Strategies for teaching the Common Core — no matter what you think about the standards - The Washington Post

Strategies for teaching the Common Core — no matter what you think about the standards - The Washington Post:

Strategies for teaching the Common Core — no matter what you think about the standards

Many of the posts I publish about the Common Core are about the federally funded tests aligned to the standards. Here’s a different one, about a new book by Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski “to maximize whatever opportunities the Common Core might offer” to English Language Learners — and, for that matter, to all students. Ferlazzo and Sypnieski are veteran teachers who have written a new book about how to teach “to maximize whatever opportunities the Common Core might offer” to English Language Learners — and, for that matter, all students. Ferlazzo has taught English and social studies to English Language Learners and mainstream students at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California, for years. He has written numerous books on education, writes a teacher advice blog for Education Week Teacher and has his own popular resource-sharing blog. Sypnieski has worked with English Language Learners at the secondary level for 20 years and has taught English and English Language Development at Luther Burbank High School for the last 13 years.

This is an excerpt from “Navigating The Common Core With English Language Learners,” by Ferlazzo and Sypnieski.

We don’t believe that a set of new standards is high on the list of our students’ needs.  However, since we live in the world as it is, and not the one we would like it to be, we felt a need to write about how to maximize whatever opportunities the Common Core might offer to our students.  In addition,  though we have concerns about how some are manipulating Social Emotional Learning, we felt that its positive aspects needed to be re-emphasized.

 Farmers and gardeners know you cannot make a plant grow…What you do is provide the conditions for growth.

 — Sir Ken Robinson

 This quotation illustrates the important role that Social Emotional Skills (also known as non-cognitive skills, along with many other labels) can play in students learning the academic skills listed in the Common Core Standards. It’s important to note that this notion is not one that is just coming out of our heads.  In fact, it’s being promoted by the originators of the Common Core Standards and education researchers.

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), one of the author’s of the Common Core standards, says:

 Along with mastery and application of essential content as typically 

Strategies for teaching the Common Core — no matter what you think about the standards - The Washington Post: