Hanging Our Hopes on the New: An Alternative to the Common Core Learning Standards

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: Curriculum Policy and Practice: Understanding Dewey’s Impact in Education

Abstract

The Common Core Learning Standards promise to prepare democratic citizens for the twenty-first century. This paper uses the writing of John Dewey to argue that the vision that the Common Core offers for the twenty-first century is troublingly narrow. Additionally drawing form both Hannah Arendt and Dewey, it argues that adhering to standards to dictate educational practice limits education to only what is already known by stifling the influence of the new – the individual teacher and child. It will argue instead that there ought to be a balance between conserving the society that already exists while fostering ways to encourage new voices to enter the conversation.

Author

• Cara Elizabeth Furman, University of Maine at Farmington