RMT Sunday: Complex human, common education?!

We humans are complex, wonderfully made creatures. We’ve been hanging around on Earth for quite a while. We’re anything but ‘common’..So my riddle today is this: Since we’re so complex, how can we expect a set of constricting, common standards to serve us well? Common Core Standards seek to level the educational landscape..NOT enhance it to a level that even comes close to growing a complex human’s mind to capacity!!

Look to the the past:

Looking way, way back in our timeline, you have to admit there are some extremely impressive ‘dudes’ and ‘dudettes’. They didn’t have the internet, cell phones or cars, yet, the men and women of the past created some extremely jaw-dropping items. If you’re like me, by now you’ve heard so much about ‘we’re training for jobs not created yet’, I want to scream! Why? Because only a person totally ignorant of history would accept this line of malarkey! Folks back then had NO CLUE about their future or their future jobs any more than we do, YET they lived, learned, and were successful!! Gee, and all without Common Core Standards and the entire industry that surrounds it! HOW did these people do it?! Simple. They learned what they needed to from each other. They ‘collaborated’. They persevered. “Formal education” first popped up in Babylon. Not just communication, but hunting and warfare. Granted, we don’t need so many of these same skills today as much as then. For a truly fascinating look at our educational timeline, refer to this website:

http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/Journals/Winter2011/Tokuhama4

However we look at ourselves, the fact remains, we’re all basically the same, so why should our educational goals need to be so ‘global’?

Look the the marketing:

One of the reasons, I believe, we have to be so ‘global’ is because we’re being told this via the marketing surrounding all the modern education reform. Frankly, we’ve always been ‘global’. It’s called ‘communication’! We’ve always had international relationships of sorts (it is called ‘compassion’). To hear some of the other talking points, the talking heads spew their messages, we all had no clue how to be a team player (aka: ‘collaborative’), how to critically think (‘to learn to problem solve before handed a puzzle’), to work hard and press on (‘rigor, grit and spit’) or to add 2 + 3 and get a simple answer of 5 in less than 3 seconds. No, to hear them, we’ve no CLUE before Common Core! No ‘context’ before the Standards! No ‘fluency’ before them! POPPYCOCK! IF this were remotely true, we’d somehow still be back in the caveman/cavewoman days. The same can be said for ‘the skills gap’, the ‘interest gap’, even the ‘poverty gap’. Why? Because through EVERY age there have been all these gaps..YET, things were learned, jobs were created and progress was made. I, know education is a mess in America, however, I do not believe basing educational change on lies, illegal standards and coercion is setting us up for ‘better, more, greater’ anything!!

So, how much money has gone in to ‘convincing’ you and I that the Common Core machine is our savior?? I know that many, many dollars have been devoted to the effort to sell the Core. However, in my mind, money is not the true measure of cost. It’s the heart, the soul, the desire of our students that I think and believe come at a much higher price. In my educator’s mind, it’s an easy answer, kids, students will always come before money or agenda! I really love the quote one of our anti CCSS legislators made earlier this year…before NC passed the law for a repeal of CC (which is in the review/repeal committee’s hands now). Mr. Speciale said, “”We sold our kids’ education, we sold their futures for $400 million. “We are not in a position to be experimenting with their futures.””  So, here’s another riddle for you. Did your state sell out your kids? If so, how much was the ‘pay out’? Which legislators are bold in the reclaiming of the students futures in your state? 

Know the candidates:

With election season upon us, how well do you know the stance of each of the candidates when it comes to Common Core? How about STEM? Yes, I realize most folks think that one is bad and the other is good. However, research has been conducted, documents produced to show that CCSS is the vehicle for STEM, which is being driven into our lives, for even more top down control of we, the people! (look back to my PCAST, STEM and CC post) We MUST educate our candidates! The bottom line, Race to the Top funding may be all gone in your state, but LOOK at where it was placed. It set the roots for Common Core/STEM. As long as those roots are fed with MORE federal $$, the roots will become stronger. Kill Race to the Top funding, the programs it ‘infected’, you stand a greater chance of ridding your state of the Common Core machine. Most states, like the one I live in, are only paying attention to one side of the root system. It remains to be seen what our outcome will be, in the meantime, it will take citizens like us (you, the reader and I) to continue to expose the truth. Education is a local decision, not a federal one. Bottom line for election day: IF the candidate is  pro CC, then the  candidate is not elected!