I want a fleet of Teslas not Tesla coils
I am a mother to three children. Two that I made, and a third that I creatively acquired. They range in age from 18 to 8. The eighteen year old is away at college and, for the most part, had the benefit of not having to deal with this Common Core crap. Now I look to the little guys, who are in elementary school, and I furrow my brow every time I consider their 'education'. They have been thrown into the middle of this convoluted nightmare and I've watched their enthusiasm and pride toward their school work dwindle away with each passing week. When I consider the changes I've seen in the last 6 months and apply it to the remaining 7 and 9 years, well, I shudder.
When I was in school, I had the benefit of teachers who were passionate about a variety of subjects. Mr. Waters, a war veteran, taught me about true patriotism and introduced me to a living, fascinating history. Ronnie Bush exposed me to Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbirdand translated Shakespeare so well, that I can read between the lines and 'get' the jokes. Mr. Miller introduced me to Nikola Tesla, the Serbian compelled to immigrate to America to fulfill his dream of being a modern inventor. To date, this is one of my favorite stories illustrating the beauty of America's tradition of emigration. I have these memories because of the passion expressed by my teachers. They cemented this knowledge by eliciting emotion.
Common Core squelches emotion at every turn.
What makes something memorable? In his book The Accidental Mind, the neuroscientist David J. Linden explains how emotions organize our memories:
'In our lives, we have a lot of experiences and many of these we will remember until we die. We have many mechanisms for determining which experiences are stored (where were you on 9/11?) and which are discarded (what did you have for dinner exactly 1 month ago?). Some memories will fade with time and some will be distorted by 
Badass Teachers Association: