Students and Bears, Oh My! How Common Core Discards the Importance of Reasoning and Intuition
This post is about reasoning and intuition with students and bears, and what we have lost by focusing on Common Core State Standards and not the students themselves. There are interesting similarities. Let me start with bears.
I just returned from visiting Glacier National Park. Glacier is full of bears—both grizzlies and black bears. So, before hiking I listened carefully to rangers discuss bears. Rangers in national parks are fascinating people. They design their programs for children and adults. If you go to any national park, please listen to advice rangers give about how to deal with the animals at that specific park—including bears.
The first thing you want to do is respect such magnificent animals, of course, and understand as much as you can about them and their behavior. Below I provide a link to what to do about bears while one hikes in Glacier.
One ranger talked about using intuition if you run into a bear. First, you try to avoid bears and rangers will explain how to do this. But if you accidently meet one, and you understand bear behavior, you might be able to keep your cool and figure out what needs to be done in a split second.
With good reasoning the intuition sets in.
For example, if you run into a momma black bear, you don’t want to act ferocious, or act bigger than she is to scare her if she has cubs. She would likely get defensive. If a black bear is alone, you might act differently. Backing away slowly from most bears might do the trick. Bears usually want nothing to do with you.
This got me to thinking about the importance of using reasoning and intuition when you are a teacher.
The more teachers understand how to teach—the developmental age of the student and appropriate learning for the age group—the more they can reason how to address Students and Bears, Oh My! How Common Core Discards the Importance of Reasoning and Intuition: