"Common Core"

What's going on? The powers that be say are children are behind globally in education and that the business sector requires critical thinkers. My kids are frequently given assignments that require guessing mathematical problems. Why not simply teach them how to calculate the correct answer? Do passengers feel comfortable flying in an airplane where the Captain guessed how much fuel he needs to get to his destination?
Do patients feel comfortable taking a medication where the Physician guessed the dosage?

What the h-e double toothpicks am I missing? Are public schools a complete failure? Do private schools do any better? Is home schooling the answer? There is a major paradigm shift in k-12 education and the parents are left out of the loop!

 

They are probably doing that too. But guessing is also valuable, because the calculation process is inevitably prone to human error. In other words, it is very easy to perform a calculation and come up with an incorrect answer -- sometimes a wildly incorrect answer. This is true even if you use a calculator or spreadsheet. And the risk only increases as calculations become more complex.

So the school may be trying to give your kids some "numbers sense". Ideally, yes, you should be able to "guess" the approximate result of a calculation before you start it -- not because you are going to rely on the guessed value, but because then you can perform a "reality check" on the calculation result, and reject a calculated value that is obviously incorrect.

Do you want the Captain to blindly accept every result that drops out of the flight computer? Or do you want a Captain who has a rough "sense" of what the right answer should be -- and who can look at the numbers and say "Wait a minute, that can't be right" when someone incorrectly entered the coordinates of the destination ?

 

You hear a lot about the US being behind other countries, and while that's somewhat true, it's not a perfectly true statement. The same can be said about comparing private schools to public schools. When like students are compared, there really isn't a difference. Think about what types of students go to private school. Usually it's the upper class white population. As a result, private schools don't have the same levels of students who are economically disadvantaged or have special needs. Those groups get averaged in with the public schools that have them, and generally that lowers the average of scores. It's an apples to oranges comparison in many ways.

The Common Core movement is a good idea in theory. But then again, so was NCLB. The fact is that all states already had standards, and the Common Core standards are just replacing those. In many cases, they were the same or pretty darn close. Some states, like Virginia, are adamantly fighting Common Core on the principle that it violates state sovereignty, which I understand. Virginia has standards (the SOLs, of all things...) and they're actually pretty good.

I don't think having standards, whether state created or common core, is a bad thing at all. What I dislike is the constant focus on testing. Thankfully legislators are starting to see the light and realize that there's too much testing. My former division, for example, spent THREE weeks of each 9 week quarter doing testing. That's three weeks where instruction couldn't truly happen because kids were bubbling in scantron sheets. We can thank NCLB for that. But as I said, people are waking up. Virginia is now considering reducing the number of state tests students have to take, from 34 to 26, and that's a GREAT thing!

-Matt

 

Sure, as long as the parent is sufficiently skilled in the subjects, trained in pedagogy, and can create the other educational, athletic, social, and extracurricular activities that come along with attending school.

While we're at it, let's explore home dentistry, home radiology, and lots of other fun and exciting experiences we can inflict on our kids with little-to-no expertise in the matters!

Seriously, I am constantly amazed at the willingness of parents to do this. I truly believe it is this lack of value they place in the teaching profession that leads to all kinds of blame and non-support of teachers.

I think it is a form of child abuse, but certainly within the parents prerogative. I like it better than charter schools, though, which is just a transfer of public funds to private institutions, including many who blatantly violate the Constitution in their operations. I don't like tax dollars going to that. But home schooling? Go for it. They're your kids.

 

[video=youtube;wZEGijN_8R0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZEGijN_8R0[/video]

 

Incidentally, many old-timer engineers feel that "numbers sense" has declined since the 1970s, precisely because of calculators and spreadsheets.

Up until the 1970s, the primary tool was the slide rule. Let's say you need to multiply 550 by 340. A slide rule will tell you that the answer starts with the digits "187" -- but it won't tell you if the correct answer is 1,870 or 18,700 or 187,000 or 1,870,000. So you were forced to "guesstimate" the result of the calculation, in order to pick between those options.

So with slide rules, accurate guesstimation was necessary as part of the calculation process. With calculators and spreadsheets, it's not.

 

I'm aware of that but it is becoming the norm to guess rather than calculate. Have you seen your children's homework lately?

A wise man once said, " Simplicity is the hallmark of scholarship". As mentioned in the video, one gets it wrong for getting it right because it didn't go through a 108 step process.

