I have been homeschooling my kids through the online public school, Connections Academy, and we love it. We get to go at our own pace, and the kids love the flexibility it gives them. However, I don’t love the way our school systems are teaching our children. I’m sick to death of this Common Core! It infuriates me to death that the school systems are teaching our adolescents using the methods that they are.
Who in their right mind is going to walk around drawing all of these images to solve a Math problem? I have graduated high school with honors taking AP courses. I also did fairly well in my college courses too when I was able to focus on them (which towards the end, I couldn’t due to a LONG list of personal reasons beyond my control.) I refuse to teach my kids using the Common Core methods. We do what we HAVE to do when it comes to the Common Core training.
I see my kids spending days and almost weeks being told they have to learn how to fill in stupid boxes and draw images that aren’t going to help them in the real world solve their problems. I’m honestly lost on how to teach my kids using the Common Core methods. As a result, Del and I are teaching our offspring the way we learned how to do things.
If you agree me even a little bit please Pin this image.
Guess what…. Drum roll…
My kids are learning the material. They are doing well on the standardized testing. They are above average students. They also can DO PROBLEMS IN THEIR HEAD! They can even beat you at solving problems as you’re steadily trying to find a paper or a calculator to solve the problem.
Am I saying this to brag? NO! I’m saying this because I want it known that this Common Core stuff is for the birds. Instead, teachers should be able to teach their students! Teachers need to be able to gain control of their classrooms again. Teachers should not have to worry about a child’s self-esteem being crushed because they got disciplined in front of their fellow students.
What Students NEED
Students need to learn that the classrooms are for learning NOT socializing and focusing on becoming the most popular kid in school. It sure isn’t for sexual activities! From all the classes I’ve seen around me and the stories I read on the web, the classroom has become nothing more than a playground of sorts with very little education actually being taught.
My son is in second grade, and going into 3rd grade Math within the next week because he’s bored to death with 2nd grade work. If he had been in a classroom, the likelihood of him being given this chance would have been slim to none. He would have been in trouble for being talkative, rowdy, and distracting because he would have been BORED! I have seen this happen to many brilliant kids. Often the biggest reason a student misbehaves in a classroom setting is because they are bored to death, and their minds are not being challenged enough.
Fight to Remove Common Core Methods
There are also parents trying to fight to get rid of Common Core methods. I think we need more people to fight to remove it in our school systems. If there are students who truly benefit from it greatly. When I was going to school there was literally two levels of education, there were honors courses and then there was students who were average. I can remember fighting to get my grades up to get my behind in those honors courses. I didn’t want to be considered average, and in the ordinary classroom setting the teacher struggled to keep the class focused (that was when disciplining students was allowed.)
My inspiration for this post came from a lesson my niece brought over today concerning her Math. They spent several lessons teaching her how to draw out things to get an answer instead of teaching her how to solve it using equations and her MIND. I’m so sick of seeing time wasted and the energy it takes me to learn how to teach Common Core it’s pathetic. Why should we be forced to go out of our way to great lengths when we could have taken a straight line route and been there that much quicker?
What are your thoughts and opinions on Common Core? If you see something good from it, please enlighten me!
It seems to me that every so often school systems the world over are changed for no other reason than the person at the top wants to stamp their mark, it NEVER helps the children.
What is really needed is to keep politicians out of the school system.
I agree with you completely that politicians shouldn’t be the ones to make decisions about what is right for our school systems. I believe that parents should be given the right to vote for what they feel is best for their students.
I feel that we need to go “old school” in so many ways.
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If I had a child in school today and know what I know now, I would home school them and not through the public school system, that is for sure.
I choose the public school system because they provide the materials we need and if I need teacher assistance it’s available for us. We still have a pretty flexible schedule and can teach using our methods. Just as long as the students know how to do the lessons at the end that is all the care about at this point. As long as I have that freedom with them, I’ll continue to use Connections Academy. If they take that away from us, I’ll go another route now that I’m more experienced and know there is a slew of resources available to us.
This is a topic that burns me to a core. I part=time homeschool to keep my kid at a level I feel is what he should be and also to give him a change to learn math that will get him through college. Now that he is in Fifth grade it is getting better because Jr. High has not be given the give of CC yet in Mathematics. Thank heavens.
Great, now I need some coffee and a soap box. This subject really bugs me because CC is hurting kids.
I completely agree that Common Core is hurting them big time. I could get on a soap box with you on this topic. It bugs the tar out of me that it’s still being used in our fifth grade class.
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I don’t have kids in the grade, middle or high school anymore but I have friends that do. They are so fed up with the math their kids are learning. Each night they spend an hour or more going over the math homework. The poor child is in tears and they end up teaching her “their” way. Then they go back and go over it again. EVERY NIGHT! I can’t even imagine the horror! I feel so bad for all of you. I would not get it and I would definitely fight to have it removed.
Thank you for your words of encouragement. I hope that they remove it completely soon.
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I don’t know that much about Common Core–but from all the backlash I’ve heard about it, hopefully it won’t last long. I definitely appreciate the freedom to teach and learn in different ways, and that’s why I intend to homeschool my future children.
I believe many families are deciding to homeschool their kids for this reason and many others now.
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I’m very interested to see how Common Core and all this testing is going to play out in the coming years. What will it take to make the changes??
I really would like to know what it’s going to take to change the way things are now. I fear what is going to play out as a result of the Common Core training.
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I’ve been teaching the public school systems for 15 years. It is very hard as a teacher to get things changed. The people that are making these decisions for our kids sometimes have NO teaching experience. I do understand that we need to have some standards. Why are we failing as country in our level of education as compared to other countries? Where I work the kids get little to NO support at home. Most have no prior schooling experience when they walk in the doors in Kinder. Then we have the state assigning all these ‘standards’ that these poor kids cannot meet. They get older and older and still cannot read. What do we do? It’s a serious problem.
With my daughter in first grade now I am on the other side of teaching. I’m on the parent side. I don’t agree with some of the first grade requirements. They have very little time for ‘fun’ and exploration. It’s a very sad sight. I worry about the future. Kuddos to all of you homeschooling parents!
Thank you so much for sharing your own personal experiences. I worry about our kids future in more ways than one.
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My oldest is only 10 so I can\’t say what teenagers are doing with Common Core, but so far I\’ve LOVED it for our kids. They actually understand numbers and place value and learning what they are doing by multiplying two numbers. As a parent it requires me to learn some new (and possibly unnecessary) terminology, but it is so much more conceptual than the way I learned math as a kid. I recently came across a post at “A Whimsicle Life” called “I Heart Common Core” that says it much better than I can.
I’m glad to hear that from someone that Common Core is making a positive difference. I’m very much against it for the reasons I mentioned above, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not glad to hear it’s helping someone. I just wish it would be used as an alternative method to teaching versus being required for all students.
I had children in the public school system for over 25 years. I finally got totally fed up and homeschooled several of them. I couldn’t have made a better decision! I truly believe that a lot of reasoning goes into the new “Core Curriculum”…that being HOW TO KEEP PARENTS TOTALLY OUT OF THE LOOP!
I couldn’t help but laugh when I read this comment. 🙂 I am so glad that you were pleased with the results of homeschooling. We are too even if there are days I’m ready to pull my hair out because I’m doing it.
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