Okay, that headline may be a slight overstatement, but it was my first response when I stumbled upon this item on the engageNY blog.
In "Connecting Parents to the Classroom," we meet Michelle Labuski, a twenty-year teaching veteran currently teaching sixth grade in Smithtown. Apparently for all of those twenty years, Labuski has been wondering how to communicate with parents about what is happening in her math class. Boy, that is a stumper. If only, sometime during the last two decades, somebody had created a technology that facilitated quick, cheap communication over some sort of network of interconnected electronic devices. Or even, I don't know, paper and printing.
But never fear-- Labuski has found a solution!
The transition to the Common Core Standards presented the perfect
opportunity to provide additional resources for parents so they can
experience the lessons firsthand and better support their children at
home. I did this by creating a math blog.
Yes, it's Common Core the rescue. Thanks to the Common Core, teachers can now blog. Before, you see, we couldn't because without CCSS magic electronic waves beamed into classrooms to allow teachers and students to use the internet, teacher blogging was impossible. IM-possible. Lordy, when I think back to all those nights I just sat staring at my computer screen, whacking away at my keyboard with rocks and trying to jam pop tarts into my floppy disc drive and--ARE YOU KIDDING ME, Michelle Labuski!!??! I have to believe that you are better than this; your blog concept is pretty solid, and I am going to assume you are a decent teacher and a nice human being. Why in heaven's name hand the credit over to CCSS?
Look Common Core supporters-- you can't have it both ways. If you are going to be typing with your one hand about how critics of the CCSS are off base to conflate all sorts of things with the Core and beating up the Core with all manner of wacky examples of things that aren't actually the core, you cannot, at the same time keep pumping out these breathless testimonials from teachers saying, "Yes, before Common Core I had to teach class in a barrel because I did not know how to dress myself. Often I would collapse during the day because, without Common Core, I could not feed myself."
You cannot keep claiming that Common Core is somehow related to every single thing that any sentient breathing teacher ever did. I will not be surprised when you trot someone out to claim that Common Core invented the internet and implemented the use of books, light and air in classrooms.
But you, Common Core shills, cannot keep asking why, oh why, do people hold CCSS responsible for everything in schools from greasy pizza to poor wax jobs in the gym. If you keep making these ridiculous claims, you cannot be upset that some people listen to you, although honestly I think I am more upset than you because, seriously, for Common Core to take credit for everything since the invention of the wheel, as if no teacher ever knew how to do anything ever, is its own special level of obnoxious.
Um...wonder what I have been doing since 1983 with technology in my classroom? Love your sense of humor because seriously, perhaps my students didn't have www.engageny.org, but they had a teacher who showed and used technology throughout any content area taught. Blogs? Wikis? We have had electronic epals for at least the last five years. Seriously! Am I just from another planet or something?
ReplyDeletePeggy Noonan hit CCSS proponents and shills pretty hard:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2014/05/07/the-trouble-with-common-core/
When they've lost Peggy Noonan, you know the end is near...
My favorite lines from the piece:
"Who decided the way to take on critics was to denigrate parents, who supposedly don’t want their little darlings to be revealed as non-geniuses, and children, who supposedly don’t want to learn anything? Who among these serious people chose sarcasm as a strategy?"
Saw that one. Had to power through the part where Noonan mentions That Woman's deserved admiration, but it is brutal.
DeleteAnd what has to be galling is that the Reformsters are losing the battle of misinformation. Noonan conflates the standards with teaching materials (has to make them smack themselves in the head every single time it happens) and where she has gaps in actual knowledge, she fills in the gaps with material unfavorable to CCSS.
Reminds me of the guest viewpoint recently in the Binghamton (NY) Press (http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20140506/VIEWPOINTS02/305060044/Guest-Viewpoint-Real-time-data-help-teachers-connect-better-students?nclick_check=1 )....as if teaching was never effective before CC....written by a charter school guy of course.
ReplyDelete@EngageNY recently tweeted "The old math standards stopped at "What is 6 x 7?" - Students need more then this to be ready for college and career"
ReplyDeleteThey since have deleted it, even the NYSED does not have that much hubris.
As always, you hit the nail on its head!!! I am so tired of CCSS supporters saying how NOW they can teach critical thinking..... they really must have SUCKED BEFORE! Geez.
ReplyDeleteI happen to know Michelle personally, and I can say that as a teacher and human being there are few that can match her dedication and caring. While we happen to find ourselves on the polar opposite side of the CC debate, I think your comments go to the root of the problem: we dehumanize anything that does conform to our beliefs. Now suddenly this teacher is a shill and hack simply because she supports CC? We need to work more on finding common ground, and less on pointing fingers. THAT is the problem right now. No one is willing to compromise. - and please do not get me wrong... I abhor almost everything about CC, but that isn't the point here.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how we compromise on these sorts of things. The implication in pieces like Michelle's is that it implies that those of who aren't embracing CCSS are teaching in some sort of dark ages, that we probably don't know what we're doing. I don't know how to reach a middle ground with that-- do I compromise by saying that, yes, I suppose I mostly didn't know how to incorporate critical thinking or insightful reading in my classroom? Your characterization of Michelle leads me back to my comment above-- she does seem to be a capable teacher, so why is she crediting CCSS as if she was somehow incapable of doing all this out of her own professional abilities?
