First Impressions, Common Core

Holy cow! When I remember my school experience, I remember a lot of lectures, a lots of packets of worksheets, and a lot of reading "popcorn style". These styles must have worked to some degree because I am now a somewhat educated person. However, I feel like most of my education was not done in the classroom, but more socially and perhaps even more independently (i.e. the internet). When thinking like this, I feel like I now understand the process that the common core writers went through to construct these standards. Long gone are the days where children have the patience and the discipline to stay sitting in one spot for more than five minutes. Long gone are the days where it is ok to accept mediocre work and still giving high grades. We as teachers must hold these students to a much higher standard and to much higher expectations than what we were held to. These kids must walk into our classroom constantly wondering wether to not they can actually do the work that we are putting in front of them. However, as teachers, we need to help them achieve the standard that we have set. Mixing these expectations with the scaffolding and adding the positive reinforcement, I believe we can achieve what the CCSS writers were trying to achieve. Andrew Hargis