Why do people insist on viewing the Standards as inconsistent with teacher creativity and choice? I am baffled by such uncreative thinking. That’s like saying the architect cannot be creative because every house has to meet building code. Indeed, the whole point of mandating standards as opposed to curriculum is to free people up to create innovative curriculum that addresses the standards.
You’re an architect: your clients are students. Your job is to develop client-friendly learning that also meets code. How does this restrict freedom?
Here is an obvious illustration of our failure to think imaginatively now. When I started teaching in 1972, the legacy of the ’60s was still in full force in my school. There were all sorts of creative courses: Death and Dying, The Wilderness, Political Philosophy, Ethics, Why Do We Do What We Do? etc.
More importantly, many of these cool courses met the English requirement. In other words, back in the day there was no English 9, 10, 11, 12. rather, there were electives – real freedom of choice for teachers and kids! So, you could meet your English 10 obligations by taking Satire or American Fiction or Shakespeare or Cinema, on a tri-mester system (so you were not stuck with a year-long course you might hate).
There is NOTHING in the Common Core ELA Standards that prohibits you and your colleagues from inventing a similar system of choices. All you would have to do, like the architect, would be to ensure that no matter the choice it was addressing the relevant 9-10 and 11-12 standards. How hard would that be, people?
When I hear everyone endlessly whining about what harm the Standards are doing to creative teaching it has the opposite effect on me that you intend. I think: boy, how unimaginative those teachers are. Glad my kid doesn’t have them.
from Kant’s essay “What is Enlightenment?”:
Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own reason! (tip of the hat to Adam for this!)
PS: from the Standards –
“These Standards do not dictate curriculum or teaching methods. For example, just because topic A appears before topic B in the standards for a given grade, it does not necessarily mean that topic A must be taught before topic B. A teacher might prefer to teach topic B before topic A, or might choose to highlight connections by teaching topic A and topic B at the same time. Or, a teacher might prefer to teach a topic of his or her own choosing that leads, as a byproduct, to students reaching the standards for topics A and B.”
PPS: from the just released HS Publishers Criteria for Common Core in Math:
“Fragmenting the Standards into individual standards, or individual bits of standards … produces a sum of parts that is decidedly less than the whole” (Appendix from the K-8 Publishers’ Criteria). Breaking down standards poses a threat to the focus and coherence of the Standards. It is sometimes helpful or necessary to isolate a part of a compound standard for instruction or assessment, but not always, and not at the expense of the Standards as a whole. A drive to break the Standards down into ‘microstandards’ risks making the checklist mentality even worse than it is today. Microstandards would also make it easier for microtasks and microlessons to drive out extended tasks and deep learning. Finally, microstandards could allow for micromanagement: Picture teachers and students being held accountable for ever more discrete performances. If it is bad today when principals force teachers to write the standard of the day on the board, think of how it would be if every single standard turns into three, six, or a dozen or more microstandards. If the Standards are like a tree, then microstandards are like twigs. You can’t build a tree out of twigs, but you can use twigs as kindling to burn down a tree.”
http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Math_Publishers_Criteria_HS_Spring%202013_FINAL.pdf
PPS: Some of the back and forth in the comments is better than my post…
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64 Responses
The standards only set the baseline. Anyone “teaching to the standards” is only doing the bare minimum.
Great post…fun to read!
Perhaps its not the standards themselves, but how they are being implemented within the different school districts? A misconception of the purpose of standards -possibly related to your last post on backing off understanding by design?
But then whose fault is THAT? Why aren’t we blaming thoughtless administrators, then?
Yes. In Texas they do 45 days of benchmark testing and teachers are not allowed to bow out of it. There is no evidence showing all this extra testing improves performance on the test, not to mention the boredom it creates for students. Administrators are not educational leaders if they simply do what they are told to do by the higher ups and the Pearson people.
Standards are not the problem. But it does seem like the general thought process that tends to follow in terms of implementing and enforcing standards is a major problem. Why is this so common? This is certainly not anything new.
Indeed it is not new. One can read about the problem in Max Weber from 100 years ago. Heck, it goes back to Plato’s Cave. But it still all puzzles me: how do perfectly reasonable ideas/policies/laws become applied so unthinkingly/woodenly/arbitrarily, with confusion about the letter vs. the spirit? (One can see the same ossification and capricious rigidities in many religions).
