“I will give you 10 seconds to memorize this number,” Leisha Fordham, the Common Core math representative said at a parent meeting on Feb. 7. The number 11911200130309130 popped up on the screen. At the end of 10 seconds, nobody in the class could remember all 17 digits. Fordham brought up the screen again and told them to look at the number again. This time she broke the number up into 11,9112001,30309,130. She told the class to think of the number as a month, Sept. 11 2001, the zip code of the APS building and the address of the Central APS Administrative building. She gave them another 10 seconds to look at the number and by thinking of it in this new way, the class was able to repeat the number easily.
“That’s how Common Core works,” Fordham said.
In 2010, the Georgia Department of Education joined 44 other states and three U.S. territories in adopting the Common Core State Standards Initiative. This school year, Georgia, including APS, started implementing those standards.
“Common Core states that there are a set of standards that really help to focus what our students are learning,” said Raynise Smith, executive director of the APS Curriculum and Instruction Department of Teaching. “It’s at a higher standard from our previous standards. It provides a common set of expectations across all these states that have adopted these standards, so that whether you are a child in Florida or a child in Georgia or in Chicago, you are held to the same set of expectations regarding what you are supposed to learn at each grade level.”
Smith said another issue Common Core tries to solve is the growing number of students who are not prepared for college and behind students from around the globe when it comes to competing in the global economy. The Common Core is trying to create standards that are not only uniform across the United States, but are equivalent to the standards set by countries all over the world.
“It will bring more consistency to the ways in which we teach and learn,” said David White, director of APS’s East Region, which includes Grady and its feeder schools. “ For this year, it’s being implemented in reading, english/language arts (ELA), and mathematics. Other disciplines will follow soon. For now, the Reading and ELA Common Core Standards are infused into other subjects where appropriate and possible.”
In ELA, Common Core is trying to make the texts that students read more relevant to the real world and make the classroom a more vibrant place, said Jamisha Williams, the ELA representative at the Feb. 7 meeting.
“It’s going to be more collaboration and students should be encountering more challenging texts. Students should be engaged in argument and opinion writing and they should be reading more information text to make learning more relevant,” Williams said. “This is an integrated approach to literacy and so that means that the reading, the writing, the speaking and the language should all be happening in the classroom at one time.”
Because the Common Core program was implemented this year, APS is still trying to provide new materials and training to teachers, said White. One of these teaching sessions took place on Feb. 18.
“We’re still engaging teachers in Professional Development and still investigating supporting materials and resources,” White said. “Because the Common Core State Standards are so new, most resource developers are still grappling with what materials and resources will be needed and working to package these in ways that will be useful to our teachers.”
ELA teacher Lisa Willoughby has attended a few of the professional training workshops and one of her debate cases a couple years ago was about Common Core.
“The purpose of those professional development courses is to make sure that teachers are familiar with the strategies and the underlying philosophy of the Common Core Standards,” Willoughby said. “As is always true for teacher coursework, if you can take away one or two good things from the workday, I usually view it as worthwhile.”
James P. Griffin, who has two daughters who attend Hapeville Charter, attended the meeting on Feb. 7.
“One of the key aspects of it for me is that whatever the kids are learning about, it needs to have a direct connection to the real world and their future,” Griffin said. “I think they need to understand that, when they start, they see mathematical computations and see multiplication that translates into dollars and real world contributions to humanity and society.”
Though Griffin likes the idea Common Core is promoting, he sees a problem in the implementation of the standards.
“Inertia,” Griffin said. “People don’t like to change and that’s a natural human response. People are afraid of change. If people felt comfortable with it and it is not a threat, then I think it will be received better.”
