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Common Core State Standards

            When I first heard about the Common Core State Standards I was transitioning from high school into my Freshman year of college. I kept hearing negative things about them from teachers in my own family such as, “If all states adopt the same standard it leaves little wiggle room for individual children” and, “Oh this will be great, even more standards that restrict our way of teaching.” Knowing nothing about teaching at the time, I decided to accept these words as truth and brace myself to deal with all the negative consequences that Common Core would supposedly bring into the world of teaching.
            Five years, and a few months of practicum later I realized that the statements I had heard from the teachers that I had come to know could not be further from the truth, rather than restrict teaching or make things more difficult for individual children, Common Core has instead opened the door for them by simply providing a set of goals for students and teachers alike, and leaving it up to them to determine how to get there. This is emphasized in Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards in which it is stated that, “The Common Core Standards set general goals for student learning but they do not specify what or how to teach.” (Beach, Thien, and Webb 2). This in fact benefitted me very much as a practicum teacher as they gave me a goal to work towards with my students, but l was free to determine how to get there. And rather than make things more difficult for individual children it made things easier as I could differentiate instruction according to the needs of my specific students.

            Despite my initial misconceptions about the Common Core state standards I could realize that instead of restricting teaching and making it more difficult for my students to learn it instead makes it easier because I am able to determine how to instruct my students in my own way, and with a specific goal to work towards, which I believe allows me to better reach the needs of my individual students. In the span of these last few years I have learned that Common Core is a benefit to teaching rather than a hindrance.

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