The Common Core's Fundamental Trouble

In the article "The Common Core's Fundamental Trouble", Valerie Strauss discusses the pros and cons of the Common Core.  The positive outlook of the Common Core is that it will provide stronger critical learning skills, require student-centered teaching with collaborative and reflective learning, and set higher expectations for all children to do better.  Continue to read the article, we soon realize that Strauss is not in favor of the Common Core.  She reminds the readers of No Child Left Behind.  It was similar to what the Common Core is trying to do; however, the Common Core is a revised version of it.  Strauss also makes note that NCLB. had no significant results for schools.  After a decade-long of implementing NCLB, it was "a dismal failure in both raising academic performance and narrowing gaps in opportunity and outcomes."  By adopting the Common Core State Standards, Strauss feels that the country is repeating the same mistakes as it has when it enforced NCLB.

Learning should be F.U.N!  School should be a place where children can go and look forward to everyday. As schools across the Nation are adopting the Common Core, the fun and excitement of school are slowly but surely being sucked out of the system.  I remember a professor told me that as teachers, we should never make our students memorize information.  Instead, we should encourage them to learn to use the information they learned in school and apply it to every day life.  The Common Core is basically teaching children to memorize what they learned and regurgitate on standardized testing days to measure how much they learned.  This is not F.U.N.  Keep in mind that kids need to be kids.  They should not already be stressing out over tests.