Posted on 03/31/2014 8:27:20 AM PDT by 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.
That was the lamest comparison I have ever heard. Engineering is a very specific field; teaching isn’t. Face it. Conservatives don’t want to do what has to be done. They just want to preach to the choir on the internet. They aren’t ever going to put their money where their mouth is. It’s too haaaaaard. So Common Core is here to stay, just like federal involvement in education is here to stay, just like welfare and social security are here to stay, just like Obama care is here to stay. Because too many conservatives are all mouth and no action.
No, not at all. I have a civil engineering degree, on of about a half dozen or more engineering degrees typically offered. As a civil, I could have chosen to go into dozens of specialties like sanitary, structural, geotechnical, construction, hydrology, etc., and within each specialty I could have chosen design, oversight, construction, estimating, testing, quality control, etc.
It could easily be argued that teaching is a much more specific degree choice than engineering. What do you do with a teaching degree? Choose the subject and choose the age range, then you teach. That's pretty specific.
I like your argument, but don't forget, many parents are doing what has to be done: they are pulling out and teaching at home. The growth rate of homeschooling is 7% to 15% per year.
I'd be curious to read from any other Freepers who are math/science teachers their take on Common Core.
My own thoughts that abortion=murder aside, how is this question relevant to a fellow Freeper who was kind & brave enough to share her experience on this topic?
You're demonstrating exactly what she feared: being attacked by the very folks she should find encouragement from, not attacks.
Not sure what state you're in, but I have a son having problems with Geometry -- would you be interested in tutoring via Skype? I'd happily pay a fellow Freeper for the assistance. Contact me via Freepmail if interested.
This isn’t new. Sadly. I worked with teens a decade ago, one of them a National Merit Scholar. She left hand written instructions to the alterations lady at a local dress shop to ‘take in at waste’ on a dress. She was a HS senior. What’s worse, when those of us over 40 said something about it, she couldn’t understand all the fuss.
I hire engineers, often entry level. Out of the hundreds of resumes I read (and these are from college grads with good grades), too many have misspelled words and/or incomplete sentences, and these are things they should learn before college! Somehow, our education system is failing them!!!
Well, you come across as an unpleasant, hostile person in your interactions with others, so are you surprised that people interact with you the same way?
I have tried to engage in reasonable discourse to this point, but your calling my comparison “the lamest comparison I have ever heard”, referring to conservatives as you have in many posts has put an end to that. I don’t think it was lame, what I think is that you simply aren’t intelligent enough to make the connection.
Engaging in reasonable discourse is not your strong suit. Funny that you would pick on Ann Coulter in a previous comparison, because you sound to be a lot less “reasonable” than her, which by your standards, says a lot.
A_perfect_lady, indeed.
Bottom line, conservatives are not asking teachers to drop what they are doing and expend their time and effort to convince people to come into THEIR professions to fix what is wrong. Here is a conservative concept for you: How about taking responsibility for your own job?
How about you fix your own problems, or at least expend some energy in that direction before asking people in the health industry or the energy sector to give you a hand?
You posted this thread spoiling for a fight, then you show us all the efforts you have expended on your own, such as starting a website, organization or newsletter towards this end, and actually meeting with young people and providing them with a pathway, then come back and post asking conservatives for “help”. When you back up your big, fat, keyboard with some effort, perhaps people will listen to you.
Otherwise, stuff a sock in it.
Trolling for trollops.
Yeah, seriously - what’s your prob man? Who would ever be so insane as to expect stuff attributed to people to ever be actually from those people??? That’s insanity right there man. tf
spoke for yourself well on this one, too.
:)
That was a serious question
No it wasn't, you're one of FR's biggest shit-stirrers. That's exactly what you were trying to do. You failed.
A teacher in LA schools praising Common Core and defending federal control of schools shouldn’t be asked about things involving public schools in LA?
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