Here is the straight deal from a teacher. CC in many ways seeks to create a uniform curriculum that all teachers have to follow. We don't have latitude to teach the way that we see fit. Rather than worrying about students mastering content the teacher concentrates on skills and skill development. Some teachers try to teach skills through content but that doesn't always happen. I see the common core as a method to simplify the public education process and have those folks who are concrete sequential bleeding heart liberals as the end all and be all required to teach.
It seeks to create a learner who can follow directions, read and write at a level. Students and the routinues directed for the student learning seek to avoid questioning.
Even in the last 5-8 years the process has been started at the primary grades. Students no longer ask why the learning objective is relevant. They just do. Common core is hard to implement with setting the learning targets for the lowest students in the class. What this means is that the teacher seeks to spend a lot of time to make sure that every student masters the content. Smart students are going to correspondence or early college in droves. Bores the living hell out of them. School enrollment in larger comprehensive schools is dropping.
CC with an emphasis on building thinking and metacognition skills is actually pretty powerful. The problem is that when you can get the students to be creative, motivated and articulate they aren't tied to the pacing guide and are not as familiar with the formulaic test taking that the pinky administrators start having difficulties because you are not following the professional learning community objectives of having shared pacing, student data driven models developed by common assessment and common smart goals that are directed so all the teachers teach the same. Then just like in Chinese Red Communist the loudest, most brass and bossy nimwit who is the principal's favorite dictates policy for all of the other teachers. It is the peter principle at the finest. Its much like the Chinese Cultural Revolution where the "dumb" party leaders boss the more intelligent freethinkers with multiple levels of intimidation.
It will be Barry's most vicious and destructive legacy for our country. Much worse than socialized medicine.
I just call it "Little Red Father"
Sincerely,
Thomas
Last edited by kaboku68; 04/30/14.
