Monday, June 10, 2013

Some Problems with Common Core:

Almost all 50 states have adopted the national Common Core standards.

I don’t have much time today, but wanted to give you two resources to watch and think about.

After watching the video below think about some of the following. Though there is nothing wrong with learning to use powerful words, these children are being taught to engage negative emotions in order to manipulate. They’re also being taught to lose empathy. For instance, in the workbook were the following questions:

My mother always_________me to clean my room.

Their choices were tells  and nags.  The only correct answer was nags.

Whenever I go to Max’s house, his little sister is very ______________.

Their choices were curious and nosey.  The only correct answer was nosey.

Now, there wasn’t a literary passage where they were drawing the information from. They were simply asked to choose the more emotional word. The point of the lesson was to teach them to cause anger by their words to promote a political change. 

First grade curriculum

Also ask yourself why teachers would EVER be asked to evaluate that a child’s behavior has changed to align itself with the common core instruction, let alone evaluate that on a yearly basis.

Next, watch the video below by a mental health therapist on the danger of implementing common core curriculum on our children.  Listen especially to the deletion of empathy in children.

OK, for some reason it will not allow me to embed this video. However the following link does work.  Mental Health Video.

I think we need to have a healthy discussion about these issues before forcing them onto our children.

1 comment:

Michael Brinson said...

Thanks for sharing this Annmarie.
I agree 100%. Down with Common Core.