Common Core should be renamed OBAMAcore because hey, if we like our local control, we can keep it….RIGHT??

https://twitter.com/JennyHatch/status/436357114299052032
1898193_10203072744879446_826469797_nLast night we had an epic, packed, storming of the castle at the Utah State Capitol.  Over four hundred people jammed into the capitol to demand a cease and desist on Common Core.

Wait, stop the presses…

Bill Gates has now set the record straight over at USA Today, guess I won’t bother to type up this post because hey, “he said so” and if Bill says Common Core is GOOD, well, who am I to question.

From his holiness Master Gates:

“Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy. The Common Core standards were carefully conceived with these two goals in mind. It would be a shame if myths and misunderstandings got in the way.”

Hmmm…

Myths and Misunderstandings…

The parents and educators in Massachusetts who formed the Pioneer Institute and did the difficult work of building consensus around what a world class education looks like have chimed in on the facts surrounding the Common Core.

These are the people who took on the challenging task of hammering out what a real public education should look like, and you know what?  When Bill gathered his little posse’ of consensus builders, he forgot to ask these guys for advice. Perhaps if he had hired a few of them to help write the history texts they would have argued with him that a four color page spread bio on the little God King would be Petty Tyrant known as the Maven of Microsoft might not be a good idea.

A quote from this article at Front Page Magazine:

“And as national social studies standards now come rolling in they will also learn about new American heroes, like Common Core’s biggest funder, billionaire Bill Gates.  One elementary school textbook published by Pearson, the giant international publishing company that has helped develop Common Core tests, contains several pages of tribute to him.”

The funniest development in the news today was that articles in The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, and Deseret News all sheepishly admitted that those opposing Common Core are not just wild eyed home makers.

I could just see all those editors who have dumped on us education activists for the past two years saying to themselves, “Oh Crap, now the education establishment  and progressive left is dumping on Common Core too.”

I kinda feel sorry for the poor saps.  Who knew a day would ever come when Glenn Beck and New York Educrats would ever agree on anything?

Funny…to read my Uncommon Lore education essays on Kindle click HERE!
Jenny Hatch
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Uncommon Lore: Introduction

imageBen Homeschool CurriculumDownload a PDF of this Essay HERE for printing

So today, I am minding my own beeswax comfortably blogging about soccer and social networking about other “safe” topics like islamic terrorism when out of the blue I feel this overwhelming impression from Heavenly Father that he wants me to do a “From the HOMESCHOOLING Trenches” series of essays on my Blog.

Initial response to the prompting…”No Way…No FREAKING Way”.  Then I get this even stronger impression that someone, somewhere out in the hinterlands of the internet needs my words, insights, and thoughts to motivate them to take on this seemingly impossible task of teaching the kiddos themselves.

I really have not written much about our education adventures because school, like childbirth, is a minefield of neverending explosions of opinion, cat fights,  blog wars, chat room temper tantrums, and mommy blogging mud wrestling the likes of which civil society has never witnessed.

Bens books in his bedroom I experienced this rage during my oldest daughters first pregnancy 25 years ago, and while the climate for homeschooling is a little more tolerant today, the emotion, ego, and defensiveness on all sides of the educational spectrum continues on…

I have about zero desire to take a cannoball leap back into the digital pool as some sort of a child rearing educational expert on all topics relating to Homeschooling.  Yet, I have a near insatiable desire to listen when the Holy Spirit prompts, and hey, if the Master of the Universe believes I have something of value to offer to the Dialog around education, well, who I am to question HIM.

So this series will be tagged Uncommon Lore.  I will be writing for those families who are feeling the tug to do something else with their children scholastically.

I titled it Uncommon Lore simply because I plan to just cut to the chase and write what I really think, rather than waste any time attempting to write the words that will make me “fit” into a certain homeschooling philosophy or educational theory.

I also want to publicly rebuke, mock, and heckle the Common Core curriculums that have quietly been implemented around the states the past few years and a riff on Common Core with Uncommon Lore felt like a good way to tag this category.

So tune in often to read my essays on Homeschooling and if you are “the one” who needed to read my thoughts on this topic…curse yo…no did not mean to type that.  Its just that my life seems to be one big series of traumatic events tied to me opening my big fat mouth, and here we go AGAIN.

Anyway, food for thought…

My homeschooling friend Anette upon hearing that I was planning to send my children to the best public charter school in Colorado…

“Jenny, it would be better for you to lock yourself in your bedroom and let your children run wild for two years rather than send them to an institution”.

And from my friend Patricia who discovered that I was encouraging Jeffrey to drop out of that same charter to join the Marine Corps a few years back because he was sick of the Marxist indoctrination…

“Jenny, he will never be able to amount to ANYTHING if he does not get his diploma and go to college.”

So, these are two ends of the educational spectrum and I plan to share all sorts of thoughts on those ends and EVERYTHING in between.

Jenny Hatch