Teacher

I started reading Meditations from the Mat this weekend. The writings are daily practices in mindful meditation written by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison and had come highly recommended by a group of yogis I've encountered in an online group.In explaining his own yoga journey, from a weekend retreat at Kripalu to yoga teacher training, Rolf Gates relayed a story about an encounter with Baron Baptiste, renowned yoga teacher and author.

..."Are you a teacher?" I said I was, but the words didn't ring true. I taught classes, but I was not a teacher.

For a while I puzzled over how that could be true; if one taught, one must be a teacher, right?As Rolf explained, the act of teaching is the act of drawing out. In yoga, that means drawing out what the student may already know about breath, alignments, and postures.In education today, do we have the flexibility to draw out of our students what they already know and can connect to? Can we lead them to knowledge without having to force it in before the students are ready for it?Standards in a general sense, are good end-goals for education and educators. Where standards and standards-based education go awry is when those end points are unreasonable or developmentally inappropriate or, in some cases, designed to foster failure. The purpose of early childhood education should not be a dress rehearsal for intermediate grade level standardized testing. Yet it sometimes is.As an example, I have heard from participants in the graduate level literacy class I led tell of kindergarten students writing or keyboarding.  This is wrong. Forcing young learners toward skills that are outside what is developmentally appropriate for them is a disservice to them.Teachers want to teach, to draw out, what their students know to make connections. We want learning to be relevant, to spark curiosity and to stay with our students. We want to teach. 

The Uncommon Common Core

Our District has a committee is working on unpacking the Common Core for Pre-K to 8 this summer. I volunteered - begged really - to do this and, lucky for me, I am part of the committee.Even with all of the expertise on this committee, there are struggles as we dig through seemingly simple standards only to discover that it's more complicated than it appears from the surface.  What will be important at one grade level may not be emphasized (notice I didn't say it wouldn't be important) at the next -- I have to say that the way these standards are built shows much thoughtfulness into the process of becoming mathematically literate.Here are some of the pieces that I think are strong:

• The standards are very specific. It is quite clear what skills and concepts each grade level will be responsible for.
• There is a place for fluency with computation and it is spelled out explicitly.
• Topics are explored in depth and students are expected to demonstrate understanding. Rote processes are not going to be enough; if a student is using the standard algorithm (for example), then that students needs to be able to explain how and why that algorithm works.

It is gratifying to see this committee complete the shift begun almost 10 years ago - the shift to thinking in terms of "standards" and not what page of a text is covered.  Finally a curriculum guide that recognizes the expertise of the teacher in choosing the appropriate materials to use when teaching -- which doesn't mean nothing is provided for those who want that support; but it is freeing for those of us who have felt hindered by a particular program or product being used district-wide.

It is going to be a massive undertaking to update guides, update assessments, and provide support for teachers who haven't had the opportunity to look at these standards in depth.  It is an uncommon opportunity.