Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/730281
"The speed limiters are coming! The speed limiters are coming!" Roscoe Revere pushed his iron horse across the nation to warn his fellow drivers, but alas, he failed when he got hemmed up on 285 around Atlanta in a 62-mph-limited clusterbomb of traffic and starved to death before he made Villa Rica. Limit all the things! Strangle out life as we know it, because limits are important, regardless of the detriment they may cause. Let's explore a couple "limits" the gubmint has recently set for us, and see how "beneficial" it's been to have them. Somewhere around 2006, the educa- tion standard of "Common Core" be- came a widely publicized and extreme- ly controversial idea in the scheme of our national education system. The feds were at least smart enough to let the states decide whether or not they'd like to participate, and by 2013, all but seven eventually adopted the sweeping change of Common Core. I could write a twenty page exposé on Common Core and the distinct changes, both good and bad, it has caused within the systems that adopt- ed it, but I've got about 600 words to get my point across here, so we'll leave the gobblety-gook and get to what the teachers I talked to said about it. (Use of the gobblety-gook term here clearly indicates I did not receive a common core education.) "Common Core didn't just change what I taught, it changed how I was supposed to teach it. You're trained in college one way, and you're expected to teach in your schools an entirely different way." "I am frustrated by the 'one size fits all' standard. There is no set speed for learning." "Common Core was intended to benefit the children being 'left behind' 24 www.bigrigowner.com O C T O B E R 2 0 1 6 Looking At You > by Wendy Parker Limiting the possibilities of life in general