Rules: In a text post, list ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Donât take but a few minutes, and donât think too hard â they donât have to be the ârightâ or âgreatâ works, just the ones that have touched you. Tag [ten] friends, including me, so Iâll see your list. Make sure you let your friends know youâve tagged them.
Harry Potter and the all of them by J.K. Rowling
Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
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sweetnessdecency replied to your post: Common Core State Standards and Libraries: Is It Worth It?
What kind of classes are you taking? All we talk about work is CCSS⌠It is important to note that the 70% is the ratio for high school and is supposed to mirror college expectations. But yeah, I totes count Magic School Bus
AW YEAH MAGIC SCHOOL BUS.
Yeah, I figured it would be a ruckus-causing thing in the education community. Â I was assigned the topic for the Information and Society class I'm taking for my Masters in Library Science. Â I did not even realize this was going on! Â But from some of the things I read, it sounds like they're slashing a lot of literature requirements for high school students, too, or at least making them really broad. Â It's causing SOME ripples in the library community, but mostly for like... school librarians. Â A lot of the things that their implementing sound basically like things that you could work with IF your school had a REALLY GOOD librarian. Â One of the sources I used was actually just published recently. Â I think it's the last one in my list. Â It actually listed some pretty good things at the very end that kind of work with CCSS, but I chose the ANTI-CCSS stance for my post. Â Hahahha.
Common Core State Standards and Libraries: Is It Worth It?
We were supposed to write two different viewpoints on an assigned topic with a partner. Â This is what I wrote regarding the Common Core State Standards... throwing it out there mainly for my one Tumblr teacher friend (THAT'S YOU, TERESA :D). Â But yeah... I actually found the research kind of... disturbing. Â Especially that part about 70% of reading material has to be nonfiction (but, also, what exactly constitutes as "nonfiction"? Â One of my sources actually asked that, too. Â Like... is the Magic School Bus fiction? Â But you learn from it... so is it NONFICTION?). Â What. Â Come on, you guys.
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are educational standards implemented by the majority of states in the US for students from kindergarten to twelfth grade to benchmark educational progress. Â The standards were implemented to replace and improve the No Child Left Behind initiatives, but since their adoption across the nation in 2010, they have become a hot button issue in the education community.
School administrations that hold the vintage view of the school librarian will believe that school librarians should not be vastly affected by the new CCSS. Â They would be mistaken as the CCSS has caused ripples of excitement within the school librarian population. Â The standards seem to support the shift in the roles of school librarians to encompass a media specialist aspect that many in the occupation have already accepted as part of their duties (Morris, 2012). Â On the surface, the CCSS certainly supports the school library media specialist and his or her new responsibilities in guiding students in the proper usage of new technologies. Â However, dissidents to CCSS find the emphasis on nonfiction alarming, another attempt to develop students into career-driven hard workers rather than well-rounded individuals. Â "[T]he Common Core... philosophy diminishes the rich benefits that all students gain from studying great literature: understanding bedrock themes and challenges that underlie all of human experience; considering differing perspectives and points of view; vicariously learning empathy and prudential decision-making; appreciating, and perhaps emulating, the well-crafted phrase, sentence, and paragraph; exploring places and times other than their own" (Robbins, 2013). Â This aspect of CCSS seems to almost downplay the importance of the human experience in the development of the American student. Â
The CCSS forces teachers to spend more time on nonfiction across the board; 70% of all reading material must stem from nonfiction sources (Spicer, 2013).  In contrast, very loose standards are placed on the literature taught in English class.  By putting a numerical value on fiction vs. nonfiction the government seems to imply that one has more value over the other.  "It is not the books.  It is not whether a student reads this many fiction titles and this many nonfiction titles that make a difference.  Do students read for the teacher or do they read for themselves?" (Spicer, 2013)  In its current state, the CCSS seems to downplay the way works of literature can give historical contexts in ways that nonfiction simply cannot in attempts to make cookie cutter graduates that will come out the other end as conventionally functional members of society.  Spicer, a teacher himself, is quick to point out that not all students learn in the same way and the benchmarks set by the CCSS cannot adequately gauge a student's learning. Â
The Common Core State Standards are an exciting opportunity for the future of school library media specialists. Â However, without proper training and with school administrations eager to cut library programs when budgets get tight, implementing the Common Core State Standards in their current state have the potential to stunt the intellectual growth of American students rather than develop them.
References
Morris, R.J. (2012). Find where you fit in the Common Core, or the time I forgot about librarians and reading.Teacher Librarians, 39(5), 8-12. Retrieved from Library Literature & Information Science Full Text.
Spicer, E. (2013). Common Core State Standards, nonfiction, and the need for common sense. Library Media Connections, 32(2), 18-20. Retrieved from Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text.
