By Steven Mayer
The kickoff of the 2013-14 school year has been particularly exciting.
To date, we have completed the first phase of our construction project and are making good gains with the second. School facilities that house our students and faculty appropriately make good on our commitment and belief that the work occurring inside those spaces is directly tied to our mission to prepare all of our children to be active and contributing members of our world. So, while I am very glad to be starting the year with a facilities plan that accommodates present and future growth, I am even more enthusiastic about the work we are doing behind the scenes.
Throughout each of the past two school years and during the summer, groups of teachers and administrators have worked to revise our curriculum to align with the Common Core State Standards. Forty-five states, including New Jersey, have adopted the Common Core as the foundation for developing college and career readiness in every student. It is important for members of the Robbinsville community to understand the type of thinking they represent and expect. At their core, the standards are designed to foster critical thinking, learning transfer and problem solving.
Prior to the emergence of the internet, the printing press was last great innovating force in education permanently altering the structure of society. Until the Internet placed open source information at everyone’s fingertips, schools did not undergo any serious transformation. With access to more information than a person can process instantly available in a highly searchable format, it has become apparent that the scope of what happens in schools must change. Rather than serving as a host for the largest collection of information, it is incumbent upon schools to prepare students to become skilled at interpreting, managing and using the information that is so readily available.
It is our responsibility to teach our students how to think critically about their world. They must develop the tools necessary to analyze arguments in context and to review historical documents with a global eye. Skillfulness in mathematics must move beyond facility with computation to include a fundamental ability to address real problems and visualize an array of solutions. Because we live in an interconnected, highly complex and highly competitive world, we must prepare students to handle the rigors of jobs that have not yet been invented and of societal problems that have yet to be effectively addressed.
Certainly the Common Core State Standards will not solve world hunger, but the type of thinking they promote may graduate students who see solutions that have yet to be considered. In Robbinsville, we are privileged to work with students who come to us with a strong educational frame of mind and a global perspective. Developing lessons, even in Kindergarten, that cause students to see problems and identify solutions gives me hope that our schools have the potential to deliver on the promise we’ve made to our children and their families. If focusing on the kind of critical thinking and intellectual rigor described in the Common Core standards places us on this important path, then, together, we will have something to truly celebrate.
Steve Mayer is superintendent of Robbinsville schools.
