Posted on 03/31/2014 8:27:20 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
I have been a Freeper for 12 years and a teacher for 10. I work in Los Angeles, in a public school, and I teach English. I want to say something about Common Core, although my observations will be strictly limited to my particular domain: English. I cannot comment on the Math portion.
I will begin bluntly: I do not understand the conservative outcry about Common Core. Perhaps it’s only because I teach in California, but to me it is an improvement, at least in some ways. If you aren’t a teacher (and most conservatives aren’t, which is a pity) you don’t realize what California standards were like. Oh, the goals themselves weren’t particularly remarkable… in the end, the goals are always the same for English, no matter how they word them: children should be able to summarize, identify, describe, explain, compare, analyze, evaluate, and synthesize the plot, characters, setting, theme, mood, tone… same stuff they’ve done for years.
What was noxious about California standards was their pressure to conform to a liberal reading list. The text books they issued looked as if someone had gone down a checklist with authors arranged by skin color and nationality. I could almost hear the editor muttering to himself, “We need an Indonesian.” Very few authors were classic writers noted for their skill. They seemed to think one short story by Hemingway, one by Poe, and one by Bradbury was sufficient to represent the Dead White Males of the Pre-enlightenment Era (that’s sarcasm, for those of you in Rio Linda). The ESL textbooks were even more pointed: children were directed to read essays on how FDR saved America, how nuclear power is bad, bad, bad, how the 2nd amendment is contingent upon government permission(!), how migrant workers are victimized by pesticides… yes, it was cheery stuff.
Now comes Common Core, and one of the first things they addressed in the training was this: children raised on the simplistic language of modern-day PC authors cannot comprehend anything else, and did horribly on the periodic assessments. The periodic assessments, created by people who apparently hadn’t gotten the memo, had included excerpts from The Odyssey, Anne of Green Gables, Call of the Wild, David Copperfield… could a child raised on the toothless prose of Gary Soto and bell hooks even comprehend the long, intricate sentences that were common to writers many years ago? No, they couldn’t. Imagine that.
So this is what the Common Core material suggests: classic writers. Documents written by the Founding Fathers. Greek mythology. Mark Twain. Louisa May Alcott. Yes, really. Common Core steps away from guiding the teacher’s curriculum along the PC lines of “authors of color” and “writers who champion social justice” and actually recommends classics, but makes no effort to control what the teacher chooses. This, my Friends, can only be an improvement, because liberals were in charge of our books for too many years. Any choices by teachers will swing to the right because frankly, they were so far to the left that there was no way to go further unless you have 7th graders reading Andrea Dworkin, and teachers with that attitude would have already been doing it.
I don’t expect a wave of support… my sad experience is that many Freepers hate teachers with such a livid passion that I wonder about them. But I wanted to say this: Common Core is much less prohibitive in English than the previous standards. Again, I cannot speak to the mathematics, the science, the history… but I can tell you that in English, it’s an improvement, for the reasons I have given above. Okay, flame away.
That is very kind of you to say so. If you have a chance, watch the video at the link I posted. Bill Whittle is, in my opinion, the most talented conservative spokesman today.
His aggressive statement of what he sees as the facts (and I agree with him to a large degree) is not only entertaining, but cutting and spot-on.
Big Government has been in Education for decades. Common Core does not come out of nowhere. What I’m saying is, know more about it so if you want to argue, argue cogently, not just some screaming hysteria about how Common Core is an evil Nazi plan to lobotomize white people, and some of the other nonsensical, paranoid claims I’ve heard here. In fact, if you want to fight it, whining on Free Republic about how EE-VIL the government is has to be one of the more stupid approaches. If you want to combat what educational bureaucrats are doing to kids, know enough about it so you don’t sound like one of those nuts who think fluoride is a brainwashing chemical introduced into our drinking water by the Illuminati.
I’m not finding Whittle very impressive so far. I’m 3 minutes in and he sounds like Ann Coulter at her weakest, tossing out snippy remarks and general insults and jokes, and nothing specific about Common Core at all so far except “it’s like Obama care” and vague threats that you will not have the same teacher anymore. Is it going to get better?
Attacking conservatives for opposing government- federal at that - is nonsense and trying to equate opposition with conspiracy theories makes you sound like part of the far left
If you are not a teacher, please make sure you know what you are talking about before you start flipping out about teaching.
Yes. I did ask you to view it.
It was a video made to do battle with liberals, not change their minds, because they are incapable in many respects of doing so.
