Common Coercion?
I blogged a week or two about the book, Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman. I am not familiar with Ehrenworth or Lehman much at all, but Lucy Calkins is a name that I can trust.
When I bought the book, I was expecting an addendum, or change in mapping in comparison to the other Common Core book that I purchased, Common Core Curriculum Maps. What I read, though, was very surprising. The book disputed almost everything that I had thought about the Common Core. As a result, it took me this long to digest it all. Now I am ready to share.
Here is what I learned:
1. The Common Core has been presented as a 'group effort' by presenters, authors, and teachers. The Pathways book in fact claims that the standards presented in the Common Core were only authored by 2 people. However, the units addressed in Common Core Curriculum Maps, were developed with the help of teachers. So, 2 people have determined what most of our country will be teaching. These 2 people, David Coleman and Sue Pimentel authored the Common Core, yet they are unnamed in the documents that presented the Common Core to the public.
2. Only 15% of our students will be ready for the testing required when using the Common Core. What do we do with the other 85% who aren't ready?
3. Non-fiction is not only a tool for the facts--it is not to be used as a 'stop and go' method. This makes fluency and comprehension of the text take longer. The reliance on non-fiction to create an awareness of the world around us will result in school systems needing to re-budget their resources in order to stock reading rooms with high interest materials.
4. Students and teachers should work together to create individual goals for the student. Then, teachers MUST protect the time given in the classroom so that these goals are met. If the time is not protected, it will result in frustration for both.
5. Students need to TALK, TALK, TALK!!! The more they talk about topics using higher order thinking in the range of the NEW updated Blooms Taxonomy levels (Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating), the better results we will get.
6. Teach language skills WITHIN other subjects. No grammar blocks. <I feel some of you already quaking in your boots!> Writing workshops are a must!
7. Use the same performance task as a pretest AND post test.
There are a lot more things I could share from the book, but we all would be here late into the night! So, I will stop here!
Stay tuned for a freebie!!! I wasn't able to get it ready because we have been testing this week.
I blogged a week or two about the book, Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman. I am not familiar with Ehrenworth or Lehman much at all, but Lucy Calkins is a name that I can trust.
When I bought the book, I was expecting an addendum, or change in mapping in comparison to the other Common Core book that I purchased, Common Core Curriculum Maps. What I read, though, was very surprising. The book disputed almost everything that I had thought about the Common Core. As a result, it took me this long to digest it all. Now I am ready to share.
Here is what I learned:
1. The Common Core has been presented as a 'group effort' by presenters, authors, and teachers. The Pathways book in fact claims that the standards presented in the Common Core were only authored by 2 people. However, the units addressed in Common Core Curriculum Maps, were developed with the help of teachers. So, 2 people have determined what most of our country will be teaching. These 2 people, David Coleman and Sue Pimentel authored the Common Core, yet they are unnamed in the documents that presented the Common Core to the public.
2. Only 15% of our students will be ready for the testing required when using the Common Core. What do we do with the other 85% who aren't ready?
3. Non-fiction is not only a tool for the facts--it is not to be used as a 'stop and go' method. This makes fluency and comprehension of the text take longer. The reliance on non-fiction to create an awareness of the world around us will result in school systems needing to re-budget their resources in order to stock reading rooms with high interest materials.
4. Students and teachers should work together to create individual goals for the student. Then, teachers MUST protect the time given in the classroom so that these goals are met. If the time is not protected, it will result in frustration for both.
5. Students need to TALK, TALK, TALK!!! The more they talk about topics using higher order thinking in the range of the NEW updated Blooms Taxonomy levels (Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating), the better results we will get.
6. Teach language skills WITHIN other subjects. No grammar blocks. <I feel some of you already quaking in your boots!> Writing workshops are a must!
7. Use the same performance task as a pretest AND post test.
There are a lot more things I could share from the book, but we all would be here late into the night! So, I will stop here!
Stay tuned for a freebie!!! I wasn't able to get it ready because we have been testing this week.
Enjoy
I will try to have the freebies up late tonight or tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteInteresting... I have been eyeing that book on Amazon for a while now. Seems like it had a lot of information. I love that the Common Core makes it possible to collaborate with teachers across the nation. It is a little unsettling to know a "group" of two created it and that only 15% of the kids will be ready for testing. How did they get that number? What did you think about the mapping book? Did you find it helpful?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the insight!
Bethany
Bethany,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure exactly how they got those numbers....maybe that looked at the success of other schools already using Common Core? The thought of 2 people writing the curriculum for a whole nation worries me....but I would think that when the units were developed that others checked them and deemed them acceptable.
The mapping book is probably one of the most essential books for us to have if we are going to stay on the same page as a nation. I don't like the thoughts of going to 4 units per year, although you are doing mini units inside of them. Like other teachers, I have my favorite units to teach that I will have to pass on to another grade level. Another thing that bothers me about the units is that there are some suggested resources and units that seem out of the norm for my grade level. It is suggested that we use 'Caps For Sale' and we have the unit on seasons .
In short, I think my money on both books was well spent. The mapping book tells me WHAT to teach and the Pathways book tells me HOW to teacher it because they go in depth to discuss which strands are where, what needs to be taught before I can even teach that standard. At this point, I am a bit leery and overwhelmed by the Common Core, but bought these books early so that I could wrap my brain around it!