I have often said that, before I die, I want to better understand how wooden and lifeless ‘coverage’ becomes the dominant mode of instruction in all educational arenas, and in all corners of the world – in the face of obvious boredom, ineffectiveness as judged by results, and in spite of job descriptions that emphasize learning not inputs.
I believe a certain Jewish prophet had the same problem with some high priests. His suggestion was whittling many standards down to 2 commandments. Love God and Love thy neighbor as thyself. This said after ousting the money lenders from the temple .
Perhaps all ed reform should be Love Learning and Love thy Students as thyselves– or better, don’t make them do anything you think is not important. The best teachers I know always follow these 2 commandments.
Wise pithy words: I will become your discipline 🙂
lol.
Here is a clip from my forthcoming film , What are Schools For? where sociologist George Ritzer talks about the irrationality of rationality. Perhaps Standards and rubrics and other seemingly innocuous designs unintentionally disenchant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gvHSxxi1GTM
Grant,
As you know, it is not about the standard itself, but the way it is interpreted that causes the problem – especially when someone tells others how there is only one correct way of interpretation (isn’t this how dogmas are born?).
Also, seeing a closed goal/objective sometimes creates an idea of only meeting the goal, not going above and beyond and that causes the results falling short from the ideal (I am thinking of a sprinter who doesn’t plan to run any steps after the goal line – s/he would start slowing down long before meeting the line).
Maybe there are two opposite views about standards? People may perceive them as restrictive, instead of the viewing standards being a supportive or scaffolding feature, like you are suggesting here.
Thank you for this interesting post!
Nina
Of course I know this. But you cannot blame the Standards for the failure of educators to read and thoughtfully ponder the Standards. That’s like blaming the first Amendment for some dope who shouts FIRE in a theater. I find it astonishing and hypocritical that no one is doing a ‘close reading’ of the Standards – with its explicit comments about no curriculum being dictated by the Standards – and yet we expect these same people to supervise and teach close reading in ELA???
Let’s be honest: anyone whose instinct is to make learning LESS interesting and less rich due to ‘standards’ is not someone i want administering my kids’ school or teaching my kids. Why can’t we call out this behavior for what it is – derelict.
Making learning less interesting is always horrible. Thank you for reminding that teachers can always, ALWAYS choose how they teach!!
Mr. Wiggins–
If only life in schools were that simple. Many school district administrators use the standards, particularly the “sample” readings, to more explicitly tell teachers what they can or can’t teach. At the same time, fortunately, I hear many teachers talk about how they indeed find ways to meet the standards creatively – so you needn’t focus only on the “whiners.” Instead, listen to both these kinds of stories that teachers are telling us. At http://www.teachersspeakup.com we’re focusing on the positive tales that teachers have to tell.
–Steve Zemelman
Steve, I am all for looking at the positive and highlighting it, but this lack of thought on the part of both admins and teachers needs to be called out in my opinion.Indeed, look at your 2nd sentence – if it’s true that ‘many’ admins do this then we must call them out AND as teachers we must rally to push back on the mandating of bad teaching. If not us, who?
Point taken. And I hadn’t seen the other comments & replies. My other concern is that very few members of the wider public or the policy makers are listening. Which is why I’m trying, with the website I mentioned, to get more teachers to tell their stories & get them published in news media & other wider public venues.
Great! That we must do! I am merely saying, over and over for 30 years, that Pogo was more right than well-intentioned educators want to acknowledge: the enemy is us. And no reform is possible until and unless we confront the unhelpful/timid/passive/unimaginative educators in our midst.
I agree. Except, at the risk of sounding a bit belligerent, that’s easy to say in a blog. It becomes a bit more challenging when the system is saturated with incompetency and the majority are those who are exhibiting derelict behavior -not the minority. Especially when your in a system that still values the totem pole approach to management and your the low guy.
I don’t think that’s belligerent. It IS easy to say in a blog. But I have lived my entire professional life, all 40 years, speaking out. Believe me, I was not loved by my own administration!
But you overlook a basic point: every great teacher has always done what was right because behind closed doors you are in control. (Read the great biography on Jaime Escalante for an insight into how far a teacher can go). Honestly, you can count on one hand the number of teachers that have been fired for merely teaching differently. My supervisor was a true idiot – he thought faculty dress the most important thing of all. But he never hassled me about doing Socratic Seminar because the very incompetency you discuss prevented him from understanding what I was doing; as long as no kids and parents complained, he let me be. It is almost always thus in a school. It is you, the teacher, who determines whether learning is engaging and meaningful or dreary and dumb.
