General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Common Core teaches Gettysburg Address with no context or background. Unbelievable. [View all]Android3.14
(5,402 posts)First, I have little faith in Common Core. It's probably just another link in a chain of reforms that ultimately undergo a dumbing-down, or which the schools will replace quickly with a model that makes parents feel good about their kids, protects administrative salaries, and keeps the funding at as low of levels as possible. It's much cheaper to not teach kids. Plus ignorant people are easy to manipulate.
That given, I wonder if the CC model will actually work. It certainly can't be worse than the crap we have now.
Two, Phyllis Schlaffley and Glenn Beck hate Common Core.
Three, do you have any experience in teaching? If you did, you would recognize the technique. Frankly, I'm surpised the author of the article was unable to recognize it.
I'm sorry to say this, but I am reading a lot of criticism of Common Core from supposed progressives that doesn't make sense. As a former teacher and educator of teachers, providing material without context encourages investigation, questioning and the ah-ha moment of recognizing the context when it suddenly snaps into place with what a student learned about history from the history class down the hall from the English class. The Zen Buddhists use this technique when teaching students how to understand the meanings of koans.
The lesson doesn't withhold context for the entire lesson, at some point the students will draw enough clues that they will eventually recognize the context.
Under Bloom's taxonomy, this would fit under at least two cognitive levels.
http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/assessment/multiplechoicequestions/blooms.html#synthesis
Also from Valerie Strauss examining critics of Common Core
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/01-1