General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Common Core could well be Obama's worst policy. [View all]charmay
(525 posts)I only studied CC my last year of teaching which was two years ago. I only looked at language arts at a specific grade level. If left alone by my school district, I could have been creative with the standards, but it seemed disjointed to me. Especially the writing and grammar standards. For example, I wasn't supposed to teach nouns, or paragraph writing at my grade level. Experience told me that many of my students needed a a thorough review of these concepts. A pundit's "utopic" answer to this problem was that students would learn these concepts at lower grade levels through these stringent standards. I then asked, "What if they don't?" There was no answer for that.
I am now retired, and am hearing that all creativity is being squashed by a local pundit who is handing out memos with nonnegotiable items such as no worksheets, no workbooks or basal, assessment can only given using certain methods etc. There is a list of at least 15 no's. No creativity whatsoever. I must have been a horrible teacher, because in felt that I needed to use a variety of methods depending on the needs of my students.
I don't blame President Obama or other supporters of CC, but they need to realize that when they come up with the next best educational phenomenon, and force harsh retribution if their latest/greatest is not met with immediate approval and success, the reality can and will be drudgery for students and teachers with teachers getting a majority of the blame.