An Open Letter to the Architects of the Common Core
Dear Architects of the Common Core,
How do you propose to test the skills and capabilities learned by the 8th graders at King Middle School in Portland, Maine? If you missed our recent NewsHour piece, you may watch it here. In just 11:38, correspondent John Tulenko and producer David Wald brilliantly capture how a 4-month ‘deeper learning’ project changed the lives of Liva Pierce, Emma Schwartz, Nat Youngrin and other young students.
John made four trips to Portland, beginning last October. He was there when the two science teachers explained the project: the kids were going to imagine and then design their own energy-generating devices that would improve people’s live.
The kids were clearly intimidated. Liva Pierce told John, “That’s way too much. I don’t know the first thing about electricity. I don’t know the first thing about windmills. I am totally going to fail.”
Emma Schwartz was equally pessimistic: “First of all, I can’t build anything, and I have never