Thanks. I will read it and I got your point. I am certainly no favorite. Perhaps this, in its own way, is speaking out against the incompetence.
This is the first time I have read your blog, and it was this article… I have read through comments and when I came across this one, boy, you hit the nail on the head! This is what I have been saying for years. Well, not 40 years, but, long enough. 🙂 “Behind closed doors you, the teacher, are in control”…. I love that! It’s how I operated when I was in the classroom. My principal and I agreed to disagree and she pretty much left me alone in most situations. Standards are standards, and we need them, but to chain yourself to the written word is taking away from your students and your missing so much that you could be doing. I always said, “I can make this fit into the curriculum”.
If teachers can allow themselves to be confident and in control, not letting the standards ‘rule’ their classroom, it would make a world of difference. And by gosh, I bet students would be even more prepared for those state tests we love so much! Great article Grant. I am hooked and will continue reading your blog.
I am so in agreement! The issue (IMO) among those complainers is founded on an educational reality they allowed to become the manifest truth as provided by publishing companies: district or state approved documents (textbook or standards) are instructionsl scripts with the weight of biblical stone–do not deviate from the law they establish. Publishers, through the tacit approval by teachers, have generated the units, the lessons, and dare I say, even the teacher talk of the classroom, thus stripping those educators of intellectual elasticity. The standards openly state they DO NOT tell teachers how to teach. Stripped of the how, those educators who have been “successfully” delivering a textbook driven curriculum are finding themselves without the powers of the creativity they once knew. Hopefully, they can dig deep within themselves and revive the kind of thinking that once made them want to be a teacher.
Having worked on 10 textbooks I can tell you with utter certainty than no textbook team I have ever worked with thinks that their work is meant to be used in lockstep and unthinkingly. Yet it is. This is the greatest conundrum of our time: why education becomes ossified and why ideas become reified. Same thing happened with Madeleine Hunter; same thin has happened with my work in UbD! The problem is not the textbook companies anymore than the problem is UbD. The problem is thoughtless decision-making at the local level. Until and unles THAT stops, there is no progress.
I believe that’s what I said. Educators have taken the products of publishing companies and tacitly approved them as the teaching script. I have seen excellent curriculum writers go down this path because it is the easiest to navigate. Much easier to outline a textbook as curriculum than generate curriculum that uses a textbook as a tool: easier means quicker and quicker means less time and therefore less money spent–especially since so much was already spent on textbooks.
I agree with much of what you say, maybe all. Textbook writing teams are not publishing companies. i take no issue with writers. however, you cannot convince me that publishing companies like Pearson and ETS are not pleased with the chinking of the change as the contracts mount. Moreover, there are publishing companies out there who do say lack of student achievement is directly correlated to program fidelity (aka: following the script). That granted, whining educators (teachers & critics as named in other posts here) need to take responsibility, model professionalism, and as I said, dig deep to revive a dormant creativity.
I think 2 things are going on here. First some of the teachers want canned lesson plans and do not want to change the lesson (for whatever reason). Secondly, some administrators are concerned about new teachers (new and new to the school) being able to pick up where the last person left off.
I think the solution lies with the facts. Studying for tests and using canned lessons have never been proven to be effective. The fact is that the canned/scripted lessons are also boring – for both students and teachers. I have seen studies that show that the biggest variable in student achievement is the experience of the teacher. Present the facts to the parents and the school board. Show them the test prep and inquiry-based classrooms – let them see the light. Where I work, we are provided with a lot of freedom. We have to follow the standards, and if we want to change how the curriculum addresses those standards, fine. All we need to do is to document what we are doing so someone else can follow in our footsteps.
Precisely: the facts do not support the view that canned unimaginative lessons work. But, why, then, do most rank and file educators fall for it – and have done so for 50 years? (Don’t just say ‘lack of time’.) Until and unless we understand the psychology of coverage, of canned programs, of timid curriculum there is no progress.
