A Recipe for Success

Every two weeks we receive a vegetable box from our community-supported agriculture, or CSA. If you are not familiar with this concept, a cooperative farm offers "shares" that others can purchase to receive locally grown food that they raise. People receive what is in season. This week, it was tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, potatoes, onions, parsley, leeks, and even mushrooms! The fun part is finding recipes that incorporate these ingredients for healthy meals for our family.

I share this because as we peered into our box this evening, it reminded me of a tweet I sent out last Friday. It received quite a bit of attention, in terms of retweets and favorites.

Standards are just the ingredients. Teachers make the recipe. -R Wormeli #sblchat

— Matt Renwick (@ReadByExample) September 26, 2014

Rick Wormeli (@rickwormeli2) addressed our entire professional staff last Friday regarding differentiated assessment and grading. The analogy he used, regarding standards as ingredients, is a great way to think about how to integrate the Common Core into our instruction. I believe this was the intended spirit of the developers of the #CCSS. They did not want to dictate curriculum, but rather provide benchmarks for educators as we prepare for coherent and appropriate instruction.

What are your thoughts? How do you make sense of the Common Core State Standards and put them in perspective? Please share in the comments.