Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

Op-ed: Foul shots in the classroom: A Fable

  • Other
  • by Ann Policelli Cronin
  • March 31, 2014
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"
Ann Policelli Cronin

APC

Ann Policelli Cronin

Imagine…

The NCAA Basketball Championship is based solely on free-throw shooting. Team practices are spent doing repetitive exercises of shooting from the foul line. All college players take the same free-throw shooting test. Their scores determine the excellence of the team, expertise of the coach and quality of the school. The team with the highest score becomes the national champion.

As a result of this new competition, the game of basketball is lost. The game, in which quick thinking, collaborative efforts and a whole array of athletic abilities are integral to the success of a team, is not played. The players begin to forget what it was to play 40 minutes of basketball. The coaches stop thinking about ways to develop talents of individual players and stop strategizing about how to make the team as a whole more successful. The fans forget about that long-ago game of basketball and enthusiastically cheer for their favorite foul shooters and compare them to foul shooters on other teams and in other countries.

Op-ed submit bugCritics say that free-throw shooting is a simple skill and won’t prepare the college players for the basketball played in the NBA or WNBA. They also say that free-throw testing was chosen to replace playing games because the NCAA commissioned people in the test-making business to make that decision.

If this scenario were real, there would be quite an outcry…

But something scarier is happening in public school classrooms due to the Common Core State Standards. At stake there is not the game of basketball, but the development of students as thoughtful, engaged readers and effective writers. The Common Core requires the teaching of 200 narrow skills each year. Such skills will never foster students’ growth as readers and writers. The Common Core keeps students on the foul line, practicing limited skills.

In high school English classes, teaching Common Core skills in preparation for the accompanying test means that students are not asked to create meaning as they read, to think divergently and innovatively, nor learn a variety of ways to express their ideas orally and in writing. Instead, learning the isolated skills of the Common Core will keep students at the rudimentary level of simply finding information as they read and writing in a prescribed formula without any personal investment or even their personal voice.

Teachers of literature in love with ideas must be quiet. Teachers whose satisfaction is helping their students grow as thinkers by immersing them in reading and writing must be quiet. They must spend time at the foul line, urging their students to sink more shots, urging them to get higher and higher scores on tests that classify and rank them compared to other test-takers.

Executives of testing companies designed the Common Core. They wrote standards with skills that are measurable on computerized tests. Those skills are far too small a definition of literacy just as free-throw shooting is far too small a definition of playing basketball. We could benefit from authentic standards, written by those who know how to teach and not measured by computerized tests. Unfortunately, the Common Core committee didn’t have one English teacher in love with ideas on it, not one coach who knows the game.

A foul shooting test will never determine the NCAA championship because of the reality facing college players: The NBA and WNBA await. That world of professional sports demands experience in playing the whole game of basketball. Similarly, the world of higher education and the global workplace await current public school students. That world demands that graduates excel in the complex thinking that a rich literacy environment teaches.

College basketball players certainly will not spend the season just practicing free-throw shooting; instead, they will work at becoming accomplished and strategic basketball players. How our children, our students, our future citizens and leaders, spend their season, their school year, however, is up for grabs. They will spend it either preparing for Common Core tests or spend it becoming thoughtful readers, effective writers and complex thinkers. They can’t have it both ways.

What will we as parents, educators and taxpayers choose for them? It is our call. The time for our voice and our action in opposition to the Common Core is now.

Ann Policelli Cronin taught middle and high school English, was English curriculum leader for school districts, taught university courses in English education, was assistant director of the Connecticut Writing Project and is currently a consultant for English education for school districts and university schools of education. She was named Connecticut Outstanding English Teacher of the Year and has received national awards for middle and high school programs she designed and implemented.

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ann Policelli Cronin

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
Best of 2019: Key Dems press bill to increase minority recruitment at Coast Guard Academy
by Ana Radelat

The bill is a response to allegations of discrimination and a racially hostile environment at the school.

Navy cuts number of EB Virginia-class subs in new contract
by Ana Radelat

Electric Boat wanted the Navy to include 10 subs, and possibly 11, in the so-called "Block 5" contract. But the Navy agreed to only nine.

Electric Boat facing mounting challenges as sub work ramps up
by Ana Radelat

There continue to be concerns about EB’s ability to build the new Columbia-class submarine alongside its smaller Virginia-class attack subs.

Talk of gun violence, little else
by Paul Stern

In national politics last week there was talk of little else than gun violence, white nationalism and gun control following the fatal shootings of 31 people in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. There was little more than talk, too.

Politics and the ‘dark psychic force of collectivized hatred’
by Paul Stern

President Donald Trump insists he is not a racist, but 51 percent of Americans believe he is, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released last week. Certainly his “send her back” comments about Somalia-born U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and last week’s jabs at U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Baltimore did nothing to dispel that […]

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion Lamont’s new vaccination priorities are simple and smart
by Richard Davies

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont’s new age-eligibility vaccine plan is simple, smart and straightforward. The more complicated the rules are, the greater the chance of screw-ups and of well-connected people getting their shots before they should. The governor is doing a good job.

Opinion Gas pipeline will threaten water quality, wildlife and wetlands
by Susan Eastwood

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has granted tentative approval of the 401 water quality certification for the Pomfret to Killingly natural gas pipeline. I urge DEEP to deny the 401 certification, as the proposed pipeline would violate the Connecticut’s water quality standards, and the conditions in the draft certification fail to protect our streams, wetlands, and wildlife.

Opinion Connecticut and the other Connecticut. Which will endure?
by Ezra Kaprov

What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘Connecticut’? Possibly, you think of a 43-year-old Puerto Rican man who arrived here with his family following Hurricane Maria. He works full-time as a machinist at the Sikorsky plant, and he coaches a prizefighter on the side.

Opinion COVID-19 increases urgency for legislature to pass medical aid-in-dying law
by Dr. Gary Blick

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the profound tragedy of loved ones dying alone, in a hospital or nursing home, without the care and comfort of loved ones surrounding them. This pandemic also demonstrates the fragility of life, the limits of modern medicine to relieve suffering, and has magnified the systemic racial disparities in our healthcare system, resulting in higher hospitalization and death rates for people in communities of color. We must eradicate these disparities, so everyone has equal access to the full range of end-of-life care options.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO