In a piece about local implementation of the Common Core State Standards, Nan Austin of the Modesto Bee opens with an education-jargon-free—yet potentially divisive—explanation of how instruction is changing:
Think of it as the difference between reading the recipe and baking the cake.
In classrooms across California, teachers have gotten amazingly good at helping children read what amounts to recipes, memorizing ingredients and mastering vocabulary.
Common core standards, however, expect everyone to get in there and cook.
Teachers: What are your thoughts on this characterization of the common standards? Is this a good way to explain what you’re doing differently to parents? Or would you argue you’ve been “cooking” all along?