E-mail: powellm@nytimes.com
Twitter: @powellnyt
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: June 6, 2013
The Gotham column on Tuesday, about teachers at Holy Spirit School, which is being closed at the end of the school year, misstated the name of a street near the elementary school in the Bronx. It is University Avenue (also known as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard), not University Boulevard.
Michael Appleton for The New York Times A parent of a student at the Earth School in Manhattan wore a button protesting standardized testing based on the new Common Core standards. Go to related article »The work of this blog is to suggest ideas for teaching and learning with The New York Times. We don’t do original reporting, and we don’t offer opinions on education issues. Instead, like teachers everywhere, we strive to facilitate discussion on issues of the day rather than imparting our own points of view.
But as we have experimented with the new Common Core Standards over the last two years, we have also been aware of how politically charged their implementation has become.
For some, it’s not so much the standards as the inevitable related standardized testing that is the issue. Many, from Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers to the National Council of Teachers of English to the New York Times editorial page, have recently called for caution on testing until teachers and students have a chance to adjust to the new requirements.
For others, the standards themselves are the problem.
The Republican National Committee rejects them on federalist grounds. Others dislike them because of the way they have been adopted and implemented. Still others say that we need less standardization, not more, or that national standards are beside the point when bigger issues of inequality are the real issue. Many simply see them as part of a troubling wave of change around the direction of education policy in the United States in general.
Common Core defenders, however, say the standards are powerful and much-needed — as a way to help students compete in a global economy, and as a way “replace the mediocre patchwork of learning standards” that predates them.
We thought we’d both explain how this blog is approaching the Common Core and ask you about your own experiences and opinions as we plan for the next school year. Please join the conversation below.
What We’ve Done on the Blog So Far, and Why
One of the first things teachers noticed about the Common Core Standards was the fact that they require significantly more nonfiction, or “informational text,” across the curriculum.
Since the C.C.S.S. definition of “informational text” includes pretty much everything The Times publishes, we saw this as an opportunity to help teachers use Times articles, essays, infographics, videos and photographs alongside literature and other classroom materials to make connections between academic content, students’ lives and the world at large.
Of course, making those connections has been the chief focus of The Learning Network for our entire 14-year history, so this wasn’t a departure for us.
Standards or no standards, our work is to make the newspaper accessible for learners. It’s why the liveliest part of the blog has always been the daily Student Opinion question, and why we run features like our new photojournalism activity and our summer reading contest.
But to help teachers understand how what we do works for the Common Core, we also aligned our lesson plans this year both to the McREL Standards we’ve always used and to the new C.C.S.S.– a task that wasn’t hard given that we’ve occasionally been accused of overstuffing our lessons with so many complex activities and questions that some of them could serve as graduate seminars. Next year we may well add the new science standards to the mix.
But because the shift to more nonfiction is the subject of much controversy, this fall we also published a lesson plan inviting students to examine the standards themselves, and discuss the question “What should children read?”
Perhaps the most obviously C.C.S.S.-aligned experiment we did this year was our Friday “Common Core Practice” series, in which we collaborated with two teachers and their freshman humanities classes to post three standards-based writing prompts drawn from each week’s Times.
Their students have just created a video that sums up better than we ever could the benefits of reading the newspaper regularly.
For these teachers and students and for us, however, the focus on the Common Core was just a lens through which to see the work we would have done anyway. Yes, the prompts addressed the argumentative, informative and narrative writing the standards highlight, but the exercise was much more about the serendipity of discovery a reader can have paging through The Times, and about creating a culture of lifelong learning.
As the two teachers — Jonathan Olsen and Sarah Gross — say: “We’ve used newspapers in the classroom before the Common Core, and we’ll continue to use them if the Common Core disappears. Reading and writing with The Times works no matter what standards you’re following.”
We suspect that’s how many of you feel about what and how you teach, too. Several teachers have told us they will tweak the good work they’ve always done in order to address the standards more directly, but, like Mr. Olsen and Mrs. Gross, they already have a solid sense of what works with their own students.
This summer we’ll be thinking about where we should go with the standards for 2013-14 ourselves, and your thoughts will help. We hope you’ll weigh in.
Questions for You
We know that the answers to these questions are not simple, but please post briefly below in response to as many as you like:
What have been your experiences so far with the Common Core?How prepared do you think you, your students and your school are to begin addressing them during the next school year? What do you think of the standards themselves?What are your thoughts on how they have been implemented so far?How do you feel about what this blog has been doing around the C.C.S.S. so far? What else could we be doing? How can we help you?Thank you, and happy summer.
