Post written by Howard Adelman, PhD, and Linda Taylor, PhD, codirectors of whole child partner Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA.
While we share many of the concerns critics have raised about the Common Core State Standards (and we know that the debates and the boycotts will continue), we do appreciate the concept of common core standards.
But from the perspective of a whole child and all children emphasis, let's be clear about a couple of critical matters.
For one, let's not ignore the fact that the Common Core State Standards being widely adopted focus only on school curricula, and so far only on a few facets. Hardly a whole child approach. And let's acknowledge that the movement continues to marginalize efforts to address barriers to learning and teaching. Hardly, an approach designed to enable teachers to effectively teach all students.
States concerned with whole child development have been busy trying to expand school curriculum by developing standards for social and emotional learning. That's a good thing as long as schools adopt such standards with a full appreciation of the role the arts play and the many natural every day opportunities at a