Common Standards: To Adopt or Not?
Earlier this week, the Common Core State Standards, designed to provide states with common educational standards rather than the hodgepodge states have now, were released. Now states are considering whether to adopt the standards.
The standards focus on English and math from kindergarten through 12th grade, and also provide guidelines for literacy in several subjects.
A group of teachers, administrators and experts developed the standards. Parents, college instructors, civil rights groups, groups representing English language learners and students with disabilities and others provided feedback during the process.
The project is one that all states, except Alaska and Texas, signed on to when it started more than a year ago, though that initial support doesn’t mean the states must approve the standards. By the way, Kansas has a state Board of Education meeting next week, and I don’t see this on the agenda, so we’ll see if it comes up during that meeting.
Wisconsin, Kentucky and North Carolina already have adopted the standards, and Hawaii, Maryland and West Virginia tentatively adopted them. Virginia, though, opted not to adopt the standards. There may be other states that have made decisions that I have missed.
Having national standards is controversial, and your view probably depends on your political and educational philosophies, as well as your own life experience.
On the one hand, the United States is a group of states that traditionally has followed some mandates (example: No Child Left Behind) and received some funding for education from the federal government, but the individual states have their own educational standards and curriculum. Examples of some of those individual curriculum differences include just recently in Texas where the social studies curriculum was changed and in Kansas concerning the teaching of evolution, in which the state school board has gone back and forth, and back and forth, on those requirements.
On the other hand, society is more mobile than ever, so students move from state to state and school district to school district with more frequency. Further, the number of students going to and completing college is higher than ever, and these students also sometimes move to other states where those institutions may be more prepared to deal with students who’ve met standards in that state’s education program. Also, careers are more technical and complex than ever. The United States wants to compete on a global stage in business and industry, but isn’t really seen as an education leader, which can hinder those efforts to attract cutting edge business.
The above considerations are just a few that might run through your mind depending on if you’re pro or con on the issue.
What do you think? Do we need national standards? What are the pros and cons to you? Chime in in the comments section.
Learn more at these links:
Education Week Curriculum Matters blog
The New York Times: Texas social studies curriculum debate and States receive reading list
The Washington Post: Virginia pulls out of Race to the Top and Maryland, D.C. poised for common education standards
Subscribe to the comments for this postComing Soon to Cartoon Network
If the kids are watching television, Cartoon Network might be a good choice starting in the fall.
It may sound wacky, but Cartoon Network is launching a campaign against bullying on Oct. 1.
According to the Associated Press:
The campaign is geared toward middle school, where experts say bullying is most common. It also targets not bullies nor the bullied, but kids who witness bullying, giving them appropriate techniques to intervene.
“There are specific strategies young people can learn to make a difference in their schools and communities,” said Alice Cahn, Cartoon Network’s vice president of social responsibility. “We decided to focus on those who watch bullying happen — the bystander community — who know they should do something, but are not sure what.”
The anti-bullying campaign includes content in the cartoons themselves, in public service ads, in an online curriculum and on CNN, which will include complementary programming for parents.
What intrigues me about this campaign is that it will use sections from the cartoons themselves as a way to teach lessons about bullying. You’ll see a message in a commercial or on the network’s website about a specific episode that contained bullying and how to deal with something similar.
Of course, Cartoon Network will not be alone in its efforts to combat bullying. There are several other networks and shows that have some messages that target the same themes. But, it may have the most coordinated campaign that is network wide. It will be interesting to see how it develops and whether it resonates with middle schoolers.
Adventures in Reading
Reading with a toddler (mine is almost 3) can be an exercise in frustration if you aren’t used to constant interruptions and if you have your heart set on reading every single word of the book.
Over the last few months, I have seen that reading with a toddler rarely means you’re going to actually read the words of the book, and you will never read the words of the book without at least one interruption, no matter how short the book.
More often, you will hear questions or statements or whatever, after you turn each page. And sometimes, all that is required is you turning the pages, and your toddler will do the work for you because he’s got some sort of story already cooked up.
But that is a good thing, it just takes the adults some time to get used to it.
You can read about some of the benefits of reading aloud from Sixty Second Parent to see what I mean.
I know my son usually has a specific book or two each night he wants to read. I’ll tell him we can read a book, and he says, “Let’s read Curious George” or “Where’s the spider?” (for the book “The Very Busy Spider” by Eric Carle), or whatever. And he’ll bring me the correct book.
We have probably read “Curious George” and “Ten Apples Up on Top” at least 100 times each, but he still brings them to me.