Cliff Owen/Associated Press Arvind V. Mahankali, of Queens, is New York City’s first national spelling champion since 1997. Go to related article » Spelling Bee champs, tech wizards, guerrilla filmmakers and Broadway stars: welcome to another edition of our monthly round-up of the latest articles and multimedia features published on NYTimes.com about young people.
You can use the collection for teaching and learning or, this summer, as a handy spot to find interesting articles for our summer reading contest.
Look for the next installment in the series on July 5.
World | U.S. | Health | Sports | Technology | Arts | Education
17 Days in Darkness, a Cry of ‘Save Me,’ and Joy and Bangladesh Survivor Leaves Hospital With Job
Reshma Begum, who survived for 17 days in the rubble of a collapsed garment factory, fielded many job offers before accepting work at the Westin Hotel in Dhaka.
Where Is Home for a Third-Culture Kid?
These children of expatriates call many places home, pausing a little too long on the fundamental question: “Where are you from?”
A Youthful Corps Whose Esprit Comes From Hustle
Since he was 6, Mujeeb has sold cheap wares in Kabul, Afghanistan, to Westerners who have grown so accustomed to seeing him over the past 12 years that they often leave him gifts and goods for free. At 18, he is the dean of the hawker corps.
A Lost Generation: Young Syrian Refugees Struggle to Survive
More than half the 500,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan are under 18. “They can’t see beyond, frankly, the next day,” an aid worker said.
Out of Egypt’s Chaos, Musical Rebellion
Young musicians have created a new genre of youth-driven, socially conscious music and forced it on the Egyptian soundscape.
Boy Scouts End Longtime Ban on Openly Gay Youths
The Boy Scouts of America on May 23 ended its longstanding policy of forbidding openly gay youths to participate in its activities, a step its chief executive called “compassionate, caring and kind.”
Queens Boy, 13, Wins Scripps Spelling Bee With ‘Knaidel’ and Some Say the Spelling of a Winning Word Just Wasn’t Kosher
The fourth trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee was the charm for Arvind V. Mahankali, 13, from Bayside, Queens. Arvind, an eighth grader at Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School, won the nationally televised contest by spelling “knaidel,” a Yiddish term of German origin meaning “dumpling.”
Naval Academy Is Shaken by Student’s Report of Rape by Athletes
As midshipmen were graduating from the Naval Academy, Navy investigators were conducting an investigation into reports that several football players had serially raped a female midshipman at an off-campus party last year.
Another Chance for Mone’t
The end of the road is a yellow brick house in East New York, Brooklyn, that was once a rectory. Mone’t arrived there on Dec. 28 with a bad attitude and four years of baggage.
Young Americans Lead Trend to Less Driving
Younger people are less likely to drive — or even to have driver’s licenses — than past generations for whom driving was a birthright and the open road a symbol of freedom.
Oregon Youth Is Accused of Plotting School Attack
Law enforcement officials in Oregon say they have disrupted a plot by a student to set off explosives at his high school in what one official described as a “video-game style of killing people” reminiscent of the Columbine High School massacre.
Kicked Off Their Flight, Students Turn to Internet
After a group of Brooklyn students refused to sit down and shut off their cellphones, the AirTran crew ordered them and their chaperones off the plane, prompting the teenagers to turn to social media in vigorous dissent.
A New Way to Care for Young Brains
In the last three years, dozens of youth concussion clinics have opened in nearly 35 states.
Hidden Threats to Young Athletes
The No. 1 killer of young athletes is sudden cardiac arrest, typically brought on by a pre-existing, detectable condition that could have been treated.
Technology
Before Tumblr, Founder Made Mom Proud. He Quit School.
David Karp never finished high school or enrolled in college. Instead, he played a significant role in several technology start-ups before founding Tumblr.
The Apprentices of a Digital Age
Jasmine Gao, who is 19, just wasn’t the classroom type. So instead of languishing in college, she dropped out after her freshman year. A year later, Ms. Gao holds the title of data strategist at Bitly, the URL-shortening service based in New York.
Cyberparenting and the Risk of T.M.I.
It may be a timeless curse of parenthood to know simultaneously too much about one’s teenager and yet never access the information one actually wants. But the unruly morass of today’s social media and cellphone-infested landscape seems to have made both aspects of the curse worse.
Following in His Parents’ Very Fast Footsteps
The Burrells are the first family of sprinting in the United States and possess rare versatility as sprinters and jumpers. Cameron, 18, a senior at Ridge Point High School southwest of Houston, has run the nation’s top scholastic time this season in the 100, a wind-aided 10.07 seconds at the Texas Relays.