DeleteI am tired of the repeated CCSS-supporting columns that carry a clear subtext of, "If you're not embracing Common Core, you are probably doing a crappy job in your classroom." I am tired of the premise that teachers are lost, ineffective, and generally terrible, and I have a hard time seeing it as anything but a personal and professional attack.
So Peter has noted for a long time that there are people who support CC out of ignorance -- not out of malice. I see no reason to believe that he puts your Michelle in any other category than that. He is disagreeing with her substance. I see nothing whatsoever in his remarks that seem remotely like a personal attack. If Michelle sees things in CC that we don't, and she sees CC as helpful in making parents understand their children's math (as a longtime math teacher, I am not seeing any way in the world how this could possibly be helpful, although to be fair I have never, one time, felt that I needed help in this particular arena as I like parents and find that simply talking to them is super-useful and more than sufficient), and we don't see how that could possibly be the fact, saying so is not an attack on her. Challenging others who put forth conclusions without any support, and without any conceivable support, is the backbone of democracy. It is ironic then that CC is a huge attack on democracy (or at least is one of the main tools). As a math person, I always was a good "pattern spotter" -- but this one is just so obvious.
DeleteBlogs force you to explain, reason, communicate. This is what CC is trying to get people to do- well, those who weren't previously. The problem with communicating to parents about math isn't "magic waves", it's about parents who don't understand what their children are learning because they "aren't math people", "were never good at math", etc....
ReplyDeleteOn the spectrum of critical thinking, you have higher order thinking, reasoning, and empathy on one end ......and waaaaaay on the other end is sarcasm. When you make students write their thoughts down on a blog, they learn to chose their words very carefully. You teach them to be accountable for the way they speak to others.
Stop vilifying teachers. If the state of NY wants to glorify her, let them. She is not a pawn for their CC agenda, she is modeling good practice. You can be curmudgeonly, or a life long learner. Your choice. But choose your words wisely.
When she gives credit for her best practices to the advent of CC, she is a pawn for the CC agenda. She clearly has many fine qualities as a teacher-- what is served by crediting those qualities to the advent of Common Core?
DeleteThe continuing narrative of those how push the Core is that teachers are lost, that being exposed to the Core turns previously mediocre and inadequate teachers into educational whizzes. Every time a teacher writes one more "The CCSS showed me the way to be a real educator," they feed that narrative. They justify things like New York's scripted lessons that handcuff teachers. They justify calls for more Core-based testing. They lend credence to the narrative that teachers must have the Core imposed on them or else they will do a lousy job. I wish they would choose their words more wisely because A) they deserve the credit for their own excellence and B) they are serving those who are dismantling the teaching profession.
Good morning, Ms. Manning,
DeleteI am a math teacher -- high end -- since 1980 -- I find Peter's blog to be absolutely without-any-doubt THE MOST SUPPORTIVE OF TEACHERS blog out there. He is a wonderful writer / wordsmith. I wish he were local to me so my kids could have such a wonderful teacher (of course, we have LOTS of good teachers where I live too). If you can't personally see that CC is an attack on teachers and that its supporters / pushers are attacking teachers, then that's on you.
You say "On the spectrum of critical thinking, you have higher order thinking, reasoning, and empathy on one end ......and waaaaaay on the other end is sarcasm." I guess to be fair I should first acknowledge that I think your sentence is nothing more or less than words strung together, without meaning, incomprehensible. Still, you seem to be trying to accuse Peter of not engaging in higher-order thinking, reasoning or empathy. Nothing could be further from the truth: Peter Greene is in fact one of the smartest, sanest, right-on voices standing up for public education and teachers that is in existence today. He is super-smart, super-fair, not sarcastic at all (maybe you need to spend some time with a dictionary) -- he is witty, and when a take-down is called for, he engages. Thank you, Peter -- we teachers and our allies love you!
That should not read "if NY wants to glorify her, let them" but should read "if the NYS Education Department wants to glorify her, let them." As a lifelong New Yorker, I can direct you to a very large population of parents who want Common Core, and everything that goes with it, out of our schools.
DeleteIf Michelle Labuski wants to write a piece espousing the virtues of Common Core because now she can write a "math blog", then she needs to grow up and take the fallout. She wants to be pro-Common Core, have at it, that is her right. But it is our right to disagree with her. The blog she wrote was tripe and pure propaganda for Common Core and it did not specifically address one positive aspect of Common Core State Standards. If she could not figure out a "math blog" prior to Common Core, she should certainly not be bragging about it.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you should all do a little research and provide some text-based evidence to support your claims. My math blog was around before CCLS. And I have plenty to brag about - instead of going around and putting others down.
ReplyDelete