They do it because of the misguided view that: the textbook publishers/curriculum framework people are experts and you should do it their way, and/or some administrators are scared of teachers being the “Lone Ranger”. You are right to call them out as a teacher needs to find his or her style, match that up with his/her students, and teach appropriately. Many are afraid to do it or are afraid of what the results could be. I think many feel that it’s better to play it safe. You can “fall back legally” and justify your teachings by the “experts”. The curriculum and lessons are assumed to be best practices. Deviate from best practices and what do you get… bad practices? It’s wrong, but is it “legally wrong”?
I also think that creativity plays into this. We really are losing our main focus of creativity and divergent thinking. Creativity is more demanding of a teacher and is harder to grade – so we go with M/C’s, T/F, and fill-in-the-blank. I find this, as well as canned lessons, to be boring and I have no interest in teaching them. However many feel the opposite. Maybe being that “beacon of light” helps. Maybe we need to show how effective less test prep and canned lessons are at getting students to think about learning, think creatively, and be more critical citizens.
I actually agree with you about my comments. I am looking for a way to influence the wider community and I see what you mean about sounding like a whiner or conspiracy theorist and how that doesn’t change minds. I would love to find a more positive voice.
I have worked with you briefly on Vermont’s portfolio assessment and am still a believer in that type of assessment. I do, however, see intimidation in many of the schools I visit across the country. Teachers are handed pacing guides and judged by people who know little of what teaching is supposed to look like, so their evaluators rely on checklists instead of observing what is really happening in the class. The Chicago Teachers Union recently made strides in the right direction by insisting on art programs for their schools and focusing on curriculum issues that effect students. I agree, most teacher’s unions remain a big disappointment.
Sorry if my posted sounded like I was attacking you, personally. I value the work you have done to make assessments more meaningful for students and teachers. I am just angry at what I see happening in so many schools.
Actually, I didn’t think you were attacking me personally at all! My concern is with tactics, language and getting to root causes of problems. Bill Gates or Pearson or Arne Duncan are not the true cause of our difficulties, in other words. All policy in America is an outgrowth of lobbying. It is thus incumbent on all of us to lobby, too – through our state and national organizations; and as individuals in our own settings. But the national educational associations have been totally derelict, asleep at the switch, bereft of good ideas (and political skills). Good for the Chicago union! But where are the others??? Where is NCTE and NCTM? Where are the national administrator associations?
I am angry at what I see happening, too. But until and unless we face our culpability and what we personally can do, little will happen.
I have spoken with my friend Dr. Rojas about this. I strongly believe that we as teachers forget what it’s like to be a student. Sometimes teachers found school to be easy. Many teachers had success by doing exactly what the teacher told them. I did not find it easy and I am constantly thinking of ways to help students learn as it was tough for me. Maybe we need more teachers who truly understand how the students feel – those teachers are not afraid to do whatever they have to do in order to help their students. Maybe we need a TED speaker that can speak about this…
I’m totally not saying that only people who struggled should teach, but we do owe it to our students and profession to be those struggling students’ advocates. Clearly canned lessons and a blind allegiance to the textbook and curriculum is not the answer – it was not meant to be the answer either.
This is astute. I was a lousy student, bored and a bit of a trouble-maker through sophomore year in college. I have often found that teachers are a bit too goody-two-shoes for my taste. They like ‘school’ too much, and get bugged by kids who don’t. But often kids who don’t like school – like me – are right about school. it IS often boring; it is often about compliance not genuine intellect. (As I have often written, many teachers are actually bugged by creative and critical thinking kids because they ask very annoying questions.) Thus, many of the biggest problems in school have to do with teachers who are egocentric about teaching and learning, having never had an insight into why a thoughtful person might find school off-putting. That’s why I developed our student survey: to give students more voice. And the results are fascinating (check out my early posts on the survey results).
Pernille Ripp’s blog today had great stuff from a survey of her students about standardized testing:
http://www.pernilleripp.com/2013/04/so-i-asked-my-students-their-thoughts.html
I wonder what her students would say about Common Core. 🙂
I suspect we would find the answers as dispiriting as when you ask a kid in class, so what are you doing, they answer, and you follow up with, So, why are you doing it? I dunno, we were just told to.
Believe it or not, I was in a classroom where the teacher got the kids to chant: So, guys, what standard are we working on today? And they chanted, in unison, 4.2.a.i
Where does one begin…..
By the way, I would probably agree with you about teaching writing. As a pro. writer I think much of what is taught as gospel is just plain wrong. The new book by Tracy Kidder and his long-time editor is a wonderful read – highly recommended. Good Prose is the title.
