Common Core + Article - 09/30/2015

Reading the article helped me get a new perspective on the Common Core Standards. I believe it is important that we are able to teach children across the country at the same level, but I support several of the problems the CCS raise. From a personal perspective I can see how cultural experience can affect a student’s classroom performance. In addition to the benefits for white students of higher socioeconomic status mentioned in the article, the daily practices, habits, and activities that children grow up around also largely affect them as students. For example, when I went to eat breakfast every morning I would see my parents and grandparents reading the newspaper. While eating, they would engage in conversation regarding the daily news, which made me interested in the newspaper and lead me to read it. Later in the day, I would see my family members reading books. I would ask about the drawings on the covers and they would tell me about the stories. This made me want to read books. Therefore, though English is not my first language, I was exposed to literature, reading habits, and discussion daily. I believe that since reading is a crucial skill required to succeed in the U.S. classroom, I had a leg up over children who had grown up in cultures that value reading less. There’s nothing better about the culture I was raised in, but it definitely made it seem less scary  to have to read a novel in class when I had just finished re-reading the fourth Harry Potter for the third time. This is why the common core should not be a curriculum, and it is crucial for states (or maybe even districts) to develop their own assessment rather than having a one-end-fits-all type of mentality.