Why does COMPUTER EXPLORERS support Common Core Standards?
My own experience as a teacher in five different states and in the Department of Defense schools provided a revelation in how education varied in the US!
The tenth grade English students in my classes in the public schools of the Chicago suburbs could not have competed successfully against the “same” students in my private school classes in Georgia …NOT because the Illinois children were not as smart nor because the Georgia teachers had more tools or experience. The students simply didn’t study the same things at the same time, so trying to test the concepts nationally during 10th grade necessarily penalized one group or the other…
Pity the poor child who moves from one state to another! He might never be introduced to a concept at all! Let’s oversimplify the issue and hypothesize that in second grade in New Jersey, the children learn about levers. And in Virginia they learn about levers in third grade. The child from Virginia who moves to New Jersey between second and third grade is never introduced to levers at all … and struggles through physics classes in seventh grade as a result! He is unlikely to consider a career in science, because he already knows he “isn’t smart enough.”
Reading the Common Core Standards for Mathematics and for English Language Arts (and anticipating the standards for Science and History) is exciting for those of us who have taught students who move around the country, or even from suburb to suburb! Just knowing that the students have been introduced to a common knowledge base makes our jobs so much easier!
The secret, of course, is NOT to accept the standards and keep on with our usual kind of instruction. What better teachers we can become by adding today’s technology to the mix! If I am a fifth grade math teacher in California, I can connect on Twitter or Facebook with a fifth grade math teacher in Florida. We can share lesson plans and project ideas, set up wikis for cooperative learning across the country, plan Skype calls for our students to collaborate—easy to do because we are studying the same topics! We can truly become a nation of learners, not restricted by state lines, city boundaries or political agendas!
Want to know more about Common Core standards from the writers? Sign up for the Webinar on June 30!
Cyndee Perkins
Director, Curriculum and Development
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