Common Core... Good or Bad?

By now it seems as though everyone has made up their mind about common core.  People on both sides of the issue have some strong feelings and good arguments.  Unfortunately, just like our modern day politics, there seems to be no compromise and both sides want their model to be the only one.  What a lot of people do not understand that in the middle of this battle lies our most precious resource in America, our children.

This is my fifteenth year of teaching in public schools in the state of Alabama.  I believe with all of my heart, that our public schools are some the best in the nation.  I know that we do not get the recognition that we deserve, in fact, our state is generally thought of near the bottom.  But recent gains have placed us in the middle and when compared to other states that have comparable budgets per student, we are ranked even higher.

The history of Common Core is one that is debated on both sides.  Pro Common Core say that it was designed years ago with the help of the top educational personnel in the country while the anti Common Core group says no educator was involved. I personally have no idea who designed the standards, but this argument should be kicked to the curb.  It really does not matter if you give Christopher Columbus the credit for discovering America or if you give others the credit.  The fact of the matter is, America was finally seen and traveled to from Europe.  The same with Common Core, regardless of who designed the standards, they are here.  We need to look at the standards and decide how they affect our children.

I do not claim to be an expert on Common Core.  I can only write about how they have affected me and my class.  In my classes of Pre AP Biology and AP Biology, I put a lot more emphasis on reading and writing.  I also put more emphasis on the students thinking processes.  After reading an article, we discuss what was read and I as open ended questions.  Students are allowed to write about what they think or how they would handle a situation.  In a recent lab, we were looking at how electrophoresis and deciding which family members in a study were at a high risk for colon cancer.  The students were prompted to write how and what they would discuss with a patient that was found to be at high risk.  They had to use knowledge that had been gathered throughout the year and put it in a real world situation.  Answering this question meets the standards of Common Core.

Some people claim that Common Core is changing what is taught in schools.  My Biology standards are the same that the State adopted years ago.  The state decides my curriculum, Common Core just makes me put more emphasis on reading and writing.  My wife which teaches 12th grade English.  She still teaches Chaucer, MacBeth, and Lord of the Flies.  They also look at real world articles as supplemental material.  It is still the same class as 10 years ago, they now just read non fiction along with the classics.

Common Core opponents have legitimate complaints when looking at testing and the amount of tests.  In the Ninth Grade, my students only take a test at the end of their Math class, so I do not see an issue with the testing.  I am sure that if my students missed multiple days of the year with different tests, I might feel differently.

My issue with Anti Common Core is that if we stop or do away with the standards at this point, it will set our schools and students back several years.  We have been putting resources and time into Common Core for years, and we can not get it back.  Common Core should be debated, but the debate should be to decide what we can do to make it better.  There is no doubt that there are things about Common Core that needs to be improved.  I know that with the leadership of Dr. Bice and open dialogue with working relationship between the two sparring sides can make Alabama's College and Career Readiness a model that would be the envy of the nation.  

I'mmmmm Baaaaaack

I have now finished my administration degree and am now having fun keeping it.  I am now sitting in a PLU class and am having to start my blogging back.  I actually thought about blogging a couple of weeks ago after watching a debate about Common Core.  I wanted the world to know my thoughts and ideas about the classroom and how I feel about Common Core.  Since you are reading this, I am assuming you want to know my feelings.  Well hang on... the truth is coming.  Actually it is the truth as I know it  but with all kidding aside, I do not claim to know or have all of the answers for education.  I do think that as a whole, Common Core is good.  I am sure that as we continue this journey into the Common Core, we will find and discover problems.  However, one thing that I have learned in my fifteen years, is that teaching is a lot of trial and error.  I am here to say that in 36 years of life, I have learned that life is trial and error.  What works for one, may not work for another.  So hold on as I explore my world of education as I see it in my eyes.  You may see something completely different, but whatever you see, be open minded and know that our present education is actually our future.

