There is no need for us to chase our tails with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Since the publication of CCSS a couple years ago, educators have been trying to “unpack” and amalgamate the grade level skills and skill strands contained therein. But most appear to be chasing their tails by trying to assimilate performance standards into the established unit-driven, content-based instruction (CBI).

There are a couple plausible explanations for insisting that square, CCSS pegs should fit into round, content-based holes. The most obvious explanation is that CCSS, as a body, “appears” to be content-based. To be sure, CCSS is organized along a content related structure of English Language Arts (ELA), Mathematics, and Next Generation Science Standards. Another explanation lies within the formatted presentation of unit-type segments. Presumably the authors, themselves, were not entirely sure of how to teach standards (as opposed to content), only that performance standards were necessary. A third explanation acknowledges that instruction of skills is a seismic shift from imparting knowledge. The ramifications of this shift are frightening to those who may also acknowledge that very little from traditional, teacher-centered methods are effective in creating an environment wherein students learn to problem solve using their own skills as opposed to teacher merely showing them how.

Of course, there is the consuming notion that most teachers, themselves, learned their craft and trade through the very traditional methods which Standards-based Instruction (SBI) so willingly discounts. Often enough, the protests will encompass information which students just have to know, and that this information seems to be discarded in favor of basic skills. This is an invalid assumption. There is no aspect of SBI which negates subject area knowledge. Indeed, skills may not be developed to any level of complexity without an ever-increasing knowledge of the topic being investigated. But there is an inverse relationship. SBI allows the subject to be dealt with in a more critical manner as opposed to the subject being expanded for the student by the teacher. Whereas, in the latter case the teacher assesses student understanding by having the student repeat what what told, presented or assigned as opposed to the teacher assessing student understanding by allowing the student to demonstrate problem-solving skills within a subject area using the student’s own skills to show understanding of the material.

I don’t mean to imply that imparting knowledge is a bad thing. On the contrary, it’s a good thing. That’s what experts do. The primary difference between SBI and CBI lies in how students accumulate the knowledge. We must teach students how to gain information and understanding from a vast array of topical content; of content they, the students, must be allowed to select and investigate for themselves. We build their capacity for understanding by teaching them skills which allow them to think for themselves and to draw their own conclusions. The traditional method of CBI restricts their exposure to both content and thought processes and relegates them to the roles of note-taker and information regurgitator. The analogy here lies with the quote often attributed to William Butler Yeats, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

A typical content-based high school course will have an established amount of content which (presumed) experts have determined make up the knowledge a student should digest in order to fill the pail and thus ordain him/her credit worthy. Textbooks are created which guide both teachers and students through the material in an orderly fashion, hopefully reaching the last chapter at the end of the school year. All necessary content is covered within this format. Periodic unit assessments test whether (or not) the students have been paying attention and/or doing their homework. By the end of the year (or semester or whatever) the teacher will have taught all the material and, presumably, the students will have “learned” it.

How this relates to the difficulty in accessing and adopting CCSS lies in what the student can actually do relative to his/her own capacity for gaining knowledge independent of the teacher. Critical thinking, critical reading, problem-solving and metacognition are subordinated to “learning” a bunch of academic stuff. Relegating students’ minds to the back of the priority list in favor of all this stuff simply does not increase students’ capacity to think for themselves. This is where CCSS comes in.

When we talk about student independence and responsibility for learning (a la Charlotte Danielson and others) we should concern ourselves with our students’ capacity for independent thought. Lectures and other teacher-centered approaches do not challenge students to think for themselves on a daily basis. Sitting in a classroom while a teacher waxes on about whatever subject might be next on the agenda does not engage students in independent thinking or independent learning. We are not looking for parrots, particularly in elementary and high school. Although there is a certain amount of rules taking and memorization in the early elementary grades while children are developing their concrete operational base, there should be increasingly less direct, formula-based instruction as students begin to apply basic skills to increasingly real and relevant applications.

Students have to learn how to think for themselves. And teachers have to learn how to teach students to think for themselves. It’s messy, to be sure. I would imagine that for many educators the ideal classroom contains students who thirst for knowledge. This ideal situation is a rewarding experience for teachers and students, alike. But even if we have a classroom in which the students strive to do their best, without the skills needed to independently read, comprehend, analyze and evaluate information, the thirst goes unquenched. When students cannot fluently read the science texts, or intuitively relate math concepts, or rationally decipher op-ed primary source from fact-based reporting or literary prose they are just relying on what the teacher says. They decide whether to believe or not; they decide whether to care or not based entirely on the teacher-student dynamic. In the hand-holding culture of traditional instruction it’s really that simple.

Skills-based instruction such as that which is at the heart of CCSS gives all students a fighting chance to succeed. After X amount of content-based instruction about things students either don’t understand or don’t care about, what’s left? What can they do? As educators we cannot control parental involvement. We cannot control politics, budget, urban violence, or mainstream media and culture. But we can control what happens in the classroom. Being aware of external social forces may help us understand the problem and assist how we shape our students’ academic experience. But these external forces are not responsible for bad teaching. Requiring kids to sit through teacher-centered content-based lectures and do homework “because it’s good for them and they need the practice” has not worked for the mainstream student for forty years. At some point, educators have to get serious about the profession and quit taking the easy road and blaming others. We must stop chasing our tails by trying to insert CCSS into our content-based, teacher-centered formulae and begin restructuring our classroom instruction to skills-based, student-centered lessons which promote independent, critical thought. We need to start teaching students how to think for themselves. And so another quote seems appropriate, this from Plutarch, “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”