But if you cannot see the message because you are blocked from being able to see the basis of the rhetoric by his delivery, I don’t think I can help you except by spelling it out, which I have tried to do in several posts.
I confess that I did not expect it to change your mind, but I did expect you to be able to see the message being delivered in what is partly entertainment. I was obviously mistaken.
You know what? I usually ignore you because I think you’re a crackpot, but I do want to say something: when did being a conservative become about opposing government on every level at every turn no matter what it does? That is not conservatism, that’s anarchy. That’s like how feminism went from “the right of women to vote and own property” to “all sex is rape.” You are at the “all sex is rape” level of anti-government knee-jerk contrariness.
Well, I think I pretty well understand you after reading that post.
You are the one who sounds like a crackpot
The ObamaCore is worse than stupid, though. They plan to replace the classics with excerpts from the classics, along with excerpts from government bills, executive orders. directions for putting together a swing set or some other household item. It will be a smattering of everything and the mastery of nothing. Kids will not learn to LOVE learning and reading. The will learn to be functionally literate, period.
The History Standards mess of the Nineties really scarred a lot of people to the point where trust in centralized standards passed down from on high is a red flag.
I'd like to think that this time it's different, but it's hard to hear "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" without getting very anxious.
Once he said that, I thought "Okay, who is this guy. Clearly has no idea what it's actually like being a teacher." So I paused it, went and looked him up, and he's been a car rental agent, a pilot, an editor, and a... well, a pundit, frankly. And no, he's never been a teacher.
Let me tell you about teaching, and you can listen to Bill Whittle who has never done it, or you can listen to me who has done it for 10 years: no one ever checks on you. They throw you into a room with 25-40 kids, some of whom seem to be feral, and then the principal breathes a sigh of relief because the hallways are quiet again, and if you stay in there with those kids and no one comes out dead, they are pretty darn happy. You turn in your paperwork, you keep things under relative control, nothing catches fire, and you can do what you want in there.
And it's always going to be like that because even as top-heavy as education is, NO ONE wants to be in that room with those kids. People in administration and upper level education are in administration and upper level education because they could not STAND being in the room with 32 cheeky adolescents. There aren't many who can. Of all the people who become teachers, about 70% get the heck out of there as fast as they can, either by leaving the field entirely or by moving up the ladder with a speed born of desperation. From there they live in theory land. They tell you what they want you to teach the kids. Do they actually come to your room and see that you are teaching that? Well, no. There aren't enough and they don't particularly want to be there. And that is not going to change.
So I'm going to say again what I have said for years here on Free Republic: If you really believe in organic, grass roots, bottom up, local control, start in the classroom. Become a teacher, because we need conservative teachers. Take over the field of education! Or just keep whining on-line about it. I mean, hey, it's worked so well so far.
I see, you are an expert on all things, know all things, and those not “in” academia have no right to point out the flawws in said academia. . .and to point out your own flaws/lapses in your education and Navy experience.
In other wordes, all must http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIVHNylH1Mk
So, here are your choices;
a) reply to this post with some sort of juvenile snark as typical in academia when challenged
or
b) Not reply as you recognize further exchange would add nothing to the topic and merely be your ego ranting.
)
I’m betting and adult beverage with a friend next door you opt for ‘a’ because you siumply are too invested emotionally to let it go.
Buh-bye
Actually, on another topic, one of the things that gives me chills is how often I talk to other English teachers and get no sense that they actually love books or literature or teaching or anything. They seem to approach the job like an accountant, and they hand out whatever short story the pacing plan offers, and photo-copy whatever worksheet the most recent concept lesson plan created for them, and kind of drift through the day with a total lack of passion. I can't tell you how many teachers I've asked "What novels do you like to teach?" and they get very vague, and kind of "hmm... well... uhm... we did... I think it was..." and I just get freaked out. I can rattle off every book I've ever taught, and when, and why, and what it related to, and what movies we saw, and in what order...
But again, this is not a Common Core issue. This is a "people going into education because they heard they'd get summers off" issue.
I understand that, but if it happens at the state level or the federal level, it's going to feel about the same. I know we cherish states rights because theoretically, we can move to the state that suits us, but really, most people don't have the wherewithal to move to Texas because their 3rd graders had to read "Heather Has Two Mommies."
We should dismantle the public education system.
A very limited government is what we were supposed to have.
The founding fathers must have been “crackpots”
If I weren’t emotionally invested in teaching, sweetie, I wouldn’t do it for 10 years, and I wouldn’t have started this thread. Yes, I value my personal experience over your outside opinion. That’s the way it is and that’s the way it stays.
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