Common Core arrives
Spokane public schools got their first Common Core textbooks this week, accompanied by the usual partisan idiocy.

Well, no... Actually the partisan idiocy is only halfway usual.

One side is expectable. Repooflicans are automatically and violently opposing Common Core because it was introduced by a president with D on his nametag.

The other side is surprising. Normally the teacher unions would automatically and violently support Common Core because it was introduced by a president with D on his nametag, but the unions are generally unhappy with Common Core.

I read the Common Core documents carefully when they appeared last year. At least on paper, the approach is EXACTLY right. Everything I'd dreamed about when I was teaching. Common Core emphasizes usefulness and job training, and the approach to English and Math is both utilitarian and accurate.

Repooflicans hate it. Teacher unions hate it. Real teachers like it. Those three preferences add up to a pretty good recommendation.

While thinking about this I realized .....

The public school curriculum in the '50s and '60s, when I was a student, was simply flatass wrong in most ways. The only piece that could be called correct was the basic facts of math, but the method of teaching those facts was flatass wrong and destructive.

The official English grammar was precisely, totally and bizarrely wrong from stem to stern. The wrongness of school grammar was beyond 2 + 2 = 5 or 7 * 9 = 43. It was more like 2 + 2 = hamburger or 7 * 9 = ☺◊♬♣☂⇑. This is not subjective or arguable. Grammar is a way of describing the world of language just as math is a way of describing the world of measurements, and it's perfectly possible to determine which descriptions are accurate.

Common Core uses an accurate grammatical system and suggests highly effective ways of teaching it.

If Repoofs and unions had any fucking sense, both would be welcoming CC. Obviously neither has any fucking sense.

Labels: Experiential education, Metrology, Real World Math

  ¶ 1:55 AM