That ‘goody-two-shoes’ observation is priceless. I may be over generalizing but a lot of the teachers I know seem to like rule following. Especially in the elementary schools. They like rules, they like setting rules, determining what’s ‘fair’ etc. I think it’s what drew them to the classroom. Perhaps the freedom to be creative, let alone a demand to be creative, might terrify some.
… I would agree with you, Grant, that teachers are egocentric to a fault (I’m 20 years into the profession), yet I would say that the egocentrism springs, not from a fear of creativity so much as an ingrained habit of being and thinking alone all day. Teachers are with students but are tragically alone in the sense that they are left to brood on their thoughts without the help of the alternate perspectives of other teachers for the most part. Recent teacher collaboration focuses have tried to change this with mixed results. Oftentimes, when teachers get together they choose to unload their own pent-up bias of their teaching strategies rather than truly collaborate to create something new with another teacher. What looks like fear of creativity is really a lack of skill in thinking about the world from other perspectives.
the type of self-reflection necessary to extricate teachers from this egocentrism is hard to come by… my personal success has been a function of the fact that I majored in philosophy and teach an elective phil class– which keeps me in a constant state of reinterpreting, reassessing and changing lessons to meet needs. Creativity is the default for philosophers! Since mandating undergraduate training in philosophy is quite the pipe dream, we’ll have to come up with some other way to encourage the changes. Thanks for the post….
Well, of course I agree with you – I taught philosophy for many years in high school!
Egocentrism is always due to isolation. Piaget said it well: you only escape egocentrism when you have mutual respect for others and find yourself disagreeing with those others whom you respect; and from thus having to engage in rational argument in which you must justify your actions. From their reasoned inquiry and discourse emerge. Piaget saw this effected through the power of kid games because in the game people are on equal footing morally, and disagreements have to be worked out in common. And he, like Dewey, said that moral development and intellectual development thus had to go hand in hand. Only developing the brain is dangerous: the egocentric smart person becomes really good at rationalization and self-deception (which are abetted by isolation from other adults).
To me the only antidote is structural: team teaching, action research in PLCs, accountability as a team for results, as well as learning walks and other opportunities to discover that there are many (and often better) ways of doing things than you are currently doing. All my work is based in this basic premise: everyone needs multiple and credible models (as well as meaningful relationships) if they are to improve – be they kids or adults; and they need criteria related to those models by which to assess their practices.
Great post, thanks!
Let’s be honest , Grant, the top down mandated Common Core Standards are linked to new national assessments. They are created by companies who are making a huge profit off them. If the goal were teacher empowerment, they would have been created by real teachers, not corporations. They would encourage diversity of thought about them, they may even have some solid research behind them. I see fear and intimidation in MOST schools I visit. I see testing at every grade level at great cost to student engagement. I see micromanaged administrators, teachers and students. I agree, teachers shouldn’t whine; they should revolt!
The ELA standards you mention will be judged by robot computers. What does that tell you about how they value the voices of teachers and students. I like some of the content of the Common Core, but see it as a kind of Trojan Horse for assessments that don’t encourage deep learning, that ignore the voices for teachers and students. We have had 10 years of Standards based assessments and it has been proven scientifically not to produce results and increase the dropout rate in schools. You are betting that better assessments will drive better learning. I say that is a defunct model that reduces teachers to factory workers and intrudes on their vital relationship with their students and colleagues.
Finally, the Common Core, is not really about thought, Grant. It is about power. Or more specifically , who has the power. If the teachers had the power, they might reject parts of the Common Core and these meaningless, endless, assessments that are destroying our schools. Their whining is a symptom. Blame them at your own risk. Schools don’t build houses they grow diverse minds. The architect model doesn’t work , in my opinion unless the purpose of schools it to grow the same mind.
We disagree. Having worked with the Standards Committees and having worked in the policy sector a long time I think your remarks are way too conspiracy-laden and sweepingly general for my tastes. Any number of groups have enthusiastically supported Standards, including higher ed and national English and Math organizations. And when 40% of kids with diplomas need remediation in college then something is drastically wrong and in need of fixing. Look, I have spent 30 years fighting for better assessments – in case you are unaware, I worked on VT’s portfolio system, KY’s performance assessment system, and variances to Regents policies – but NOTHING in the current assessment system warrants teaching worse and dumber. That’s just fear, ignorance, and lack of imagination. Nor are you grasping my analogy. The architect’s goal is to serve the client – but do so within the parameters of code and cost. That’s public education’s challenge, too.
