creativity and entrepreneurial skills" are, in fact relatively unrelated.
I have already expressed my displeasure re: the way testing scores are used,
That is not a Common Core issue, that is a state and local school board issue .
It's the sort of thing you get with a formerly corrupt, now politically
rehabilitated "play it to the
press" governor, a career political failure as Superintendent and a school
board whose only educator is a media specialist who continued working in one
district while supposedly serving the needs of another. Any effort to block a
student from an appropriate vocational track vice a strictly academic one is a
state/local issue and essentially unrelated to CC as well. I remember when we
actually awarded three types of HS diplomas, Academic, Vocational and Clerical.
Change "Clerical" to "Technology"
and you might have a plan with applicability to the apparent problem.
You say you support standards, well, since that's
really all the Common Core is, then it follows that you support Common Core, or
at least the concept. Opposing CC because state and local boards misuse/misrepresent it is a
"Baby with the Bathwater" mentality. Then, in a later post **** hints at the conspiracy ravings of the mythologizers
who would have us believe it is all part of some shadow government plot.
Hogwash. The negative reactions to CC start with those who would "purge
" our history and turn us all into Pollyannas who simply repeat patriotic jargon without considering that many of those who made a difference,
did so by swimming against the stream. “He who controls the past controls the
future. He who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell understood this, as do the
school boards of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, who would purge or deemphasize the unpleasantness in our history: you know -The Scottsboro Boys,"Wounded Knee" Rosa Parks, MLK Jr., Vietnam, and/or Iraq.
When you have entire state educational structures which want
to remove history from history books, then and only then are you headed in the
direction **** cites, with semi hysterical and egregiously inappropriate allusions to Nazism and Chinese conformity. One Texas legislator
wants to remove the teaching of critical thinking skills from curriculum, again
citing CC as the villain. I would submit that the easiest way to subvert an
entire population group is to suppress legitimate question among its younger
members. "Why?" is the right question 99% of the time. In the
remaining 1% doing the emergency action followed by "Why" is the
proper response. As I often told my students, usually in day one or two of
class, respectfully questioning authority is always appropriate. It's how we learn,
and it's certainly how we become aware that authority can be misused.
It is also the
precise antithesis of the protestations voiced by the opponents of CC. If one
looks beneath the surface at the motivations of those who most violently oppose
the implementation of CC one sees the very opposite of what **** says we should
be doing - i.e. encouraging individual thinkers, doers and entrepreneurs. Most
of those in arms against CC are persons whose religious/political beliefs would include
the idea that their children should be discouraged from questioning authority.
It doesn't take a genius to extrapolate why that is. I have seen it in the
classroom, when after discussing prehistory, a parent e-mailed to warn that "we're
a Bible based family, and the earth is 4800 (and change) years old." Fortunately, the son was a bit brighter than
they realized and processed all of this appropriately.
“You will be hollow. We
shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.” Orwell
again, understanding that the hidden agenda in those mid west school boards and
of the most vociferous opponents of CC is
to fill empty vessels with the standard "our way or the highway" social/religious/political orthodoxy which is so threatened by CC emphasis on critical thought and cross cultural
learning. They see a clear and present danger in teaching kids "how"
to think instead of "what" to think.
Ask yourself simply: "If the Texas or Kansas standards, similar to the Sunshine State Standards, were to be adopted nationwide, do we really think anyone in either state would protest that action.?" Of course not, because this entire tempest in a teapot is really about having people think as "we" (you know, us religious zealot, right wing, bigots) think. Testing is another issue altogether, CC as an idea is fine. I loathe the emphasis on testing because of the same reasons **** dislikes it - too much emphasis on how to use the results. My challenge would be to simply say "OK, find a better way." In my 20 years in education at advanced studies levels, I never saw an alternate proposal which worked. But I know this: If one opposes a set of standards which stress learning goals, critical thinking skills and cross curriculum interaction, then they need to get out of education and into the food service industry.
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