One of my favorite colleagues, Mike Fannin, always pushes me to be a better teacher by asking those really reflective questions that there is no right answer to.  Today Mike, a social studies teacher, sent me one of those really fun and irrational anti-Common Core articles and asked my thoughts.  Once my blood pressure returned to normal range I begin to really think about how to put into words what Common Core did for my classroom.

Before Common Core I was a typical math teacher.  I had my curriculum maps and and state standards which read like a skill and drill check list that I marked off one by one whether the kids understood them or not.  I used really “great” methods and math terminology like “butterfly method”, “keep switch flip”, “leave opposite opposite”, and so many more that I would love to forget.  I moved to Kentucky the year…