BYOD

So the question that everyone in Madison County is wanting to know "How are we going to incorporate technology system wide"?  Obviously we need a plan now that HCS has gone to the one to one initiative.  Do we need to follow suit?  I think we should strive to have devices in every one's hand, but not necessarily the way HCS did it.  Technology is a wonderful resource, but it should be used as just that.  It should not be used to take the place of the teacher or as a way to get rid of paper.  Technology should be used to expand the lesson by research and probing questions.  BYOD is a more economical way for us to get to that point.  I do not think BYOD should be a long term solution as we should go toward providing the technology, but it is one way that we can ease into process.  Most of our students would be able to bring a device.  The biggest concern with bringing these devices would be theft.  Making sure that students and parents would feel comfortable with their child bringing an iPad of laptop without it being stolen would be a huge task.  Hopefully the rewards would outweigh the problems in the end.   

Digital Citizenship

As technology advances and the use of smart phones become an everyday tool, we must make sure that our youth are using it enhance themselves and not for something that could harm them.  With almost every scuffle in our school comes a story of how someone said something on facebook or twitter.  We have also heard on the news of how these tools are being used for bullying.  We must educate or children to A. not put anything harmful on there and B. Not to worry when something is put on there.  It is so easy for us to say something on facebook or by a text that we normally would not say in person because we feel safe behind our computers.  We must make sure that our students understand how this can make someone feel.  It is also alarming with text message and pictures, what they may be sending or posting between each other.  We have got to educate them so that pictures do not ruin someone 15 years down the road.  Role playing could be a great way to educate them to use these material correctly.

iPads

First of all, why is the i not capitalized?  Are they not important?  Actually they are very important.  I am fortunate enough to be able to share a classroom set of iPads.  We use them occasionally, and the students love them.  We were taking a quiz on them a couple weeks back, you could hear a pin drop, and not a single one ever stopped and said it was too hard.  No one complained about not having a pencil, and no one skipped anything.  I know that if we used them everyday, they would probably become boring, but to use them once every couple of weeks, the students love them and are all engaged.  There are a lot of cool things on them, and a lot of cool things that are not on ours.  But I would say in general, they are good for my students.

Maybe I am too boring...

My life seems to a lot of people too boring.  I get up everyday and I go to work.  At that work I am faced with students who have no idea what it means to be a young adult, have to pick and choose my times to go to the restroom, I have to constantly study material, I have to fill out forms that I do not agree with, and deal with people that I have never met that do not like me because their 15 year old child does not like me.  My pay is ok, but I will never own a fancy sports car or have a bowling alley in my house.  We take a small vacation every year and every few years are able to go somewhere a little nicer.  I have a job that I must go home and look at lesson plans to make sure that I am ready for the next day.  It is not glamorous, I will never meet anyone famous at my job.  I will never be on TV being interviewed about something good that has happened.  If I dress nice, I burn up in my clothes and sometimes ruin them with a pen that I leave in the pocket.  No one ever says they want to be like me.  I never post pics from my job that people comment on or say how fun that looks.  I do not get talk to an adult until I get home, and sometimes she is so tired from the same thing, that talking is not fun.  With that being said, I would not want to change my career.  People have always told me that on our tombstone, the most important part is the hyphen or dash.  There are so many people in my life that I can not remember, but yet I remember everyone of my teachers.  I can not remember what I ate yesterday, but I remember leading prayer in my 5th grade class with Mrs. Nixon.  I do not know a single song of Justin Bieber by heart when I hear them on a daily basis, yet I can sing my Alma mater from high school without missing a word.  I have been at five different schools in my career but none are as important to me as my high school.  I will not make huge sale today, or write an important article.  I will not fire anyone or change my company's course.  I will not be invited to a function that everyone is envious of.  Yet today, I may make a memory.  Not for me, but for a 15 year old.  My day will end the same, but I might change the day of a student.  So for me, the dash on my tombstone will not be extravagant, but it will live on in the lives of a lot of students that have come in to my room. 

The Flipped Classroom

The flipped classroom is a great idea in theory.  Students get the notes at night and then come to school and do the work.  But in a society where parent involvement and homework are rarely important, it seems as though this would not work. This idea will work with the motivated but I do not see it helping our at risk students.  Our motivated students are fine, our educational system works well for them.  Until we decide as a society that education is important for our children, the no new method will work better than the last.