A Whistle, a Punch, and a Soccer Referee Is Dead
A little more than a week after a 17-year-old soccer player punched a recreation-league referee in the head in suburban Salt Lake City, the referee is dead, the player faces charges, and youth sports are left with questions about the seeming rise in severity of assaults on officials.
En Garde, All the Time
For Adrienne Jarocki, 17, an international fencing champion from Middle Village, Queens, Sundays are only partly a day of rest.
Autistic Twins Are Hoping for Calm Races After the Trauma of Boston
Alex and Jamie Schneider run seemingly on instinct, saying nothing and drifting into a cone of concentration. They are autistic 22-year-old identical twins from Long Island whose passion is to run for miles at a time.
Griner Says She Is Part of Mission to Help All Live in Truth
“I never felt the need to publicly announce I was “out,” writes the W.N.B.A. player Brittney Griner.
Changing Sex, and Changing Teams
Not so long ago, Toni Bias dreamed of playing in the W.N.B.A. But after starring on the girls’ junior varsity basketball team as a high school freshman, Toni came out as transgender last summer, began going by the name Tony and started transitioning to male.
Sport Gains Hoofhold on a Scholastic Level
The United States Polo Association has developed strategies to make polo more accessible to high school and college students without their having to make a major investment.
It’s Just Another Hurdle for Blind Athletes
Holding a fiberglass pole, Aria Ottmueller bent and touched the runway to locate her starting mark. A coach helped position her front foot. The foam vaulting pit at her high school appeared only as a blue smudge. The crossbar was invisible to her.
In the Name of a Legacy
Tim Corbin coaches Carl Yastrzemski’s grandson Mike, a senior right fielder for Vanderbilt.
Former Ski Racer Developed Swing That Sounds as Good as It Looks
The Austrian teenager Marina Stuetz’s path to the L.P.G.A. Tour did not go through an American college program, Golf Channel’s “Big Break” or the Ladies European Tour. She arrived like a snowstorm in spring, catching everyone by surprise.
Top 16-Year-Old Runner Has a Long To-Do List
A sophomore at Charlotte’s Ardrey Kell High School, Alana Hadley is 5 feet 5 inches and 110 pounds, with a resting heart rate of 50 beats a minute and a preference for pink and purple T-shirts.
Broadway Babies
With nine shows featuring child actors, Broadway stages are teeming with little ones right now, and the business of tending to them is booming.
The Hollywood Fast Life of Stalker Sarah
One afternoon this winter, Sarah M., better known as “Stalker Sarah,” was sitting in the back of an In-N-Out Burger fidgeting with her iPhone and plotting how to get her picture taken with Harry Styles, the rakishly handsome frontman of the English boy band One Direction, or one of his bandmates.
A New Jackson in Front of the Lens
Michael Jackson’s oldest son, Prince, has become a teenager about town.
Such a Doll
Mostly in their teens and early 20s, a group of girls are pioneers in a movement that gained traction in Eastern Europe last year in which they try to achieve perfection as “the most-realistic-ever human Barbie doll.”
Clips from “Yuck” – Battle of the Salads from Maxwell Project on Vimeo.
The Michael Moore of the Grade-School Lunchroom
Guerrilla filmmakers often face crackdowns by the powers that be, and Zachary Maxwell is no exception.
His hidden-camera documentary was almost derailed last year when he was caught filming without permission by a fearsome enforcer – the lunchroom monitor in his school cafeteria.
With Students as Backdrop, Obama Warns of Doubling of Loan Rates
College students, freshly relieved of pressure from term papers and final exams, served as a backdrop for President Obama as he warned of another impending fiscal deadline: student loan interest rates are set to double in 30 days under current law.
Reports of Cheating at Barnard College Cause a Stir
Revelations about shared quiz answers, unearned grades and even bribes in a Barnard course.
On a College Waiting List? Sending Cookies Isn’t Going to Help
For most applicants to selective colleges, the letters that arrived by April 1 brought an end to months of anxious wondering. But for some small fraction of those students, the tension is only now reaching its apex.
In Thailand’s Schools, Vestiges of Military Rule
At a public school in an industrial Bangkok suburb, teachers wield bamboo canes and reprimand students for long hair, ordering it sheared on the spot.
College Essays That Stand Out From the Crowd
What these four writers have in common is an appetite for risk.
A Team Approach to Get Students College Ready
Blue Engine recruits and places recent college graduates as full-time teaching assistants in high schools.
Go to full series »
Learn about teaching with “Teenagers in The Times” »
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times In Ortley Beach, NJ, many homes still await repairs, including those owned by half the guests at Kathie and Jim Watson’s party on Sunday. Go to related article »We mark the last Poetry Pairing of the school year with “The Gulf, 1987? by Deborah Paredez and the article “New Summer for Shore Residents, but Not as Before” by Peter Applebome.
