Yes, I said it. And I am a teacher. I hate Common Core State Standards and the Testing that comes with it. I don't hate them because I think they aren't important or too hard. I hate them because they don't let children be children. They don't let children dream. They don't let children be creative, or read for fun, or use their God-given skills. To succeed at Common Core, you have to be a good reader (some people aren't, and never will be). To be good at Common Core, you have to have good analytical skills (I don't, and I hate doing it.) To pass the State Test, you have to be able to infer, deduct, justify....and WRITE a well-organized essay. To be good at CCSS math, you have to prefer to learn through drawing out the problem, making it more complicated than it really is (math is hard enough as it is, why complicate it?) Where does Common Core allow students to excel in music? Or sports? Or social skills? Not everyone is going to be academic. Not everyone will (gasp!) go to college--AND THEY DON'T HAVE TO. Many people succeed in life without college. Many women will become moms and never have a college degree or a career (and that's ok too). So where are the Home Ec classes? What happened to the art classes? I know, Common Core killed the creativity show.
OK, so I love to write. (Obviously, since I'm writing a blog....). But when I was in high school, I hated writing. Why? As a kid, I wrote stories for fun (they were dumb, but they were MINE). When I got to high school, creative writing went out the window and we were only ever writing 5-paragraph essays. And guess what? Not only did I hate writing the boring, structured, 5-paragraph essays, I also never wrote them again after high school. THEY DID NOT PREPARE ME FOR COLLEGE. In fact, when I got to college, I went to a writing class where the teacher was passionate about writing and told us that writing can come in many shapes and sizes. She encouraged us to jump out of the box and be creative. I wrote one of my essays in poem form and she loved it. It was then that I discovered how fun writing can be. And as a teacher, I find great joy in making writing fun for my students as well.
And then Common Core happened....sure we are supposed to teach narrative writing and whatnot....but it's SO STRUCTURED. I mean, I am teaching my 9 year olds how to write 5-Paragraph essays---WHICH I HATE! They are boring to write, and boring to teach. I want my kids to love writing, not hate it! I want them to learn to write for fun, not for obligation. I want them to be able to be creative, not structured. And yet I am stuck in the box of Common Core and can't get out. And neither can my kids.
Don't get me wrong, I want my kids to be successful. I want them to grow up to be responsible, productive adults. I want them to go to college and get a good job, or become amazing mothers. But even more important than all that is this. I want my students to love who God created them to be. I want them to see that they may have abilities that lie outside of the basic "common core" montage. I want them to realize that they have a purpose in life--whether or not they can write a 5-paragraph essay or draw and explain an array. Even if they don't pass the Common Core standards, they can be successful. I want them to know that. I want permission to go against the flow and let my kids be free to fail in math but succeed in humor. I want them to know that inside of them, there is SOMETHING they were designed to do.
Common Core, you give my kids high standards, which I love. But please let my kids be kids, have a little fun, and be who they were made to be.
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