Is there any better feeling than the one you get when, after struggling with a difficult or unusual task, someone says, “Hey, how are you doing?” Like when you’ve wrestled with a pickle jar, straining your wrist, feeling veins bulging on your forehead and disks bulging in your back, and you finally get that blasted thing open. You’re crunching on that crisp dill and someone comes along and says, “Hey, how’s that jar treating you?”
Which brings us to Common Core State Standards. New standards will certainly put you in a pickle, especially if they represent a dramatic shift in how you previously taught math and language arts. If you’re enjoying the changes brought about by Common Core, then life is to be relished.
So as we head into the quick Thanksgiving break, tell us how you’re feeling at this point about teaching the Common Core. A few simple words. Thumbs-up? Thumbs-down? Garlic dill or sour gherkin?
Thumbs up, I have a great team to work with. I also have a great administration that has helped with the transition and also ways to implement the common core for Utah.
No final decision yet for thumbs up or thumbs down, but they have definitely aroused my interest in re-working many of my present units to meet the challenges of the common core standards.
I am very excited to start teaching with the Common Core Standards. It’s as if people finally started listening to teachers for a change. I am especially hopeful in the area of math. I look forward to getting in to the curriculum in a deep and meaningful way instead of just rushing the kids from one standard to another without any mastery as we currently do here in Florida. I pray that we also get a Common Core for Science and Social Studies soon. Here in Florida, we are starting with Math and ELA next year for fifth grade. This move to Common Core has rekindled my enthusiasm for teaching.