New York Times Opinion Piece on The Common Core

There is an opinion piece written on Common Core in the New York Times today. I recommend reading it. Here the link. I wrote this comment:

The biggest problem with high-stakes testing is that it weakens the most important building block of education, and that is the relationship between the mentor and the student. Common Core, No Child Left Behind, and the Race to the Top all distract the teacher from that direct relationship and the art of teaching, causing them to look behind their backs rather than at their students. The problem overflows into the home, as the teacher thinks, to shove all the "stuff" in the kid needs to learn, that he or she has to expand the school day into the home, with more and more homework. Homework goes on to distract the parent from his or her primary relationship as a caretaker and as a teacher (one who does not need a curriculum sent home by the school), to one who gets overly worried that the homework assignments get done. The whole system goes awry and the student is the one to suffer. Interestingly, the student who is going to be a great scientist or mathematician may still do well in this system. The student who is going to be an artist or philosophy may not. And the student who needs a basic education to live an average life is the one who is going to suffer the most.

_{For more information on Dr. Goldberg's model, read other postings on this blog, visit his website, The Homework Trap, or read his book, The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers.} 

Pressures to learn math

Here's an interesting article in The Washington Post. Here is the comment I left in response: I would like to add one other thought about the problem of core curriculum and pressuring everyone to learn math that they have trouble learning and do not need, and that is the harm it actually does to children. I happened to have been gifted in mathematics but am awful in carpentry and auto repair. My elementary school diagramas were pathetic, and I barely managed my cub scout whittling requirement. The fact that we had a simpler math curriculum when I was a child, did not keep me from learning higher mathematics, which was my major, when I went to college. I believe it would have been an assault to my self-esteem to have been forced through school to take shop classes beyond the few they gave me in high school. The reality is that everyone needs some knowledge in math to handle everyday life, just as it helps me to be able to do some minor home repairs (I can change light bulbs) without calling a repairman. Obviously, students need access to whatever math information they are going to need for daily life, that coincides with their interests, and that fosters the talents they naturally have. But constant pressure to do things one does not do well breeds anxiety and avoidance, and acting out behavior. We actually breed dysfunctional children by dominating their days and their evenings with things they don’t do well, while leaving them little time to nurture the things they do well, even if they are not things that are taught in school. Kenneth Goldberg, Ph.D. www.thehomeworktrap.com.
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