Teachers and Education majors are dealing with Common Core, most not minding it but preferring different standardized testing.

According to Greg Stall, Common Core can make it difficult to prepare students. Stall also mentioned that there is a yes and no side to Common Core.

“Good teaching is generally good teaching,” said Stall.

The education students are being taught certain methods when it comes to instruction but teachers are taught the technique and strategies.

“The big thing with the common core is we are reducing the number of standards,” said Stall.

According to Stall, reducing the number of standards makes it less overwhelming and more manageable for teachers to deal with. Common Core by itself does not really change what good teaching is.

“What is good teaching? What is a good assessment technique? How do you line your standards with assessments and state tests? Regardless of the standard, Common Core isn’t a curriculum. Common Core is a set of standards. That is the no side of Common Core,” Stall said.

The yes side to the difficulty of common core is that students are included in the curriculum for field experience hours, which means that teachers go out in the classrooms and they practice teach, observing many hours. They also work with kids in small groups and teach classes more than ever.

When creating lessons and preparing them to address the curriculum that is used out in the world, teachers have already made the shift to Common Core standards. Even in the K-12 world, teachers do not know exactly what is going on and are caught in limbo transitioning their teaching from the old curriculum to the new curriculum.

“Teachers are investing hours and hours and hours of work, mostly during the summer I imagine. Most elementary schools turn to this new curriculum, and then you hear one week they are going to ditch the new curriculum, then the next week we are not going to ditch it,” Stall said.

Stall believes that the uncertainty has hurt the field more than one curriculum or the other. It is the uncertainty and preparation that makes it difficult to deal with.

“This does not happen. Teachers just do not show up, they prepare,” said Stall. “But we are addressing the Common Core. We are proceeding as if the Common Core is staying and if it does not then we will make the adjustments.”

“Most states have adopted the Common Core, but now the standards are having a backlash and states are backing out of it. Anytime a teacher or school changes in standards, it becomes a bit controversial. One reason is the content of the standards,” Stall said.

“Some people feel there is something built within the standards that are imposing on their political and religious beliefs,” Stall said.

The second big reason, which is Stall’s concern, is that common core has become a political battle between the federal and state governments over who should control the curriculum.