Endless whining about those in ‘power’ goes nowhere with me personally or professionally. I have spent my life fighting on behalf of kids – sometimes at the expense of my friendship and colleagueship with adults. (What you fail to acknowledge is that educators are the enemy, too). Use the ‘power’ of the associations and organizations to change what you don’t like,then. But endless bashing of tests and railing about power will fail politically, I promise you: in the wider world it sounds like the whining it is. Propose feasible alternatives and fight for them. Where have the unions and organizations been on that score? (I challenged AFT 20 years ago on that point; still waiting). Where has a feasible accountability system been proposed that is both efficient and effective as accountability while also professional and capacity-building? Ain’t seen it. Where is a VIABLE alternative assessment system that is cost-effective, as unobtrusive as possible, and better than NAEP or the 2 consortia? Ain’t seen it on a large scale, anywhere.
I wish I could make you and Diane Ravitch and Alfie Kohn and others realize that you unwittingly set us back by this kind of passive-aggressive faintly-paranoid criticism. Look back at your post; look at the language choices. This will convince no one who disagrees with you, no one.
I wholeheartedly agree. The standards provide a framework for creativity and choice. As a literacy researcher, however, I am particularly interested to see how the standards will influence writing in schools. Reading, particularly for students marginalized in educational settings, tends to be privileged over writing. The standards offer a broad conception of literacy, but much will depend on the new assessments connected to the standards. I am concerned that computerized assessments, which fail to capture the complexity of writing, will dominate and will influence the focus and kinds of literacy instruction that will occur. What are your thoughts on this?
I think computerized scoring of work is a pernicious development – yet, I have empathy for the introduction of it. My daughter, a fantastic teacher of English, is finding the crushing burden of reading papers to cause her – like me 30 years ago – to consider giving up full-time teaching. And at Harvard we TAs read all the paper so the prof was spared the burden. We all understand the dilemma: it is exhausting and time-consuming work, yet kids desperately need the feedback.
So, solutions will require far more creativity – block scheduling, paid readers, etc. – than merely computerizing things. That said, computers will surely be bale to provide feedback on low-level grammatical and syntactical mistakes, freeing up the teacher to comment about voice and big ideas. So, it is not without some merit. But the pressures to score everything by machine will grow over cost issues and time issues.
The best large-scale solution is the AP/IB solution done regionally: by contract all teachers should have to spend an additional 3 days scoring student work regionally. Great PD, very professional, worth the time and money.
Yes, the IB model would provide an excellent solution. I doubt very much, however, that it will be the one implemented. Instead, I think that it is much more likely that “research based” curriculum solutions will be mandated for many schools. I have seen many of these research based computer programs in schools already. I have also seen many online programs that promote creativity pushed out in favor of these programs that present literacy in simplistic terms. Unfortunately it tends to only be big companies with government funding, that can afford to do the kinds of research that is accepted as research based – and it is much easier to show that something is effective if assessment is based on simplistic criteria.
Yes, I truly believe that online environments offer many affordances to literacy educators and their students. I am also not opposed to computerized feedback for writers – I use the spelling and grammar checker all the time and I love the fact that computers can facilitate feedback from a wider audience (for example, by enabling me to converse with you – somebody whose work I greatly admire). BUT how can we work to ensure that the common core standards promote literacy as a complex practice if they are tied to assessment practices and curriculum mandates that promote literacy in narrow terms?
Grant, my problem with the standards is not that they are inflexible (yes, they are flexible)… but rather that they are pretentious GOBBLEDY-GOOK, at least for the standards I inspected in detail – I teach college writing and I focus on narrative writing, so those are the standards I read through carefully. Sadly, the narrative writing standards are nothing but arbitrary hogwash, promoting a notion of “grade level” competence which is, in my opinion, indefensible and wrong-headed to begin with.
Details here: https://plus.google.com/111474406259561102151/posts/ABDZ6SnYniT
(I have other posts where I look at the narrative writing standards for the lower grades; the results are just as absurd.)
