Friday, June 18, 2010

I Know I'm Beating this into the Ground

Dina:

From a student’s end of year reflection.

“I learned that writing helps get a lot of feelings out, and that it helps you get through a lot. For example when my family member died I wrote a story about it and it made me feel a lot better…last year I never thought I would like writing. But this year changed everything.”

To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived…this is to have succeeded.~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The thing almost nobody has noticed is that in the writing standards of high performing countries, the above is part of the fundamental goals of the curriculum. In the Common Core, it isn't.

3 comments:

Dina said...

KEEP. BEATING.

:)

Leroy's Mom said...

Cause Common Core is meant to address employers complaints that their employees come out of school and "can't write a decent memo", which is an entirely different beast.

Tom Hoffman said...

Actually, I'd prefer the Common Core standards if they focused on things like writing a decent memo. The old NCEE New Standards, for example, were a lot more practical in that way, and I think stronger on the whole. The Common Core focuses more on a kind of arch, narrowly focused, academic writing.