Teaching As Product Development [Infographic]

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Teaching As Product Development

by TeachThought Staff

“Parenting as product development.”

The following graphic is an interesting quick-look at the Common Core, if for no other reason than how it frames it through the lens of consumerism, parenting, and a cultural trend of normalizing high pressure, high standards, and high degrees of uniformity. (We may have added that last one ourselves.) The thesis seems to be that the Common Core are part of a larger movement to “push” kids.

As evidence, it offers questions that seek to represent old, “non-Common Core” standards, and the Common Core standards themselves. The consensus of the graphic is that old standards were full of “low-level” thinking (What is the name of the spaceship?), while the new standards “push” students (What is the author trying to convey by using…).

This is an oft-repeated misconception of the Common Core standards, and a dangerous one that, in always joining “rigor” and “Common Core”, the former begins to replace the latter in thinking until they are one and the same. It’s not true that all “old” standards were simple, nor that the Common Core should be first and foremost characterized by their rigor.

But the the question of parenting, teaching, and the constant impetus of pressure (rather than affection or curiosity) is a compelling one. The graphic mentions the idea of learning through play (a core TeachThought tenet), the dangers of too much rigor, and notes the increasing popularity of homeschooling.

Though it’s unclear that the Common Core is to blame for this all (rather than the system itself that looked to the Common Core as a tool to solve education’s mediocrity), as far as infographics go, it does a decent job of establishing an important–if a bit cliche–position around the concept of “rigorous national standards.”

In pushing for rigor, complexity, and “sameness” through a climate of standards, measurement, and data, are we continuing a trend of parenting–and teaching–as “product development”?

Common Core
graphic source bestmastersineducation.com