My colleague in Common Core Fighting, Gretchen Logue, over at Missouri Education Watchdog has a very interesting article up about technology versus the ‘old fashioned’ way of doing things. Common Core is heavily dependent on technology, while the time-tested and proven methods of rote memorization and flash cards seem to be having more of a positive effect in one area of North Carolina.  Read her article, Common Core Fallacy: Students Need Expensive Technology to be Successful. 

This article jumped out at me personally as I have been working with my child over the Summer on math. Common Core math, as most have seen, involves multiple strategies being employed all on top of one another. It has created confusion and frustration for kids and parents alike. My own child even made the comment to me that he didn’t understand why he couldn’t just do it ‘the way I know how’ if he got the right answer. That was a moment in my parenting days that I will never forget. I had to bite my tongue and guide him in the understanding that he could do it the way he knew how and that the way they were demanding he represent his work wasn’t necessarily the only way.

We sat at our kitchen table the other day. No laptop. No ipad. No calculator. We sat with a pencil and a piece of paper. I taught him how to convert basic large fractions like one-quarter or one-half into a percentage. A simple picture of what the whole represented sufficed. Inside of 10 minutes, he got it. He was doing it himself — and in his head. No charts, no sticks or lines but on his own, using the one item Common Core seems to leave out: his own, unique brain.

Math is just one subject we’re covering this Summer. We’ve also taken a look at the Declaration of Independence and are reading about the Pilgrims and the early beginnings of our country. We’re reading books — FOR FUN. It’s amazing to see his eyes light up when he learns a new word or discovers that a story is more than writing an opening statement, three supporting statements and a closing statement as he was drilled to do in First grade.  I hope this Summer revives that love of reading and learning as he enters Second grade.

In a single 10 minute session, I as a parent, made a difference in my child’s learning. it didn’t require a national set of standards, just the time to reach him in the way that made sense to him.  Together, we broke The Myth of the Helpless Parent right there at our kitchen table.

I’ve taken back my son’s education. Your move, Common Core.