Niel DePonte
The Common Core State Standards document (CCSS) states:
[College and Career Ready] students are engaged and open-minded—but discerning—readers and listeners. They work diligently to understand precisely what an author or speaker is saying, but they also question an author’s or speaker’s assumptions and premises and assess the veracity of claims and the soundness of reasoning.
Being a discerning reader of the CCSS, I love the idea of being career ready, it sounds great. But I am left pondering the question, “To which careers are we referring?” I agree that the CCSS, if met, would actually allow for a graduating senior to be ready for virtually any field.
But there is a catch. I don’t see how there would be enough time across a K–12 learning curve for a student to become deeply engaged in any discipline within a school such that the student could gain a sense of mastery of a discipline, craft, artistic or athletic pursuit…with the obvious exceptions of language arts and math, the primary subjects of the standards themselves.
The focus on the use of language and numbers as important tools for expression within an educated society is understandable. But what of experiencing creative processes using other tools? What of practicing critical thinking with other tools? What about the sensory tools available to students?
For example, why not teach students to see deeply when looking at a piece of artwork? Yes, of course they would need language to discuss what they saw, but what if they chose to dance their reaction? Would this form of expression be any less valid than an essay? Not to me. It would not, however, give the student the appearance of being college and career ready according to the CCSS. What if that career choice was professional dancer?
Where is the one standard that matters in every grade: “The student will learn to enjoy school, get to choose areas of study aligned with their particular interests, have the opportunity to pursue those interests, (and I will add for the CCSS devotees in the audience), and receive training in English Language Arts and math that relate to that particular interest and via that particular field of study”?
Significant dropout rates exist in every city across the country, yet the CCSS standards ultimately only apply to those who make it through all 13 years of school. Are we somehow endorsing potentially driving kids away from school by a continued hyper-focus on standardized testing to which the CCSS will likely lead, even though CCSS authors have yet to state their assessment model?
The result could very well be a two-class society, the educated and the substantially less educated, and potentially continue a growing class division between the rich and poor. Is this really what we want our public school system to be about? Is our ultimate national goal to catch Finland, Singapore and South Korea in our test scores?
I hope not. I hope we can offer greater choice and opportunity for students to learn language and math skills through other subjects that are far more inclusive than the ones the CCSS mentions, even having given a cursory nod to history, science, and social studies.
I hope we can someday make our national education goals more student-centric and more individualized, respecting the diversity of talents and intelligences, and the history of free and creative expression of the individual and their ideas, that has always been at the forefront of American creativity and productivity.
The CCSS train has left the station and we apparently have little choice but to get on board. But what are we going to do to maintain the rest of our curricular options for kids and respect the multiple intelligences that children bring to the classroom? That’s a question artists and art teachers need to keep in the forefront of the CCSS discussion.
The CCSS does not solve (nor can it) the inadequate time allotment and quality of arts, history,science, programing in our schools. This currently is a school, district, and state issue that must be addressed. Currently,our school policy does not honor Multiple Intelligence Theory. Time allotment of the school day (equal time in the different intelligence areas) is a good place to start to respect the strengths of our students. There are schools that have done this quite well. I urge all readers to think and act on this issue.
However, in all professions in the arts, a great amount literature exists in the form of critiques, artist statements,and technical writing. Let us remember that the arts are more than just the studio and spatial experience, but encompass criticism, aesthetics, and history. These often go untouched in K-12 arts education.
As educators, it is crucial that we respect learning in all disciplines by increasing the rigor across the curriculum. The arts are perhaps the most rigorous of all the disciplines, let our classroom practice model the persistence, experimentation, and commitment to quality modeled by professional artists.
I often wonder where the employers, who will presumably hire these career-ready graduates, are in these conversations. And not just the arts managers, but the business leaders. Education is everyone’s issue, we all need to be involved.
Niel DePont has raised questions that most people are afraid to confront, and he makes a good case for the arts as education and career. I have only one comment: I for one resist the “train has left the station” metaphor because those of us who share Neil’s lamentation that it’s too late, Nathan, should be the ones raising our voices, together. It is clear to me as I read the papers, journals and books that there is considerable push-back about both the content and the process of CCSS. There is still time to zone in on the assessment folks who are currently having a difficult time with their assignment. If all we end up with is more standardized testing, we will have come full circle, left with a lot of academic language and very little advance in a well-balanced education that includes the arts at its core. Thank you, Niel, for your truth telling.
This post really needs some school administrators
chiming in. The word “core” is of utmost importance – the arts and/or a
multiple intelligence approach is not part of the thinking because the arts and
creativity in our culture are basically second citizens. The current education
paradigm does not even allow administrators to think creatively. For multiple
intelligences to be considered today there would have to be a total
reengineering not just of curriculum but of budgets and community priorities.
Until we depart from the Western/European enlightenment standards of language,
math and science this is just not going to happen. IMHO. Magnet schools are
part of the solution but the bigger question is why doesn’t our society value
creativity and the arts more?
jANE S – It may interest you to know that the A+ schools in North Carolina and Oklahoma both include Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiply Intelligences in their curriculums, each in different ways. What is important about MI is its insistence on variety versus one single indicator of being “smart.” I am struck by your final question wondering why the arts and culture are not sufficiently recognized – I am writing my arts in ed memoir tackling just that question – over the 6 plus decades that I’ve been struggling in the cornfields….would be nice to think with you and others about this
I agree with Jane Remer. It’s never too late to be the squeaky wheel on these issues if they mean that much to us and to our future workers. I also understand Jane S.’s lament but in many cases its not about a lack of valuing but a lack of leadership and imagination coupled with Deb V’s comment that business leaders are not at the table when these decisions are made. Finally, career ready which means ready to work with only a diploma is to me a frightening thing in a rapidly changing world – isn’t part of the problem with our unemployment that the people who only have a diploma are not ready for the new jobs and have been laid off of the old ones that won’t come back?
Victoria, thanks….and I agree with you, too, esp. your final remark…
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