Sometimes, if we’ve read the same book every night for a week I want to groan, but I try not to do it out loud. A lot of times, I’ll tell him we can read two books, just so I get to read something different. Unfortunately, that can backfire on me, because he’ll pick the most-read and the second-most-read books as his choices.
But reading them over and over again is also a good thing, too.
Here’s an explanation from Sixty Second Parent about how to make the most of the fact that your child will want to read the same books over and over again.
If you want to share any other tips about reading, leave them in the comment section. In the meantime, check out my other posts about reading:
How to Teach Problem-Solving Skills
From @ParentFurther - Accept that you cannot always solve your kids’ problems; let them know that you intend to stick by them through thick and thin. #tipoftheday
This message was today’s tip of the day, and it got me thinking about how I’m responding to my son’s quest for independence. He will be 3 in a couple of months, so we’re not arguing about curfew, talking about what he wants to do with the rest of his life or weighty things like that.
What we are talking about are the day-to-day things, getting dressed, choosing meals, learning where the spoons and forks are kept and how to get them, etc. And we’re also talking about play – like putting together puzzles, hitting a soft ball with a bat, kicking the soccer ball, etc.
A lot of the time, he’s stuck at the point where basically knows how to do something but he may have trouble doing it exactly right. That’s why the tip of the day from @ParentFurther on Twitter made me think about my son. Sure, he’s not even 3 years old, but to him, his problem is that he can’t get his shoes on or he knows where the puzzle piece goes, but he can’t quite get it to fit in it’s space.
So do I solve his problems for him? Do I put the shoes on for him or put the puzzle piece in its place for him? Or do I try to guide him in how to finish the task himself, since some of his favorite words (besides “Why?”) are “I want to do it myself”?
I tend to try to guide him to figuring out how to do it himself, or at least explain what I’m doing and how so that he can do it next time. Rarely do I just take it and finish it without doing either one of these things.
I’d like to think that if I get used to guiding him to learn how to do it himself it may help later, when it will be really important for him to solve problems on his own, no matter where he is.
I will not be able to help him deal with frustration associated with a disagreement with a friend or learn something he has to learn on his own.
But, if I can help teach him how to continue to think about things in the midst of frustration and confusion or try new ways of doing things when he thinks he can’t do it, he’ll be able to use those lessons in any situation. Once you have confidence that you can figure things out, you’re more likely to keep trying to solve problems. And if you don’t know how to do something, asking questions or trying new ways of doing things is just the way to break through the obstacle.
I don’t think it’s too early to start teaching this attitude, even to toddlers.
Tweet Collection
I first collected a few humorous child- and toddler-related tweets about six weeks ago in this post.
Sometimes, you just need a little pick-me-up, especially on a Friday afternoon to finish out the workday. I hope this fits the bill. Thanks to parents who tweet, whether serious or funny snippets of their lives, because putting a post like this together is both easy and fun.
So here are a few more recent tweets that should make you smile:
From @SuburbanMomClub - I wish I had half the energy of a toddler!
From @varunner7 - the toddler dropped a 10 pound weight on my bare foot. I managed, just barely, to restrain profanities, screaming, and tears.
From @EttieSmith - I will never understand a toddler’s obsession with a garbage can.
From @betweenstations - The wild life of toddler parents: We procure a babysitter to… go on an evening bike ride and eat pizza. Woo?
From @kellyatlovewell - I got the baby to sleep at 1PM. Tried to put the toddler down for a nap. She sang LOUDLY for 90 min. Never slept. Woke the baby up.
From @dadonymous - One child is shouting “DO IT! DO IT!” and the other one is shouting “NO! NO!” I’m almost curious enough to go find out what’s going on.
From @MollyinMinn - Nothing quite like dropping a screaming toddler and his nebulizer off at daycare. Hello mom guilt.
From @accustomedchaos - LOL !! RT: @Notyomamasebay: I looked “toddler” up in the thesaurus and found it’s actually a synonym for “tyrant.” Now THAT makes sense!
From @emilyjs - Laundry basket kidnapped stuffed moose, which was ransomed for extra dirty socks. Moose returned to anxious toddler.
From @itsmelibish - Hanging out with a toddler all day is cool. Only problem is I talk like one sometimes. Ex: “I have to go pee-pee.”
From @desertmama10 - my life consists of picking books and dvds up off the floor every.single.day from the toddler tornado throwing them there.
From @MoniquesTweets - Parenting a toddler is like having a blender without a lid!