Just talked to an aide for my state senator. So: it's the teachers/school districts that choose the curriculum. Common Core provides the standards (e.g. in 3rd grade a kid show know how to do this, in 5th grade a kid should know how to read that, etc). Teachers decide how to teach and what to use to help children meet those standards. I wish I had known that before I e-mailed the teacher and attacked the worksheet--I could have been much more tactful. No wonder she was rather defensive. She probably picked that workbook herself. Poor lady.
I've been e-mailing a friend over this. I wrote to her: "This isn't the first history
worksheet I've had problems with. Also I don't look at all of them (who
has time?), and it makes me wonder if there are other bad ones slipping
by me. I hate paying teachers to teach my son things I disagree with.
It makes me want to dump some workbooks in the harbor :-)"
She wrote back: "The
best thing, though, is that if you DO see it and you discuss it with
him, it teaches him how to be a critical thinker, which is a valuable
lesson. We spend 4 years in college trying to teach that. It can be a
valuable conversation to point out what you don't like and talk about it
with him."
I feel much better after reading that. I've been very agitated over this whole thing. I don't want to home school, and yet I don't want my children being taught incorrect principles. I'm going to trust that Heaven will help me see the bad things, so I can discuss them with my children and help them see right from wrong and become critical thinkers. I feel good about that. Not so excited about forever checking up on what is being taught, but it is my job...
2 comments:
I've been thinking a lot about your common core postings. If you ask administrators, they say CC was necessary "to hold teachers accountable," insinuating that the teaching world was populated with crappy teachers. In my experience, this is not true. In all the years my kids have been in public school (for Ivy, this includes pre-school and grade school), I've only known one crappy teacher. It's true that the system as whole is hopelessly broken (esp. in Utah), but I've known some fine teachers. I come from a family of teachers, and objectively--truly--they are fantastic. Why would someone take a teaching job to screw off? It's the hardest job imaginable, and the pay is horrible. I think the lion's share of teachers are there for altruistic reasons. I really do. I think the downfall of American schools coincided with the downfall of the nuclear family. No one is home to parent the kids--or they do a crappy job of it--and now we have to spend tons of time (and tax dollars) in school teaching anti-bullying, for example. And "citizenship", and "online safety" etc., etc. So the schools started slipping because teachers started being required to take on parenting roles as well. They had to not only teach academics, but behavior--how to behave like a decent human. That is the parents' job, not the teachers. So everyone agrees that the schools are in trouble, and the politicians needed someone to blame, so they chose the teachers, and they dreamt up this "accountability system," (i.e., common core), and the administrators are their stooges to carry it out. I think if parents did THEIR job and teachers did THEIR job, we'd be fine. I'm surprised you can find any teachers that support the common core. All teachers here hate it. They breathe fire when you bring it up, and rightly so. I object to CC for all the other reasons you mention, and I agree with everything you said. I just think it's important to understand how we got to this place. Now we need to figure out how to get out. And this is a good start. We need dialogue. Doing nothing is always the wrong answer. So thanks for posting.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/06/09/320041096/tough-week-for-the-common-core
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