After reading the poem and article, tell us what you think — or suggest other Times content that could be matched with the poem instead.
Deborah Paredez, a performer, theater scholar and award-winning poet, is the co-founder of CantoMundo, a national organization for Latino poets. She is also an associate professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to writing poetry, Ms. Paredez has written about the singer Selena, the film “Real Women Have Curves” and the show “Ugly Betty.”
The Gulf, 1987
By Deborah Paredez
The day upturned, flooded with sunlight, not
a single cloud. I squint into the glare,
cautious even then of bright emptiness.
We sit under shade, Tía Lucia
showing me how white folks dine, the high life.
I am about to try my first oyster,
Tía spending her winnings from the slots
on a whole dozen, the glistening valves
wet and private as a cheek’s other side,
broken open before us. Don’t be shy.
Take it all in at once. Flesh and sea grit,
sweet meat and brine, a taste I must acquire.
In every split shell, the coast’s silhouette:
bodies floating in what was once their home.
In “New Summer for Shore Residents, but Not as Before,” Peter Applebome writes about the Jersey Shore at the start of its first post-Hurricane Sandy summer season:
ORTLEY BEACH, N.J. — In any other year, Uncle Mike said, it is the Kickoff Classic, the first weekend of the summer when seasonal and year-round residents roam Fourth Avenue like amiable vagrants who have just emerged from hibernation, stopping in to say hi, hanging out on one another’s porches, strolling the Boardwalk, checking out the beach.
The adults make their pilgrimage to Joey Harrison’s Surf Club for liquid refreshment and sightseeing. Children head for the arcade games and miniature golf at Barnacle Bill’s.
But on this first Memorial Day Weekend since Hurricane Sandy, the kickoff began more like the squibbed variety, the weather gloomy and crowds thin. The pilgrimage had to be to one of the bars in Seaside Heights because the Surf Club is still a beachfront ruin, hoping to return next summer. The giant fiberglass Barnacle Bill lies on its back awaiting resurrection when the golf course is repaired, perhaps by July 4. The Ortley Boardwalk is not back yet. There is not much beach.
Still, seven months after Hurricane Sandy tore Fourth Avenue and much of the Jersey Shore to shreds, Ortley and the rest of the shore are caught somewhere between awe at what has been accomplished and frustration at what has not, contemplating a recovery that probably has years to go.
… On one lot there is nothing but a beached fishing boat. Next to it is a mountain of rubble where a house once stood. Some houses tilt at unnatural angles awaiting demolition; others sit forlorn and deserted like Walker Evans Depression-era portraits.
About 20 houses stood before the storm. Now only three are habitable — three and a half if you count half of the two-family beach house Uncle Mike, a contractor and the bard of Fourth Avenue, is rebuilding with his cousin Pete Rizzuto.
“You look out our back door, and there’s devastation all around. It still looks like a bomb hit it,” said Mr. Rizzuto, speaking by telephone from his office in Cedar Knolls, N.J. “The house isn’t done, so I don’t have a reason to go right now. I don’t really want to see it.”
Still, he and Uncle Mike, whose real name is Mike Pedano, hope to be back by July 4. And Mr. Pedano figures things could be a lot worse. “We’re blessed,” he said. “I’m not frustrated at all. I always said that this was going to take three to five years, and I’m still sticking to that.”
“The Gulf, 1987? appeared in the September 2012 issue of Poetry.
Visit this page to find out more about our collaboration with the Poetry Foundation, and to read ideas for using any week’s pairing for teaching and learning.
Joshua Lott for The New York Times Graffiti on a cactus last week in Saguaro National Park in Arizona. Many of the giant cactuses are 150 years old. Go to related article »Read the article to answer basic news questions.In the article “As Vandals Deface U.S. Parks, Some Point to Online Show-Offs,” Felicity Barringer writes about the recent spike in graffiti in national parks.
WHO is Steve Bolyard?
WHERE is Saguaro National Park?
WHAT did Mr. Bolyard find on saguaros there?
WHAT are some other national parks that are dealing with more vandalism?
WHY do officials think social media is playing a role in the increase in vandalism in United States parks?
HOW was one offender, Trenton Ganey, caught by the authorities?
HOW did park officials catch the vandals who chopped up cactuses when Saguaro was hit again last month?
WHEN have you visited a national park?
Related: Our Student Opinion question “How Much Time Do You Spend in Nature?” and our 6 Q’s “At National Parks, Tech + Tourists = Trouble“
Jackie Calmes reported from Mooresville, N.C., and Edward Wyatt from Washington.
