Category: Uncategorized

Common Core, Should It be so Common?

 

The Common Core is the standard of education across America. It is used by all most American students, yet it does not effectively teach students. The Common Core is not effective and fails students when they get to higher studies and the workforce.

The Common Core often does not prepare students for the real world, and cost far too much to integrate. According to a FairTest (a Common Core Watchdog ) report, “Entire states, like Alaska, have canceled tests because of technical problems. More than 30 states have reported computer testing problems since 2013” (“The Common Core hurts students and Costs Billions” 2). This shows that not only do things as simple as operating systems to run the tests sometimes prevent students from learning, as well as mandated online test making it so that students can not even take benchmark tests, making the system ineffective and costing the schools money.

Even after dealing with the headache of these technical issues, these tests are meant to show where students are in the very specific learning areas, areas that do not prepare kids for their future or give them the skills to find the information to prepare themselves. The common core, however, does give students an idea of where they are in a specific area, but it fails to further the learning of students, further their ability to gather knowledge of their own or prepare them to apply these skills later in life. According to the NAEP in 2013, ¨Connecticut high school seniors performed at the very top of the entire country on the reading test. “Their performance was not at all a result of the Common Core since the new standards have only been recently implemented across the state in the past year or two, and this cohort of high school seniors never experienced them in the classroom¨ (Scarice 1). Therefore, the Common Core does not actually help students, instead, it helps to rank groups of students, not to teach and educate students.

Some would argue that the common core provides a steady baseline of education for all students in all areas. Cheryl Mosier, an Earth Science teacher from Colorado states, ¨“With the Common Core, we’re not going to have pockets of really high performing kids in one area compared to another area where kids aren’t working on the same level,¨ While it is true that the common core tries to keep a steady base of learning, it often sacrifices discovery and individuality in learning, stresses normality, and transforms kids from students to numbers.

Common core is, in short, a method that hurts students and fails to prepare them for the future. It is expensive and sometimes does not even work. It attempts to create a flat standard of learning, but in doing so it compromises creative learning and the individual interests of students.

 

 

Anthem Reflection

Anthem is a novella written by Ayn Rand. The story is set in a futuristic and communist-based society and follows main character Equality. The society is focused on the betterment of the collective sense of man, instead of the individual. Rand has used her childhood of growing up in Soviet Russia to craft a captivating society. Equality is clearly mentally and physically different than those around him, which is frowned upon by those in his community. The idea of the collective mind is shown perfectly when Equality is shamed for being taller or smarter, even though it has no relative detriment to the society.

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The author escaped from communist Russia as a child and her escape is clearly reflected in the novela. The novela beautifully shows the transition from living for those around you as a collective and living for yourself as an individual. The novela however more accurately shows the struggle to fight the communist nature the characters were raised in. The characters use “we” and “our” to refer to themselves but towards the end of the story the characters adopt the use of “I” and “me”. This is a powerful change that mirrors Rand’s escape from communism and the collective, as well as the start of the characters creating an individual identity.

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Although his society held the idea over his head, Equality realized that his own happiness was more important than what he had been taught. The text tells us, “I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them”, and “To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.” These two quotes show the mental transition from Equality being a captor of the communist society to being free of the chain of his brothers and the hero of his own fate. This change is not an easy one however. In the picture above, you can see the mental and physical isolation that lead Equally to leave, but only through the struggle against the principles in which he was raised was Equally able to escape.

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I have learned a great deal from Anthem. The story has taught me much about following the crowd and what is conconciderted the “norm” if you will, verses what you think is right and what you want to pursue. I have learned above all else, that it is not worth sacrificing your goals and passions for the approval of the others around you, even if it is difficult to do so.

More about Ayn Rand

First Blogging Feedback Reflection

The feedback on my blog was helpful. I found tremendous value in the raw observation of my blog. The organization of the blog was important to me, but I needed to be more focused on the needs of those who read my blog. There was an absence of pictures in my fourth post for example, and it was noticeable to those who were reviewing my blog. In the future, I will focus more on my thoughts and analyzation of the text as opposed to just a summery. The blogs that I read that were more focused on their own thoughts and ideas stemming from the text were more interesting and I will focus more on that style.