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What “Type of Learning" do Common Core Standards Embrace?
Rita Papazian For
years, working in offices with fellow journalists, I had been fascinated
by the way my co-workers would type. This is before the Internet took
hold. My fascination was not only with watching my co-workers but also in
my personal life watching friends, usually male friends type. In my
observations, years ago, I came to the conclusion that the older the
person, the less proficient he or she was at typing. And, I may add, I
concluded that females were better typists than males when it came to the
correct hand positioning on the keyboard. I attributed this to my belief
that more females than males probably took typing in high school. As
a journalist I had first-hand, literally, experience in not only the
importance in having mastered the skill of typing,
but also in positioning my hands correctly on the typewriter for after-all
there is a reason why the letters are positioned the way they are. I
would be fascinated by the positions and number of or lack of fingers that
some of my co-workers would use to type. Yes, they did indeed get the work
done. As my children got
older, I insisted that they take typing in high school, no matter the path
they would take in life. I am glad they did for who would have predicted
years ago the technology boom we are now facing.
But, learning typing in high school is really too late for young
people today. Why? Common
Core Standards. This is a national initiative to align state curricula
with each other. According to the Common Core State Standards initiative,
“ The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the
real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need
for college and careers… [and] to compete successfully in the global
economy.” Among
the many aspects of this initiative garnering attention, is the fact that
not only must children be taught to meet the standards in English/language
arts, but also they must be able to do so by mastering keyboarding skills,
beginning in third grade. According to the third grade curriculum
standards, students must use technology to produce and publish writing
using keyboarding skills. Subsequent grade level standards are more
specific. For example, in the fourth grade students must demonstrate
sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of one page in
a single setting. In fifth grade, they must be able to type two pages in a
single setting. According
to an article in the Washington Post, “Educators around the country are
rushing to teach typing to children who have barely mastered printing by
hand.” The article quotes
Kathleen Egan, the director of curriculum and instruction at I
could relate to that statement, as a former college English instructor and
now grandmother. During a recent visit with my 13-year-old grandson, he
explained his homework to me. He had to state the qualities of the main
character in the story he had just read and cite examples of the main
character’s actions that illustrate those qualities. I watch him set up
with his computer at the dining room table as he referred back to his
readings and quickly began typing. Now
that I have learned a little about the Common Core Standards, with the
exams to be given in 2014-2015, I am going to pay more attention to all my
grandchildren’s finger positions on their keyboards and hope that they
are learning the right way to type so that, as Regan noted, they will have
the “fluency skill” akin to memorizing the multiplication tables in
order to more quickly perform complex mathematics. “ This
is no longer the era of “hunt and peck.” Rita
Papazian is a freelance writer who can be reached at ritajpap@gmail.com |
© Copyright 2013 Rita Papazian All rights reserved.