There's this internal struggle that goes on in my head whenever Common Core is brought up. Many of my relatives are heavily right-leaning individuals that believe that CCSS is (a) a curriculum and (b) ineffective and making our students less intelligent and more confused. I feel like a parrot sometimes, telling them over and over again, "It's not a curriculum, it's a set of standards to make sure our students are all at the same level." "It's not a curriculum, it's a guideline that tells where approximately students should be at a certain grade level." "It's not a curriculum..."
I understand that Common Core was designed to help improve education across the board and even the playing field that has been for so long wildly unequal based largely on socioeconomic status and racial considerations. The "greatest nation in the world" should not have such a disparity among its schools, and the creation of this set of standards was a step to address that disparity. Yet as a naturally skeptical individual, I have to wonder if having to model our instruction based on rigid standards has caused our quality of teaching to slip somewhat. I wonder, if we were not mandated to teach certain material throughout the year, would we be able to have the flexibility to teach what interests our students? And, as the author of this essay brings up, have we lost what it means to understand in favor of a much watered-down version of memorization and data retention?
Currently, I am studying for two CLEP exams, which I plan to take later in the month. These tests, Humanities and American Government, are thick with information: details, dates, historical figures, and more; and I have been working to memorize and retain as much of this information as I can so I am able to bubble in the correct answer on the day of the test. Yet what can I say I've actually learned and understand? I have no definite answer to that question, and the funny thing is that even though I have expressed my concerns about this attitude already in this post, I am very unconcerned about remembering the information in the CLEP exams. To me, it matters more that I have time in my schedule to spend doing things that are actually important to me: fulfilling practicum hours, participating in church, completing my subject matter homework, planning my wedding, staying somewhat sane.
Perhaps this attitude has a place in education, but as middle/high school teachers, it is certainly not ideal to be the teacher who has to tackle the "just give me my grade" attitude. We want our students to learn and retain the skills and information that we teach them, just as we want them to engage with the material they are learning. But we have fed them a certain idea of comprehension that causes lack of motivation, frustration, and disengagement with all but the bare minimum of the material. This then causes problems later on in life, because our students don't know how to think critically, analyze and synthesize information, or read to truly comprehend--and they certainly won't remember the date of the Battle of Waterloo.
It seems to me that there needs to be a balance between what teachers are mandated to teach and the decisions teachers make about what their students need to know. Students should know how what they are learning affects them, whether it be history or biology or even grammar. What is the relevance of the material to their lives? Knowing that will help them to stay engaged and motivated with the text. Classes should also be allowed to teach less material at a more profound level for a longer period of time--giving the students the chance to arrive at a true understanding.
We also need to come an understanding of understanding. The dimensions of understanding described in this reading demonstrate kind of the steps that students need to take before truly arriving at comprehension. Teachers, therefore, need to step it up and demonstrate these steps to their students, encouraging them to get up close and personal with the material. We should be challenging them to question their preconceived notions about the world, calling on them to look at all of the sides of an issue. We should allow them to express what they truly think without fearing criticism. We should take into account their interests and personal lives. And we should allow them to go outside the box of traditional learning and memorization to find their real understanding.
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