A Teacher's Take on Common Core (Vanity)

My seething mind | 31MAR14 | Moi

[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.

[9YearLurker]

Thanks for offering your view. You are indeed on the front lines.

But I thought a major requirement of the common core was to move away from reading so much fiction, and to emphasize nonfiction texts—which in any of the curricula I’ve seen have been Leftist EPA documents or some other such nonsense.

Is that not the case?

[workerbee]

Thank you for your informed input. Our experience so far has been that the English portion is somewhat of an improvement, as well; e.g., my kids are having actually “spelling” lessons versus crappy “word study”. The math portion is horrendous and teachers have admitted to me (off the record, of course) that they hate it as well. Unfortunately, their hands are tied. Fortunately, at least for my kids, their father is a math expert and is able to navigate them through.

On principle, however, I would like to see an end to all the beaurocracy (ESP. federal) involvement in the schools and let local districts and teachers make decisions about what and how things are taught. Hey, I can dream.

[Aevery_Freeman]

Thank you! I have been trying to verbalize this thought but have been unable to put it so clearly and succinctly.

I also teach physics (high school level) and have found that students don't understand how to utilize mathematical techniques to solve problems unless it is choreographed into a one or two step process.

I agree with your literary critiques as well.

[bravo whiskey]

funny answers. the napoleon answer should have been HE DIDN'T DIE IN A BATTLE but......

in 1968-69 i had a great english teacher. he hated teaching grammar but knew how important it was so he condensed the basics into 2 class periods. poor spelling and grammar cost at least 1 grade point. we did a lot of reading and interpreting of poetry which i really enjoyed. one thing he did was extemporaneous speaking. every class period he would throw out a topic or word, anything (robert kennedy, the color blue, space) give us 2 minutes to think about it and then pick someone to give a 2 minute speech. we also did current events debates.

[Hulka]

Yeah, aware of that. Had my Chair mention she is monitoring my grading trends.

I require my students to be prepared and contribute and research. I am also fair, meaning that even if I totally disagree about their conclusion in a research paper, if it is written well and sourced well, it earns a good grade.

My Chair cares not a whit about that. She cares about how many students are enrolled above all other factors.

Student evals are included in our evaluations. My evaluations remain constant; I am demanding but fair and they learned from my class.

[aimhigh]

When you can use the Bible in the class, let me know.

[A_perfect_lady]

You simply cannot teach young children mathematical concepts until they have the basics down absolutely cold. Attempting to do so is like attempting to teach reading without knowing the alphabet and the phonics made by letter combinations. They must know this at a reflexive, sub-cortical level without even thinking about it, or they cannot possibly concentrate on the actual meaning of text.

Yes, I have to agree completely with this description. As you say, this has been going on in education for decades. I suspect it comes from the realization that many, many children cannot master the basics on schedule, and so they try to find some way to catapult them right over the barrier and hope insight and inspiration will magically lift them up on a carpet ride to success. It's not working, but they dare not face what reality would dictate: a large percentage of children will bottleneck in the 3rd grade.

I would disagree with your remark that what they read doesn't really influence them: look at all the liberals they've created. They didn't do it in the math program. They did it with literature, movies, songs... that's how they get into kids' heads. The Answer is Blowing in the Wind, you know? A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, let's all cry.

[Aevery_Freeman]

I would expect a student smart enough to follow FR would already be signed up for Trig and Pre-Calc.

A good working knowledge of math will forever be a benefit if for no other reason than the confidence you gain from knowing that you can figure stuff out.

Go for it!

[A_perfect_lady]

Local control is what’s getting us Blue States with a large electoral population. Local control is almost universally Democratic control because CONSERVATIVES REFUSE TO BECOME TEACHERS. A Republic, if you can keep it... remember that remark? Well, you can’t keep it if you leave the hand that rocks the cradle to the left, and that is exactly what conservatives have been doing.

[rlmorel]

I wouldn't have approached the subject with the tone you did, blaming the dislike of Common Core on things such as dislike of teachers and such.

