2-bit lit crit and quality control

Terrence Moore's The Story-Killers was a revelation to me in any number of ways, one being the idea that English teachers should not spend their time teaching what Moore calls two-bit lit crit. (I'm sure Carol Jago has something intelligent to say on the subject -- will report once I finally get to her book.)

In the meantime, just a few minutes ago I came across the video below, which appears on the flipped learning network site's "Examples of Videos page." The lesson pretty much exemplifies two-bit lit crit, I think.

But the two-bit lit crit-ness is the least of it, which is why I'm posting.

Watch the first 30 seconds or so. See what you think.

The oddness of this flipped-classroom offering brings up an issue I've been wondering about: where is the quality control?

Here in New York, administrators are now required to make at least two visits to each teacher's classroom per school year (my district is doing four) -- but if teachers are recording their lessons, who's watching the videos?

Do the 'board members' and 'staff' of the flipped learning network watch lesson videos before posting them to their site?



Plot Structure at the IMA (7:08, Cockrum)

Massachusetts School Law of 1789

From Terrence Moore's The Story-Killers:

Whereas the Constitution of this Commonwealth hath declared it to be the duty of the General Court, to provide for the education of youth: and whereas a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue is necessary to the prosperity of every State, and the very existence of a Commonwealth:

     Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled . . . That every town or district within this Commonwealth . . . shall be provided with a School-Master or School-Masters, of good morals, to teach children to read and write, and to instruct them in the English language, as well as in arithmetic, orthography, and decent behavior . . . And every town or district containing two hundred families, or householders, shall be provided with a grammar School-Master, of good morals, well instructed in the Latin, Greek, and English languages . . .

     Section 4. Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That it shall be and it is hereby made the duty of the President, Professors and Tutors of the University at Cambridge [Harvard], Preceptors and Teachers of Academies, and all other instructors of youth, to take diligent care, and to exert their best endeavors, to impress on the minds of children and youth, committed to their career and instruction, the principles of piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love to their country, humanity, and universal benevolence, sobriety, industry and frugality, chastity, moderation and temperance, and those other virtues which are the ornament of human society, and the basis upon which the Republican Constitution is structured. And it shall be the duty of such instructors, to endeavor to lead those under their care (as their ages and capacities will admit) into a particular understanding of the tendency of the before mentioned virtues, to preserve and perfect a Republican Constitution, and to secure the blessings of liberty, as well as to promote their future happiness; and the tendency of the opposite vices to slavery and ruin.

Virtues are the ornament of human society and the basis upon which the Republican Constitution is structured.

Terrence Moore on the twenty-first century global economy

To their credit, the authors of the Common Core, while they are not completely clear on their aims of education, certainly repeat the same phrases concerning their ends again and again. The principal phrase they use is "career and college readiness." On the first page of the introduction to the English Standards, they use that phrase or some variant at least six times in what cannot be more than seven hundred words. It appears throughout the rest of the document, too. Some people might say that the repetition of the phrase produces clarity. Others might say it makes the document sound like a broken record, or that the phrase is like a bad cough that won't go away. Either way, these are their end of education: career and college readiness.

The other phrase that is only slightly less important is "twenty-first century globally  competitive society." Anyone who pays attention to what is said about education today has heard this phrase countless times. In fact, it seems to be the only thing that most of the politicians and bureaucrats can say when addressing education. "We have to prepare our young men and women for a twenty-first-century global economy," say all the talking heads. The twenty-first-century global economy, you see, is a very scary thing. It is much carrier than the twentieth-century global economy that we grew up in (though there is no Soviet Union and no Cold War). So we need to do whatever it takes!

[snip]

Slyly but unmistakably, the phrase "twenty-first-century global society," whatever others may mean by it, is being used by the authors of the Common Core to bring about radical, progressive ends of education, ends that would not be supported by the majority of parents if they knew what was really going on in the schools. Thus the insufficient and radical ends of education pursued by the Common Core Standards will make the nation's public schools both less and more than they should be: inferior schools academically, and officious, overreaching schools politically and socially. The remedy to these shortsighted and radical ends is a traditional, classical, liberal education.

The Story-Killers by Terrence Moore

The joke's on you

So I've finally delved into the Common Core ELA standards, and....yikes. Always worse than you think.

Reading the standards in the wake of attending 3 district Common Core presentations (a fourth awaits on YouTube) is like a good news/bad news joke without the good news.

The bad news is Common Core.

The other bad news is my district has no idea what Common Core actually says, and they're doing it all wrong.

e.g.: nowhere in the Common Core will you find the words "21st century skills."

It's like that old Woody Allen joke, The food is terrible and the portions are too small.