Speaking of that CCSS devil

From a teacher in Delaware, commenting at the WaPo’s Answer Sheet, a concrete example of the recent topic, “… compliance with delivery of [CCSS] curriculum as a significant part of the data that will be used to monitor and control teachers.”

“Teacher slams scripted Common Core lessons that must be taught ‘word for word’”:

…What has changed is Common Core State Standards.  I was given a curriculum and told by my administration to teach it “word-for-word.”  In a meeting with my administration, I was reprimanded with “Don’t forget, standards drive our instruction.”

Judging the effectiveness of a teacher on only quantifiable data reduces the art of teaching children to a mathematical algorithm can that be performed more effectively by a hologram projected on the Smart board than by an old-fashioned, caring, humanly flawed teacher.

Shedding light on the nights of Columbus

Retirement unsettles, at least initially, the habit of calendars. It’s the Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day/El Dia de La Raza holiday in SFUSD.  A teacher friend reminded me by sending along a link to this comic from the Oatmeal site, used to concisely debunk the (Knights of) Columbus day propaganda. It’s a perfect length for some of that CCSS recommended reading of expository text.

It certainly “exposes.”

Reading through, I was reminded that way back in the ancient days of the Consent Decree, when multicultural education was a real day-to-day curricular effort supported with district money and staff, we used to actually teach primary source snippets of Bartolome’s “Destruction of the Indies” in eighth grade American history classes. Yep, to eighth graders. Ah, the days of multicultural ed… This from of p. 181 Barbara Miner’s excellent book-length study of Milwaukee’s public schools, Lessons from the Heartland, captures some of what we had:

The multicultural movement was a reflection of the times. On one hand, the civil rights and black power movements had raised issues of access, equity, and pride, and demands grew to encompass the school curriculum. On the other hand, the movement took place before standardized testing seized control of the curriculum and constrained teachers’ ability to stray off-test. Political factors also provided the breathing space and funding necessary to innovate. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Milwaukee had not yet abandoned its public schools. Except for those ideologically committed to privatization and public funds for private voucher schools, most people maintained hope that the public schools could and would rise to the challenges they faces.

Maybe Ravitch and friends are right and the tide is turning against the reformers. Even if not, it’s good to know that some folks are still “straying off test” to teach and challenge politics.

Giving new meaning to the phrase, “I forgot my homework.”

L.A. Unified takes back iPads as $1-billion plan hits hurdles – latimes.com: “Staff at Roosevelt in Boyle Heights and students at Westchester confirmed that the $700 tablets were taken back Friday by school officials. But a Roosevelt teacher said only about two-thirds of about 2,100 devices were immediately returned by students.”

I keep imagining the amount of classroom time and effort that must go into managing (storage, power, repairs, inventory) these gadgets. First taste of teacher as mere tech support.

Some crazy set of rules

Here’s James Fallows on Jerry Brown and the craziness of California:

The truth is that a reliance on rules and a mistrust of mere politicians have come close to ruining public life in California. “When given a choice between human judgments and formulas, we’ve always chosen the formulas,” Joe Mathews says. He is critical of Brown in many ways, and yet he says, “I would rather let the Jerry Browns of the world make decisions for me than some crazy set of rules someone thought would help.”

Let’s try an edit to that paragraph, thus:

The truth is that a reliance on rules and a mistrust of mere politicians teachers have come close to ruining public life education in California. “When given a choice between human judgments and formulas, we’ve always chosen the formulas,” Joe Mathews says. He is critical of Brown in many ways, and yet he says, “I would rather let the Jerry Browns teachers of the world make decisions for me students than some crazy set of rules someone thought would help.”

Who knows where the time goes?

I know where it goes. It goes into daily dealings with administrative dandies who seem to follow the bizarre self-direction, “Draw pistol, locate foot, fire and harm self and proximate others.” Sigh. It’s the blues of  being a union building representative. Hard to find time to write here.

Tip of the hat to Tom Hoffman for a pointer to this Mary Ann Reilly gem.

For those who understand learning as highly contextual and unfinished, the presence of a set of standards is seen as an unnecessary intrusion; one that disrupts learning by substituting a completed story for the story that must be made by those walking.  Here, the importance of understanding connections cannot be understated.

A completed story. A Common Core. A common corpse.

On a happier note, I spent the library day out of the library and in an extraordinary young teacher’s classroom where I got to extol the value of libraries in the task of self-directed research. It’s easy to do the visiting educator stranger gig, especially when the gig lasts only 30 minutes of a 55 minute period, and when it’s not repeated daily, over and over and over again. That young teacher is an artist. I’m a dilettante, a “wannabe that once was.”

Nevertheless, there were some moments. Alice Kawazoe once wrote a lovely piece (not linked and unavailable, as far as I know) for BAWP about how teaching, at its best, was similar to conducting an orchestra, particularly an orchestra of beginning musicians. Stumble, stretch, screech, support, stifle, stutter, silence, sustain, suppress, strengthen, smile. And then, out of nowhere, there are moments of music, unexpected and absolutely deserved music.

Connections.