Very surprised to find you in what appears to be the role of apologist for these standards. Maybe grade-level rigidity works for some things, but for narrative writing it does not seem to me that that it would ever work – and it is certainly unworkable with the hogwash that you will find in the actual standards as written and promulgated right now.
I am not particularly enthusiastic about the grade-level standards. I tell all my clients to concentrate on the anchor standards. That’s the big picture and those standards are fine. Obviously grade by grade they made some arbitrary decisions – it’s inevitable. But arbitrary doesn’t mean “hogwash” so unless you are more specific I can’t agree. I have inspected the standards at some length and work with clients to help them meet them. ALL standards are arbitrary and they are never perfect but I see little down side to the anchor standards in ELA. Nor have I seen anything better. Close reading, writing in all genres, greater attention to non-fiction, attention to speaking and listening – those seem benign; what’s the real complaint you have? (I have publicly complained bitterly about math, so I am hardly an apologist).
My blog post contains my real complaint along with abundant details about the narrative writing standards. Did you read my post? It’s fine if you didn’t (time elapsed makes me think you did not), but I am quite specific there about the narrative writing standards, grade by grade, and why I think they merit the title of hogwash. If you think otherwise, let me know! I would be curious if you can defend them.
I read your post. I still don’t get why you are calling it gobbledy-gook. Yes, the Standards writers sometimes look silly fishing for adjectives and adverbs to distinguish one grade from another but that doesn’t make it nonsense. (It is VERY difficult to write longitudinal rubrics for ocmplex competencies – been there, done that; very challenging). Yes, I agree that gaining control over many genres is great; your idea is a good one – but the Standards support that. So, I guess I don’t see why you are so angry. Seems like a lot of negativity for what is inevitably a policy, and like all policies the result of sausage-making. I’m with Thoreau – if it’s just part of the normal workings of gov’t, let it go, let it go. Only get riled up if it makes you do something that is unjust or wrong. I don’t see that in the ELA standards.
Grant,
I attended public high school in NH from 1996-2000, and we had electives then. As a student, I don’t know what standards and requirements my teachers had. I remember World Literature courses, Creative Writing, Gothic/Horror fiction, etc.
Since I moved to live in teach in Kentucky in 2004, I’ve seen a dearth of creative options. It’s pathetic. So many students dislike English, largely due to uncreative curriculum. English I, II, III, and IV, maybe AP English. It’s a shame, and I agree with you that thematic elective English courses based on Common Core standards should be embraced.
Interesting post and food-for-thought as always, Grant. I’ve responded on TeachThought.
Where? Couldn’t find it anywhere.
Late in publishing. Here’s a link: http://www.teachthought.com/learning/why-learning-innovation-cant-come-from-teachers-alone/
Nice rant. I think your view of my analogy is flawed, though. The teacher, like the architect, has to design for the client. That doesn’t mean it is easy for the architect in the same way it is not easy for the teacher: budget, zoning code, physical site, budget constraints, bids by contractors and sub-contractors, management of contracts all has to take place without the client’s wishes being overlooked. Anyone who has done major home renovation knows that the pressures are great on all sides. But the architect’s purpose, like the teacher-designer’s is to satisfy the needs and aims of the client, using their professional skill and judgment. In that way the analogy is accurate.
As for your rant, I personally find it utterly unconvincing that there are all these huge immovable forces that teachers have to buckle under to. This is simply not the case in most schools: when the door is closed, teachers do as they choose most of the time. “Ask for forgiveness, not permission” is a time-honored aphorism of this truth – a truth about both creative teaching and how to avoid real trouble. C’mon terry – who has gotten fired for truly engaging kids in interesting and rigorous work that deviated from a curriculum guide? I have seen hundreds of really excellent teachers in my life – they were almost all renegades that admins wouldn’t touch because kids and parents loved them. Even when you go way over the line – the real Jaime Escalante, not the fictional version – was able to keep doing what he did because it got results and admins went out on a limb to support him as a result. If teachers choose to be timid that is their choice. If they choose to not choose, that is their choice as Sartre pointed out. Only in dysfunctional schools, really, do teachers simply obey the whims of nervous supervisors. In functional schools, grade-level teams and academic departments make sensible decisions – and many even have program and department mission statements to justify what they do.
I think we disagree on quite a bit, but I always appreciate you making me think!
I don’t know much about the standards (I teach community college), but my understanding is that, in math at least, they are not appropriate to what we know of child development. I’ve heard that the standards related to problem-solving are a good thing, but that the other, more detailed standards have problems.
