Common Core Standards and Square Watermelons



A visual representation of common core standards for common students.

Everybody will be the same with the same standards.

 

 

 

No, these aren't watermelon designed candles! They are actually fruits ready for shipping. It seems a little crazy but when you put a form around an immature fruit or vegetable it will grow to fit into that form. Apparently these watermelon can be shipped in greater quantities by shaping them. No joke!

 

From Wikipedia: "In Japan, farmers of the Zentsuji region found a way to grow cubic watermelons by growing the fruits in glass boxes and letting them naturally assume the shape of the receptacle. The square shape supposedly makes the melons easier to stack and store, but the cubic watermelons are often more than double the price of normal ones. Using similar techniques, growers have also created more complex shapes of watermelon, including dice, pyramids, and faces."

 

 

I saw this post on Facebook from SummerWinds Nursery in Mountain View, CA. Here is an interesting remark from the nursery:

 

They could be grown organically since the glass is only used to shape them. But you're right, it might be a hard sell to convince people they aren't mutant melons!

 
 

When I saw the photo I immediately thought of the "common" students we will be educating with the common core standards.  All students learning the same standards, using the same assessments for presumably the same outcome.  It is becoming an increasingly more difficult sell to convince the taxpayers the reformers aren't selling them mutant reforms. 

 

If farmers can grow watermelons to grow in a specific form, the upside for the seller is the capability to grow greater quantities.  If education reformers can educate to all students in the same standards/assessment box, the alleged result will be to create a managed workforce since every student ostensibly has the same skills and knowledge.

 

As Yong Zhao writes in Education in the Age of Globalization:

 

...let me restate my main point: it is impossible, unnecessary, and harmful for a small group of individuals to predetermine and impose upon all students the same set of knowledge and skills and expect all students progress at the same pace (if the students don’t, it is the teachers’ and schools’ fault). I am not against standards per se for good standards can serve as a useful guide. What I am against is Common and Core, that is, the same standards for all students and a few subjects (currently math and English language arts) as the core of all children’s education diet. I might even love the Common Core if they were not common or core.

 

Now that you know CCSS wants to turn out children looking the same (just like square watermelons) to serve the government/private sector purposes, read Zhao's thoughtful response to Marc Tucker's contentions on the necessity of CCSS.  Zhao's article may be one of the best refutations to the education reformers' arguments that are never backed up by fact, but rather, fantasy and meaningless rhetoric.

 

Zhao writes:

 

 It is simply not true that the Common Core will prepare our children for the future. To conclude, I quote a comment left on my Facebook page by one of my personal heros, former president of America Educational Research Association (AERA) and widely respected educational researcher Gene Glass: “Common Core Standards are idiots’ solution to a misunderstood problem. The problem is an archaic, useless curriculum that will prepare no child for life in 2040 and beyond.” 

 

And who wants all children the same...like square watermelons?

 

 

 

 



The Most Important Education Lesson For Children is Not From the Government

What is the most important lesson children can learn?

It's not from the Department of Education, Bill Gates, Common Core standards or mandated by David Coleman and the CCSSO.

It's not from mandates costing billions of dollars and has zero to do with becoming globally competitive or a global citizen.

It's not being assessed once every three weeks and having to have a computer to figure out if not if child understands the content of the material, but rather the "process".

Here is a story of a young man who understands what differentiates a human being from a commodity.  Don't you wish the "reformers" hell bent on remaking people into capital would teach the lesson Conner and Cayden Long teach others?

Conner and Cayden know they are more than a data set for a managed workforce.  Existing for the government is not the ultimate goal in their lives.

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Be sure to watch the video to the end.

From Sports Illustrated Kids:

What if someone you loved couldn’t play sports? He or she couldn’t feel what it’s like to catch a pop fly, see a shot hit the back of a soccer net, or cross a finish line.

Conner Long is nine years old. His little brother Cayden is seven. But Cayden can’t do a lot of things his big brother can do. At four months old, Cayden was diagnosed with a condition called hypertonic cerebral palsy, which leaves him unable to walk or talk on his own. Playing sports is a great way for brothers to bond, but it seemed to be out of the question for the Longs — until Conner had an idea.

A year and a half ago, he and Cayden started participating in triathlons together. Conner swims while pulling Cayden in a raft, bikes with his little brother towed behind him in a trailer, and pushes that trailer when they run. Over the past 18 months, the pair from White House, Tennessee, traveled up and down the East coast to compete in races. Seeing the brothers working together has inspired onlookers, while bringing Conner and Cayden closer than ever. Their amazing determination and spirit is why the Long brothers are the 2012 Sports Illustrated Kids SportsKids of the Year.
 

....Conner’s ultimate goal is to one day race with Cayden in Kona, Hawaii, at the Ironman World Championships. Kona is where the best in the world compete. It’s a grueling race, a 2.4-mile open water swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and finally a 26.2-mile marathon run. No one has ever finished the course in less than eight hours.

By the time they’re old enough to compete at Kona, Cayden would be a grown man. Is it even possible? Of course. It will take years of hard work and sacrifice. But the Long Brothers each have one good reason to work towards that dream: each other.

Read more here.

Teachers - Is This Your Replacement?

McGraw Hill happily announced the nationwide distribution of their new on-line language arts software.  

Glencoe Writer's Workspace, [is] the company's first online language arts program for middle and high school students. The program offers students rigorous language arts instruction that meets the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), English language proficiency standards and college and career readiness standards in an exciting, interactive online environment. 

Writer's Workspace helps develop students' writing fluency and proficiency to handle the demands of high stakes assessments including the ACT and SAT and mastery of the Common Core State Standards. It also supports English Language Learners and students in need of intervention and provides personalized instruction to help all learners acquire the language usage skills necessary to be effective communicators. 

This program is so good it provides reading and writing instruction via a "dynamic platform" that is accessible "anytime, anywhere."  Even the grading process has been taken over by the Online Essay Grader.  The teacher's only job is to track homework and provide immediate feedback on submissions. But since the Essay Grader will be assigning the grade, it's not clear what benefit the teacher's feedback is.  As we noted here kids are pretty good at figuring out what the program wants and soon won't need feedback from a live person.

Teachers - Are you as excited about this on-line education?  Does it make you wonder why you spent all those years and dollars getting an education in teaching so you could count homework and provide extraneous feedback?

McGraw Hill is rolling out the Language Arts version this year.  Math is coming soon because both subjects are part of the CCSS, which by the way haven't been finalized yet.  Interesting how an education publisher has already developed software that "meets the CCSS" before those standards have been developed or announced. How is that possible? Hmmmm.