It’s been awhile since I’ve written any school-type thing, but since I’ve had so many questions this year about the changes in education, I think this post is a little overdue. Just like with my teachers’ rights things from last year, I’m not pretending this to be official, or well-researched, or even politically correct. This is just one teacher’s opinion about what Common Core is and how it’ll affect our public schools.
Where does Common Core come from?
For the past decade or so colleges and big business have been expressing concern about the lack of preparedness Americans have coming out of high school. Colleges have been dumbing down their curriculum and professors are disappointed in how poorly students read and write on the whole. The business sector has some worries too. There are hundreds of people ready to program computers, but it seems like no one can take a customer service call or write a friendly letter anymore. So Common Core are national standards written from the top town in an effort to reform education across the country and get students more prepared for the real world.
There is a lot of concern about this nation-wide school reform and how it might be government take-over. Although I respect those opinions, I really don’t think they are well-founded. Each state got to choose whether or not to accept the standards (48 out of 50 did) and each state was given the right to add and subtract standards to more closely fit their own needs.
So what’s changing?
To the average American parent my guess is that while your child’s teachers have been improving and changing their curriculum, you probably haven’t noticed that much of a difference. Why? Because a lot of common core includes things already being done. The same subjects are being taught, the same good teaching practices are being encouraged, the same classroom atmospheres will remain. What you may have started to pick up on though is that the general rigor of school is increasing. Our children now need to be reading more, writing a lot more, and in general thinking and conceptualizing things on a deeper, more advanced level.
More emphasis is being put on non-fiction reading and on reading shorter, article-type things rather than novels. A lot of people are sad about this, thinking that book reading is going away. Not so. In the lower grades of school classrooms will still present 60 - 70% fiction and even at the end of high school are still expected to read 30% fiction. I see this shift in reading as being less textbook/anthology reading and more real-life, high interest reading. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve had students clap at the end of some of our non-fiction reading pieces this year. This generation loves information; it’s about time they be allowed to read more interesting things.
Writing is now everywhere. Expect your students to have written responses in every single subject (even math) from now on. The new tests have almost eliminated multiple-choice in favor of short answers and even essay answers. Students need to be able to figure out to solve something AND explain their reasoning. I think improving writing is the very first and possibly hardest thing elementary teachers need to tackle. I can’t wait for my own kids to start writing more because I know how valuable good writing is to succeeding in education.
The lines of class subjects are being blurred a bit too. So instead of having “social studies” and then “language arts” in an elementary classroom these subjects might be treated together so that students are reading and writing about history or performing math equations as part of science. Even secondary education teachers will be working together more on aligning their lessons. This isn’t so different from how my schooling was in the 90’s (which I’ve heard was the best decade for education) when we had thematic units, except with that rigor mentioned above. All I can say is I LOVE this type of teaching. My 6th graders, for instance, are reading mythology in class (well, they’re about to start), which they’ll be comparing to Percy Jackson, studying Ancient Greece and even playing on Greek Olympic teams for PE. It’s really fun to dig deep into things and to feel like this is creating memorable, interesting learning for the students.
Also, as is to be expected, there is a lot more technology in the standards. About time. There is also more emphasis on academic vocabulary and on working in partners and in productive learning groups. My friends who homeschool their kids will have to really work hard on giving these real-life problem-solving experiences for their kids, because the ability to communicate in a group is becoming very marketable.
What are teachers worried about?
On the whole I think teachers are excited about Common Core. We finally get away from “every kid must be on the same page,” away from teaching from these boring textbooks, and into curriculum that excites our own creativity and love of learning. BUT... there is no time to do it! With Common Core teachers are expected to create or at least find all of their curriculum, but when are we supposed to do that? We haven’t been given smaller classes, less grading, or less meetings. We haven’t suddenly been given paid prep periods. So curriculum planning is basically happening on our non-paid time. I have spent every single weekend of this school year preparing new, more interesting, more rigorous curriculum for my kids and I know that this pace will not be slowing down anytime soon. I think the districts that can find a way for teachers to actually be paid for working on Common Core will have the most chance of their schools being successful at it.
What about the moral issues?
Ok, I’ve heard some weird things about what is now supposed to be taught in classes. I haven’t been told to teach anything that compromises my own moral standards and quite frankly we just don’t have time to be adding random cultural lessons into the day. I don’t think conservative parents need to be overly worried, not at this point anyway.
Do I have any reservations?
Well, yes, there is something that does concern me. The education world is going through huge changes to better equip our kids, but the problems we have in our country go beyond the classrooms. If we really want our kids to be successful in college and in careers then our whole society has to improve. Teachers will have their students reading harder materials, but will parents make sure reading is getting done at home? Teachers will plan group activities at school, but will parents encourage higher vocabulary practices at the dinner table? Students will be expected to evaluate whether an author or speaker is right or wrong, but will society be willing to teach moral standards again? How do kids even know what’s right and wrong these days? I think schools are headed in the right direction, but I don’t see how major improvement can be made without families and society in general also willing to make positive changes.
