Common Core

Back in the 'olden' days, I learned how to count with dried pinto beans, or buttons, or used match sticks. Then some idjet came along and decided that beans, buttons, and match sticks were dangerous objects in the hands of first graders so they substituted paper strips. The strips were harder for small hands to manipulate and weren't nearly as hardy, but there ya go. It was still low tech learning.

We learned how to read by a combination of phonics and sounding out words. If you knew the phonics code, you could put together the various letter blocks together to make word. Pick + lock = picklock. Cat + nap = catnap. And so on. In the same way, you could deconstruct a word to sound it out.

Then the REAL idiots came along and decided that wasn't complicated enough. Phonics was baaaaad. Counting with paper strips was baaaaad. And lo, some nudjit with power in the school systems decreed that would no longer be the way kids learned.

Sight reading and New Math were introduced. Now we have a nation of adults who can't read OR add or subtract. So someone had a bright idea. We'll go back to the OLD way. Everyone got on the bandwagon. Educators saw the light! Most children learned.

As all things work, a new cycle rolled around and someone decided they had a better way. Because some children had difficulty learning. Instead of focusing on WHY they didn't learn--instead of giving them personal help--someone decided EVERYONE should learn at the same level. And our government made it a law, totally ignoring reality. NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND.

The truth is some children will NEVER learn more than basic skills. Some will be fortunate to learn to dress themselves and feed themselves. And some children are so advanced they can do high school work in second grade. The vast majority are in the middle. Every child should be challenged to the best of his ability. But we can't do that by treating them as cookie cutter kids. And we can't do it by inventing gibberish ways to teach them.

Now we have something called Common Core. The math problem above is an example. I foresee a new generation of kids who can't add or subtract. But that's okay! They'll have electronic devices to think for them. Of course, no one is considering what will happen when all our devices fail. Folks who have graduated in the last forty years have far fewer skills than those before that. Every generation depends more on technology and less on personal knowledge and skill. Whenever that happens, a small core of individuals ends up with all the political power. That's what we see happening now.

Common Core.