What is the Common Core?

Currently there is a lot of talk, and sometimes argument, over the Common Core standards that most states have said they are or will be adopting for their schools. There often seems to be some kind of mystery associated with any conversations about the common core. In an effort to help others try to figure out just what this means, I will offer my interpretation.

Back in the good old days when many of our grandparents went to school, they spent most of their time learning the Three R’s: Readin’, wRitin’, and ‘Rithmetic. They learned to read books, write their names, and how to add and subtract (some may have called that learning to cipher). Learning these three things allowed them to know the same things that were common to almost everyone. It further allowed them to communicate with others and use their math skills to barter or trade goods that was fair to all. Reading, writing, and arithmetic were the most important, or core, items of common knowledge that people needed to understand each other and be productive functioning citizens.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending how you look at it, our current lives are no longer that simple. The most important, or core, items have expanded. We need to be good enough at reading and writing to understand literature and all of its conventions, as well as  reading for information (the what, the why, and the how) in order to understand the way things work. The word "things" means everything from simple machines or inventions to the different philosophies of our great and not so great leaders. Mathematics is no longer just adding and subtracting, but has expanded to probability, Boolean algebra, calculus, and many other areas that we now need to know to understand our world and the people in it. Our core knowledge of common content areas has expanded. This expansion of knowledge in three areas is what we now call the common core. Common core in its simplest form means all students are learning more in the core areas and have well trained teachers teaching them in new and better ways.

Currently we have Common Core Standards in English Language Arts (Readin’ and wRitin’) and Mathematics (‘Rithmetic). After all, remember what Mr. Shakespeare once said, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Sincerely,