 

We're just finishing up that colossal failure called No Child Left Behind, a plan dreamed up by President Bush and Senator Kennedy that mandated that every public school student in America score "proficient" in reading and math by some impossible date in the future. It was obvious from the get-go that it would never work, but it was wildly popular within the education industry for many years because it justified no end of conferences, meetings, pet projects, days out of the classroom to get "professional development," and all the other things that are more fun than teaching other people's children day after day after day.

Now that that is dying, Common Core is the new fad that is suspiciously like the old one.

 

I want Engineers, Captains, Physicians, etc., with the discipline to do it right! From my observation, "common core" sounds great but has it all wrong!

 

That would be what people refer to as a Straw-man arguement.

 

I was in high school when NCLB was put in place. All of my teachers hated it. I also got the impression that teachers around the country hated it.

 

Well, there are many students who thrive in a home school environment. Students like me, for example. I was an abysmally average student in public school but once freed from the constraints of the "education factory" my grades shot straight up. There are countless teachers in the public school system who gave up trying many years ago and are only still there for the paycheck and retirement benefits. I know...I had many of those teachers. I would hardly call what they did "teaching." I'm not saying every single one of the lot was bad...I had the occasional exceptional teacher. But most of my public school teachers were truly lousy. I had many teachers who I can honestly say didn't teach me a damned thing.

Training in pedagogy is irrelevant for those teachers who no longer care.

Athletics? I tested for my 1st degree black belt in Shaolin Kung Fu when I was 17 years old. I was probably far more athletic than most of the students who participated in baseball, basketball, etc. My high school gym teacher was a perfect example of the clowns I was glad to get away from. His idea of gym class was to throw a few basketballs at us and tell us to "play ball" for the gym period while he went into his office and closed the door. He didn't care. I'm sure he had tenure.

Social and extracurricular activities? Again, no problem. It's not like home schooled kids never get any sunshine or anything like that. In many communities there are many home school clubs (for lack of a better term) who get together on a regular basis and do things together.

The idea that "real" education can only occur in the classroom under the direction of people with teaching certifications is pure baloney. And in many cases those teachers act as more of a hindrance to learning than anything.

 

The research shows that home schooled students tend to earn higher ACT scores, have higher grade point averages, and have better graduation rates than those who come from traditional schools. I would hardly call that "child abuse" as you suggest.

Can Homeschoolers Do Well in College? - CBS News

 

A lot of it depends on how the child was homeschooled. Just as there are different methods of teaching in a K-12 environment, there are different homeschool methods. Do I like the idea of putting a book in front of a kid and having him read all day while claiming that is "school"? No. There are many homeschool parents who actively teach their kids, and others who form groups. Some actually pay tutors to come in and teach the group. Essentially it's like going to class, but with homeschooled students. From what I recall, students who are homeschooled using the group method are the better performers.

-Matt

 

Group school, as a form, has some issues that need fixing. In my opinion, curriculum (common core) doesn't matter; but it's the gripe du jour, so it is what it is. I think the primary problem with schools stems from too many kids per adult. The essence of homeschool is this:
Mom to child: what is 1+1?
child: 3?
Mom: no, it's 2, let me show you why. Now, let's do it again.
(repeat)

The essence of group school is the same idea, however, with less opportunity for the "repeat" function. So, some kids are left behind. If the majority understands, then the class moves on. If the majority is stuck, you stay in the subject. It's not complicated. I feel, however, that since children are not mini-robots, you can't simply use a new curriculum and expect change.

Homeschooling, for the wonderer, is difficult and time consuming when done correctly.

 

Sorry, but that's an unfair comparison. First, public schools have to take EVERYBODY, no matter how educable they are. They don't get to pick and choose. If a parent can't teach the kid, the parent can take the kid to public school. But if the public school can't teach the kid, it can't send the kid back. Public schools take on the poor, the ill-equipped, the students with mental health issues, immigrant children who can't speak the language, and a lot of other difficult-to-educate kids.

Second, I'd like to see the demographics of families who home-school their kids vs. the population that sends them to public school. What do you want to bet they're different, and that the people who OPT for homeschooling have more means to do so. That gives their kids a huge advantage, regardless of the method of schooling chosen. Families without the means (money for materials, time away from work and other parenting responsibilities, etc.) cannot opt to home school.

To simply compare outputs implies the two populations come from the same place and have the same resources. They absolutely do not.

 

If that's the case, then homeschooling is not child abuse.

From what I've seen, whether its homeschool or public school, the problem is usually the parent(s). I've known people who failed to finish high school or ended up being put back into public school years behind after their parents failed at homeschooling. I also went to public school with students who didn't learn much because they didn't care to learn. I came from a family that was on welfare, so how is it that I did fine with a public school education while others didn't? It comes down to the parents.