Paul Horton: Has Common Core Lost the Plot?
Guest post by Paul Horton.
David Coleman, the current Chairman of the College Board and principle author of the Common Core Standards, proved his mettle as a curriculum writer when he declared, "Forgive me for saying it so bluntly, the only problem with ...that [creative] writing is that as you grow up in this world you realize people don't really give a [expletive] about what you think and feel."
My guess is that the bard pantheon up in the sky somewhere (Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, Yeats, Woolf, Achebe, Borges, and Lessing) wouldn't give a [expletive] about what Coleman thinks, either!
The fact is that humans are storytelling creatures! Now, there is nothing wrong with writing analytical memos. Heck, I get an analytical memo every day: my son can make a very concise and logical argument supported with more abundant evidence than any Pearson algorithm could possibly require for why he needs an iPhone. My guess is that if he wanted to become an aspiring global capitalist like Mr. Coleman he could sniff out the magic words in hundreds of memos while pimping "liquid information" for McKinsey Consulting. Mr. Coleman may be loyal to making money and now that he has much more than he could ever dream about, he may have no use for stories! Stay away from that Colorado hotel-keeping job: "all work and no play........."
The oldest story in any book is about how greed corrupts. If you aren't hospitable you might be smited (toasted). This is part of the reason why stories, storytelling, and story writing are so