It’s wrong to pretend there are grade-by-grade standards when there ARE NO STANDARDS there.
Especially when there will be testing of students based on those meaningless (non)-standards. I would call that wrong.
And students will be labeled as writing at one grade standard as opposed to another (even though the standards are meaningless). I would call that unjust.
I think you might want to re-read the Emperor’s New Suit:
http://hca.gilead.org.il/emperor.html
I’m sad to see that you consider these meaningless standards to be the normal workings of government, especially when they will be the basis of tests used to (mis)label children for years to come, all at great taxpayer expense.
Ad hominem snark is not what the Standards call for under Argument, either.
That was not meant to sound ad hominem – you invoked Thoreau; I invoked Hans Christian Andersen. Is that the part you consider ad hominem? Anyway, I am really sad and surprised to see you taking such a blase attitude towards the potential problems posed by such badly written standards.
I am not sure how badly written the standards would have to be for you to admit there is a problem here.
For me, the standards are so badly written as to constitute a very serious problem indeed.
I am not blase at all. I am a realist, painfully aware of how hard it is to write state and national standards. I worked for 2 years as head of NJ Standards Clarification and it was a very difficult half-a-loaf project: I saw subject committees do the exact thing you decry and I worked hard to make them edit it. Ironically, the ELA people at the DoE stiffed me and they had ultimate control, of course.
Look at the next Gen Science standards – a 4-dimensional monstrosity of good intentions that will never yield the desired results. But I know how they got there: trying to include everything of value. The ELA standards are basically sound – the anchor standards are unarguable as college-readiness focused. A few goofy sub-skills in a grade-level don’t change that. We can agree to disagree.
If you can assure me that said goofiness does not reign throughout, I feel better. Other than your reassurance, though, I have no reason to believe otherwise; my examination of the narrative writing standards was completely dismaying. Thanks for the discussion; it’s very important stuff to discuss indeed.
Hi Grant,
I’m in agreement. I offer my post on the subject – “A Community is More Than the Sum Of its Parts.” http://saisnews.com/2013/04/10/a-community-is-more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts/
Best,
Holly
Hi Grant,
Just wanted to thank you for these last several posts. A colleague and I have become regular followers. We teach English, wanting to pursue Kant’s enlightenment essay with the kids soon. Given his stance on “nonage,” wonder what he would have to say about all of this. “Nonage” is our new favorite word, by the way.
Best wishes,
Adam
Great reading! Sapere aude! “Have courage to use your own reason!”
Brilliant – I am adding it to the post!! Thanks.
I thought I would note here that if you are curious about how PARCC is spending its appx. $200 million dollar piece of the CCSS pie, they just opened up their rendering of the ELA standards for public comment here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1u0DoRWazEzQGzz0YrjwPNDY1_onsSF2aY94gfifbokU/viewform
From April 10 until May 8, 2013, the draft grade- and subject-specific PLDs are posted on the PARCC website. Interested parties can provide feedback through a survey posted on the PARCC website, answering questions specific to the PLDs for both ELA/literacy and mathematics.
Reblogged this on disrupt learning! and commented:
I really loved this post from Grant Wiggins…and I agree with him completely! What do you think?
Well said, I couldn’t agree more. As a teacher pursuing inquiry-based and constructionist practices, standards, however well or poorly conceived, provide the reference I need to feel free to pursue deep and meaningful learning with my classes. Your post helped me to more clearly frame ideas expressed in this post about Common Core: http://goo.gl/SSkmf
Grant,
The plot people bore me! Thanks for your effort.Ray
Schools and committees typically ask themselves what “standards” or critical skills or dispositions that need to be learned and what do we want students to know and understand about our world. Then we need to figure out how to assess these “standards”. This becomes difficult as “standards such as habits of mind, like life long learning, ethical character, appreciating written text etc.” can be subjective.
I like how Wiggins describes the matter of educational testing and that the designers of the tests worry primarily about their own need, building an easy to test and easy to score test where in fact assessment should be the opposite, the need to honor the students need for direct, timely, and useful. Standards are meant only to set a desirable goal or way to meet exemplary performance, made by concrete criteria, with a system in which criteria is measurable. Stating standards in specific measurable terms is necessary in order for educators to provide the immediate and meaningful feedback that shapes learning.