A reader writes in response to Deborah Meier’s post:

It is easy to say that standards are just standards but when the staff developers for the NYC DOE have mandated PD for pre-k teachers and make us sit through an entire day of a scripted power point and remind us that our students are failing and we must embrace the common core and provide performance assessments for each child in both math and ELA twice a year, it is difficult to believe that the Common Core is just a set of standards for teachers to use as guidelines.
I am not opposed to rote learning for some things. I still remember to run the little song about how many days of the month are in each month. I still recite the alphabet in my head when I’m trying to file middle letters in my files. I still remember the parts of the grasshopper’s leg because my high school science teacher had us sing it. There is no way to get a good handle on the alphabet or numbers in sequence without memorizing. This should not be confused with actual learning. Memorizing number facts and the letters of the alphabet in sequence is just a tool to enhance actual learning.
Children and adults learn by doing. A medical student can memorize many facts. But in the end, she must practice on a person. She must learn how deep to make an incision and what pneumonia sounds like when you listen to someone’s lungs.
No one can learn to play tennis just reading about it and memorizing the rules and steps in playing. You have to play and notice the work “play” We play tennis to improve our game. Again, notice the word “game”
Adults spent untold amounts of money in play for enjoyment, to learn a new skill, and to release stress but we deny play to children.
I don’t know if it’s our Puritan foundations that prevent people from understanding the importance of play or various hidden agendas.
What I know for myself is that after the first half hour of those 6 hours of power point PD’s I am no longer listening. Based on conversations after these sessions I know that I am not alone.
I think some people think if learning is enjoyable it can’t possibility learning.. I also believe that some people who secretly have low expectations of some populations believe that they are capable only of low level, rote learning.
If those in charge believe that rote learning and absence of play (art, music, dance, etc.) must be removed from schools in order to have 120 minute blocks of literacy and math, why do their own children not attend the same schools that they want for other people’s children?
There is a serious disconnect between what those in power profess to be the best education and the education they provide for their own children.