The Lost Common Core Standard

 

 

I found this post and loved it so much I had to share it.  

It is directly taken from the website Venspired  A website created by a gifted and talented teacher named Krissy Venosdale who blogs about her ideas and reflections on teaching.  

I got to her site from Ms. Leban's Art Blog

Here is her September 15th post, it's so great I wanted to share it, especially because as a special-area teacher we are, to a certain extent, liberated from the common core standards and  can pick and choose which, what, where, and how we want to utilize them.  As such, we have the freedom to explore themes that are sorely neglected in many general education classrooms.  Things like creative problem solving, learning to work with mistakes to create new learning opportunities, exploring options for possible solutions, voicing and expressing our opinions, ideas, fears, and hopes, and of sharing in the organic process of creating collaboratively.  Let me just add that I am saying that it is not the fault of classroom teacher that so many creative things have gotten sidelined from education, to the contrary I have met many amazing, creative, and innovative classroom teachers who just don't have time in their day due to test prep, curriculum benchmarks, and state pressure to provide 'accountable' results on student test scores,  to dedicate the kind of exploitative, hands-on activities that help foster life long learning skills.  As a result it behooves us, the art, music, physical education, and even library teachers, to push our children to be courageous, curious, collaborative, and inspired.

Ms. Venosdale's very eloquently written post is directly quoted below: 

 "There’s one more Common Core Standard. It’s the lost standard.   It’s the one that won’t be tested until far into the future.  It’s the thing we have to make sure is being taught, modeled, and encouraged every single day in our classrooms.  It includes Language Arts, Math, Science, Art, History, Music and so much more.  It’s contains the power to make the world a better place.  It requires our kids to have the confidence to dream and the courage to do.  It insures that our students are more than scores in the newspaper.  It might be the lost standard, but we cannot let it become the forgotten standard."