My summer has been filled with the beach...Common Core writing...the pool...parcc test specs...and a lot of hours logged on a laptop. It is hard to spend the time necessary to concentrate with little ones tugging at my leg to go outside and play in the sunshine. Time is not my friend right now.
One of my greatest inspirations, Nelson Mandela, is most likely spending his final hours on Earth. Here is one of his statements on education that particularly speaks to me:
"Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another."
I recently had to explain the Common Core to someone outside of education. To put it simply, I said that the standards are like the skeleton, but the instructor brings the body, the mind, the heart to the instruction. One cannot exist with only the skeleton. I don't want an instructor to regurgitate standards or 'teach to the test'. I also don't want a teacher who only 'teaches from the heart' . Teachers may be 'given' standards but it is what they 'make' out of the resources they have and who they have before them that separates a good teacher from a great teacher. I taught students who went to exceptional universities and are accomplished in their fields and I have taught students who are now in prison. It is for those students that we must all keep trying. We must all keep learning and trying.
An area of study in which I hope to concentrate on next is aggression in adolescents and the effects on reading comprehension. I will likely be posting articles and resources on that topic soon. I also hope to include resources for the Common Core and general education articles.
