A Grasshopper, An Ant and the Common Core

So, eventually, I'm going to have to weigh in on the *all new* greatly improved, and sensational Common Core. I guess I'll try and do so one day, but now I'm just thinking about it.
I'm demonstrating the acronyms and Core-Speak as much as I can, words carry values as well as systems and organization, focus and all that will take over the next ten years of teaching life with The Change.
First I'm going to start with HELP.



the song.


 It's in the 1st knowledge level.
Bloom's speak for HOW, EVERYONE, LANDED on this PLANET.


For now let's give over that I'm now reading, researching and becoming aware of The Core.
I'd link you to places for your journey but, frankly, 
It follows that if all of our nation asks more of children, demands rigor-they will be college and career ready. That's Core speak for "pretend college does not cost $100,000, and that poverty does not exist."
They do.

I'm sure you would agree-pretending 100% Proficient and Advanced could happen by 2014 was very important the last time around.. Be you a grasshopper or an ant.

Today we had a very nice beginning presentation on The Core.
There is no faulting it. It was thought out and used the materials being rolled out nationally-at the state level I'm sure in a very typical way, nor are my observations critical of the process at my school. But, my mind works. I apologize for that. I've never been able to turn it off. I'm, I think, a grasshopper.
Core Training has a nice piece in it to allow teachers to formulate Core Questions because Core training doesn't start with instruction, or Standard, it starts with the only thing that matters:assessment. What way we will get the scores.

So we were writing questions in the deeping well of understanding, digging ever deeper. If we dig deeply enough we'll find a nirvana.
Core training in CA uses an Aesop Fable. I've seen that out on the web and in blogs I've read from other teachers elsewhere. It's an exercise to allow you to consider levels of knowledge.

Is it too much to tell you that the moral of worrying about tomorrow today frames this piece?



So this is the basic story of the Ant and the Grasshopper, I took this from here.

Once there lived an ant and a grasshopper in a grassy meadow.
All day long the ant would work hard, collecting grains of wheat from the farmer's field far away. She would hurry to the field every morning, as soon as it was light enough to see by, and toil back with a heavy grain of wheat balanced on her head. She would put the grain of wheat carefully away in her larder, and then hurry back to the field for another one. All day long she would work, without stop or rest, scurrying back and forth from the field, collecting the grains of wheat and storing them carefully in her larder.
The grasshopper would look at her and laugh. 'Why do you work so hard, dear ant?' he would say. 'Come, rest awhile, listen to my song. Summer is here, the days are long and bright. Why waste the sunshine in labour and toil?'
The ant would ignore him, and head bent, would just hurry to the field a little faster. This would make the grasshopper laugh even louder. 'What a silly little ant you are!' he would call after her. 'Come, come and dance with me! Forget about work! Enjoy the summer! Live a little!' And the grasshopper would hop away across the meadow, singing and dancing merrily.
Summer faded into autumn, and autumn turned into winter. The sun was hardly seen, and the days were short and grey, the nights long and dark. It became freezing cold, and snow began to fall.
The grasshopper didn't feel like singing any more. He was cold and hungry. He had nowhere to shelter from the snow, and nothing to eat. The meadow and the farmer's field were covered in snow, and there was no food to be had. 'Oh what shall I do? Where shall I go?' wailed the grasshopper. Suddenly he remembered the ant. 'Ah - I shall go to the ant and ask her for food and shelter!' declared the grasshopper, perking up. So off he went to the ant's house and knocked at her door. 'Hello ant!' he cried cheerfully. 'Here I am, to sing for you, as I warm myself by your fire, while you get me some food from that larder of yours!'
The ant looked at the grasshopper and said, 'All summer long I worked hard while you made fun of me, and sang and danced. You should have thought of winter then! Find somewhere else to sing, grasshopper! There is no warmth or food for you here!' And the ant shut the door in the grasshopper's face.
It is wise to worry about tomorrow today.

From this we were directed to write simple and complex questions to ask of students reading the passage, discuss them, think about the fable  and how that work done together demonstrated Common Core Knowledge Levels. That was extremely insightful in my looking in and of itself.

In the version we were using the ant was stern, unhappy, driven, single minded, unpleasant really and judging, scolding. And terrified of tomorrow. This ant had no existence in the present moment. This ant was driven to prepare for the future. This ant might have lived through the Depression because it sounded the notes of my parents. ( Who does this ant remind you of, my first mental question that I noted and let float away). The grasshopper was into his music, cheering, friendly, not so driven by tomorrow. 
And had this been a Zen Koan I would have asked very quickly of myself to withhold value judging.
But it wasn't.

It wasn't a Zen Koan. It was an Aesop's Fable.

Totally off subject did you know this?

