Today's post is brought to you by Julie Schwartzbauer.
With the arrival of the Common Core State Standards came a great deal of anxiety.
Teachers are still trying to wrap their heads around teaching to meet a standard. One of the questions I hear often is “Why aren’t teachers given direction on how to teach the standards?" My reply is that the standards establish what students need to learn, but not how teachers should teach.
I feel like I spent a big part of last year trying to convince teachers that they know how to teach. We have excellent teachers in our district who are now questioning their own best practices.
Sarah Brown Wessling is the 2010 National Teacher of the Year and is Teaching Channel’s Teacher Laureate. Sarah shares 10 of her “ah-ha” moments when working with the Common Core. The first one really resonated with me.
1. Common isn’t same: the standards are not curriculum.
So often, we educators hear the word “common” and assume this means the same. But having common standards does not mean that we have common curriculum, or that we should be common teachers. Certainly there are advantages to consistency in what students are learning, but that need for steadiness does not translate to everyone turning to the same page in the same textbook at roughly the same time. In fact, the Introduction to the CCSS reminds: “Teachers are thus free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful for meeting the goals set out in the Standards.” The standards purport what students should achieve, leaving the materials and means to school districts and teachers.
Read Sarah’s additional 9 “ah-has” by following the link below.
I truly believe it comes down to building teacher knowledge in understanding the standards and then building on their expertise to meet the needs of their students. This takes time, but it’s well worth it.
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