College English Prof: Common Core Will Make My Job Harder
Aaron Barlow, an associate professor of English at the New York City College of Technology wrote a piece on the Academe Blog (of which he’s the Executive Editor) which is published by the American Association of University Professors. He states that the Common Core English Language Arts standards are designed for failure.
Strong words and he makes a strong case.
He says the Common Core will make his job as a college English professor harder.
Will the CCSS adequately prepare students to succeed in my Composition and Literature classrooms?If a student comes into my classroom with curiosity piqued by broad exposure to cultural, historical and scientific information and the ability to sit down and read a book with pleasurefor an hour at a time, that student will succeed in my class. That student is primed for the dynamic conversations at the heart of learning—especially in what CCSS, with its stultifying faux precision, calls English Language Arts (ELA).Mastery of ELA is participatory, a dynamic and not a thing that can be broken down into