Aesop and Indian traditions

Aesop's fables and the Indian tradition as represented by the Buddhist Jataka Tales and the Hindu Panchatantra share about a dozen tales in common although often widely differing in detail. There is therefore some debate over whether the Greeks learned these fables from Indian storytellers or the other way, or if the influences were mutual. Loeb editor Ben E. Perry took the extreme position in his book Babrius and Phaedrus that

In the entire Greek tradition there is not, so far as I can see, a single fable that can be said to come either directly or indirectly from an Indian source; but many fables or fable-motifs that first appear in Greek or Near Eastern literature are found later in the Panchatantra and other Indian story-books, including the Buddhist Jatakas.^[4]

Although Aesop and the Buddha were near contemporaries, the stories of neither were recorded in writing until some centuries after their death and few disinterested scholars would now be prepared to make so absolute a stand about their origin in view of the conflicting and still emerging evidence.^[5][6]

So the fable we read provoked questions about identifying the ant's characteristics (hard working-good), grasshopper (goof-off-bad) and then deeper thoughts about what the question said that pointed you to understanding ants are not looking out for lazy grasshoppers for "reasons."

I was sitting thinking about Zen.

Actually.

So my next thought was Ants aren't Grasshoppers. Then I wandered around in my thoughts about several  people. Ants/grasshoppers.
And try as I might like, despite the moral, I cannot ask a grasshopper to be an ant, nor an ant to become a plague on Pharaoh. When times demand- they act within their natures- they have a physical form, time, place -a basic nature. The grasshopper it seems understood his nature-the ant, not so much. But this connected to the Core too for me metaphorically, if you will.

I then for a few seconds sat there thinking about the children that won't connect to the moral as we might like. That don't know Aesop, that miss that the story meaning is "told" and predicted by the storyteller. The interpretation is in arriving at an Aesopian conclusion. I was wondering how a grasshopper would retell that same story.
The Grasshoppers shall we say might Grasshopper it.
They might say the lesson is-ants are mean, they make us conform to their nature, they don't understand we have a season here on earth, lay our eggs and die. So we play.
Ants expect longevity, endurance, tribes, duty. Grasshoppers perhaps are a creature that plays, sings, swarms, devours. Seeks the sun.
well it ran a little bit in my head anyway as a line of investigation.

I started to think about who will love The Core.

And who might not.
A teacher that might not....think...quite like an ant.


Then digging deeper....I started to think about what this fable does.
It instills a set of values.
It tells.
It uses animals to speak to human traits.

But does it, actually dig us deeper
Or allow us to rise beyond?


From there I just sat and thought about all the incredible things, ways of taking it, how fiction is so elevating......

Pick a grasshopper or ant, defend your position. Why do you do what you do, how is that related to your biology, your ethics, your morals?

What can a grasshopper learn from an ant, what can an ant learn from a grasshopper?

From the story what do you think ants would be like in an emergency, family, party, disaster?

Who carries grudges, ants or grasshoppers-why do you think so?

What about size? What about size-are those that are tall and better looking, more fun allowed to approach life differently?


So the car ride went on and on home and now I can't talk to my daughter because I'm in the story. So I am going to close and talk to the here and now-where I am. Am I digging deeper, is this Core behavior, or am I escaping and thinking about making paper mache masks of the two beings and acting out a drama?
Ants and grasshoppers.

And assessment.

For my own part I'd prefer a story that was re-told in which the ant realized that the grasshopper had a much more pleasant and happier frame of mind.
I read this in Wiki too btw:

In popular culture

• Aesop (620–560 BC), a slave and story-teller who lived in Ancient Greece, told a tale called The Ant and the Grasshopper. In this tale, the ant worked hard preparing his shelter and stores of food all summer, while the grasshopper played. When winter came, the ant was prepared, but the grasshopper has no shelter or food. He begs to enter the ant's house, but the ant refuses and the grasshopper starves.

• As a result of the popularity of Aesop's fable in Western culture, various other human weaknesses besides improvidence began to be identified with the grasshopper's behaviour. So an unfaithful woman (hopping from man to man) became known as 'a grasshopper'. Portrayal of such women occurs for example in Poprygunya, a short story written in 1892 by Anton Chekhov, and in Jerry Paris' 1969 film "The Grasshopper".

• Those who are unable to keep a single subject in focus but keep bringing in inappropriate associations (hopping from one thing to another) are said to have 'a grasshopper mind'.

• Partly as a result of this, 'grasshopper' has lately come to refer to a person who has much to learn. Its use originated from the television show Kung Fu (1972–1975). Caine, the young student, portrayed by Radames Pera, is receiving instruction from his Master Po (portrayed by Keye Luke) who nicknames his student "Grasshopper" as a term of endearment.

• The 1957 film Beginning of the End featured mutated giant grasshoppers attacking Chicago.

• In the 1998 movie A Bug's Life, the heroes are the members of an ant colony, and the lead villain and his henchmen are grasshoppers. In an apparent homage to the Aesop fable, The Ant and the Grasshopper, the lead villain is eaten by a bird.

Then I read that grasshopper are quite a good source of protein. I saw a teacher once throw out, or restrict,  a bag of them a student brought to school for a snack.

And grasshoppers I recall from biology classes have quite a nervous system.

So, overall I think I gather each has their own nature and I, personally, would prefer a moment of zen.
But, maybe the Core will help me to see the light.