Bill Whittle, in the link below, has encapsulated for me EXACTLY why I am adamantly opposed to Common Core.

The problem you are likely to have, and I can't say I blame you because I tend to react the same, is that you seem to personalize it. If you do "X" and someone criticizes "X" (not you, per se, but "X") then it is human nature to be set against that criticism, even if it has validity.

This is a difficult forum for that, I know. I live in Massachusetts, and I find it exceedingly difficult not to personalize the valid criticisms I often read here. Anyway, if you can bring yourself to, watch the link. It explains how many of us feel. It isn't anti-teacher. It is primarily anti-monolithic government bureaucracy.

Bill Whittle "Afterburner: The Cookie Cutter Curriculum".

Please take the time to watch this, if you can. It is a stunningly brilliant and entertaining commentary by Bill Whittle on Common Core, though I suspect you many not agree with it. It does explain the attitude of many conservatives on this issue.

[Politicalkiddo]

Off the top of my head, so far we’ve read “Dracula”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “The Stranger”, “The Turn of the Screw”, “Hamlet”, “The Crucible”, “The Great Gatsby”, “Things Fall Apart”, and we’re currently reading, “The Round House”.

[kitkat]

Love it!

[Hulka]

“A good working knowledge of math will forever be a benefit “

Absolutely agree. . .Besides, a mathematician can always become a business developer, but a business developer with a degree in ‘business’ can’t become a mathematician.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

They don't go into education because the are allergic to bureaucracy. Teachers are, first and foremost, government bureaucrats.

[A_perfect_lady]

I was in the military for 11 years, thank you. I'm proud of our military and I really wouldn't like to see it balkanized under state control. For some things, you need the Federal government... otherwise, why have it at all? Why even be The United States? Why not just be 50 different countries?

Now, I'm not saying education is one of those things, necessarily. But when I look at Common Core and I see that it is actually, in English, to the right of California, I realize that leaving education in the hands of liberals has brought us to this pass. The solution is not to howl that we'd better just keep it as it was, because state control IS liberal control when liberals are the only ones going into the field in the first place.

[rlmorel]

Another issue that doesn’t get discussed much is that the purse strings of the Federal government force states to submit to government diktat on a large number of issues, often unrelated to the source of the funds.

The Federal Highway Funds.

This is a huge amount of money that is disbursed to states, and to qualify, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of policies that states have to adopt to get a chunk of that pie.

I have heard that there are many issues, unrelated to highway maintenance and construction, that states are forced to kowtow to or be denied portions of that funding.

It is a rather large cudgel wielded by the federal government to de-emphasize various aspects of state independence, and adherence to various educational “suggestions” are just one example.

Sure, as a state, you can ignore it. At your financial peril.

[ladyjane]

all the scary info

What's scary is the fact that the Founding Fathers did NOT give the federal government any rights over education. The federal government has usurped those rights.

[A_perfect_lady]

Thank you for such a polite response. Yes, we probably should just amputate the coastlines. LOL!

[verga]

Well, conservatives are to blame. They don’t go into the field of education; it doesn’t pay enough. So you left it all to the liberals, and they did what they wanted with it. Well done, you.

The problem is also that when we come here and tell people we are Conservative public school teachers thee is a certain segment of this site will automatically demean, belittle, and vilify us.

They do this with out knowing a single thing about us. You would think that they would be the least bit grateful to have even one Conservative voice.

[SoConPubbie]

Local control is what’s getting us Blue States with a large electoral population. Local control is almost universally Democratic control because CONSERVATIVES REFUSE TO BECOME TEACHERS. A Republic, if you can keep it... remember that remark? Well, you can’t keep it if you leave the hand that rocks the cradle to the left, and that is exactly what conservatives have been doing.

You really need to re-read the history of the founding of this country and the Federalist/Anti-Federalist papers.

There were very good reasons for limiting the power of the Federal Government and those reasons exist as well today.

Furthermore, add in the fact that the communists/socialists/progressives have been thirsting for Federal level control of education all along, and your position becomes a very weak one.