Past, Present, Future?

I've been teaching in public elementary schools for a number of years. I have seen quite a few educational fads come and go. And in my experience, at some point during the course of a new "silver bullet's" life span, common sense would take over and rational thinking would be restored.

Perhaps the current "data driven, constant assessment, standardized testing, common core" movement will run its course too. In fact, I feel sure it will, but what carnage will be left in its wake?

This is what I see happening now:

• Individualized, reflective, responsive instruction being replaced by standardized, prescribed, scripted instruction
• Creativity being replaced by uniformity and conformity 
• Exploration of the world being replaced an increasingly narrow set of curricular standards
• Emphasis on thinking and perseverance being replaced by constant assessments that measure very low level skills
• Joy and wonder in learning replaced by worry and stress over benchmarks, standardized test scores and grades

What kind of educators, health care workers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, scientists, explorers, artists, inventors... will MY students become?

Something to think about...