Previously: Normal milestones in child development.
The Common Core State Standards reflect the skills and knowledge that students will need in order to succeed in college, career, and life. Understanding the various milestones students will be expected to meet is essential for implementing the standards successfully. Failure to do so could result in the loss of an entire generation to darkness.
Kindergarten
Students are expected to read and diagram complete sentences in all manner of languages, both spoken and unspoken, visible and invisible
Grade 1
Students are expected to send forth their spirits from their bodies a’nights in the form of a black dog
Grade 2
Students are expected to do battle with the Hanged Man. Students should also be able to distinguish between Folk Writing and Witch Writing with their Sunday eyes.
Grade 3
Students are expected to spend the night at a crossroads, facing a churchyard, armed with a tin of salt and a bar of iron, without prompting or support. Students should also be prepared to identify the four major Queens of the Guileless Folk from memory.
Grade 4
Students are expected to identify and resist the tactics of Rhinemaidens, the Lameth, Necks, nymphs, sirens, and all manner of revenge spirits
Grade 5
Students are expected to participate in the annual Tithe to Hell and to select a Tam Lin from their own numbers, without prompting or support
Grade 6
Students are expected to pass the Test of Running Water. Those who pass will go on to do junior-high-level work; those who fail will be torn to pieces and buried under a mountain of salt, lest their unseelie remains assemble under a half-full moon and take to the Corpse Roads.
Tags: child development, common core standards, education
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I had to repeat second grade. The Hanged Man at my old school was a real scrapper.
The grading rubrics would be cake.
Is the child alive?
Yes=pass
No=fail
Right? At least there would be fewer standardized tests.
I think doing battle with the Hanged Man and facing the Test of Running Water would count. Lots of teachers working really hard to make sure their students will pass, practicing for months in advance.
Yeah, but then you’d have all the parents of the failing students pestering you to declare their child alive so they can get into a good college.
“There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead!”
What are “Things Mallory says about her corpse mouth”?
DID I GET IT RIGHT
ATTENTION TO ALL STUDENTS: Devices hidden inside your chest cavity which simulate pulse and/or breathing are considered cheating. Any and all students caught with such devices will be submerged in Holy Water until the disciplinary committee decides on further proceedings.
There’s still such a stigma against the dead these days, it’s really sad.
i want so badly for this to be true / have been true.
I would’ve taken my chances with the Corpse Roads if it meant I wouldn’t have to do any more long division.
Night Vale!!!
And now, the weather.
They’ve made mention of Night Vale Elementary’s second-grade scrying teacher before. I guess Night Vale is just ahead of the curve when it comes to implementing these common-sense education reforms.
That’s it, Department of Education, I am taking my school offering and going home. My young witches will learn all they need–nay, all they WANT to learn on the heath, at their own pace, directed by their own delight.
If my daughter wants to devote a whole year to eye of newt, it’ll take more than a broom-pushing bureaucrat to stand in her way. And if my son can manifest within a familiar at kindergarten age, who am I to let a standard keep him from letting his weir light shine?
There is nothing more in tune with the goddess of crossroads than unschooling. You won’t find us darkening the threshold of a classroom anymore: we’ve severed our shadows, an art you won’t find practiced any more in these rote memorization-driven schools.
Don’t teach to the test; let your witch-children test your teaching.
P.S. I haven’t diagrammed a sentence since I left gramarye school and my kids’ practice is JUST AS VALID AS YOUR KIDS’
late to the standing ovation but clapping just the same!
Most Children Left Behind (to Perish)
This at least explains why my 5th graders always seems at a loss to explain what happened at school that day.
From what my Waldorf friends tell me, this is Waldorf school
They focus pretty heavily on poppets and effigies; my cousin is in Waldorf, and their chimney is STUFFED with tiny doll-forms of their enemies.
This is why I send my children to private school. My daughter learned to to identify and resist the tactics of Rhinemaidens, the Lameth, Necks, nymphs, sirens, and all manner of revenge spirits back in 2nd grade.
And they use that lovely organic pink Himalayan rock salt rather than the off-brand table salt that the public schools use.
My daughter is in 6th grade and I’m really hoping she passes, as salt has gotten wicked expensive lately.
Any curriculum that doesn’t focus on the protective qualities of gemstones and metals is worthless, IMO. I don’t know how they think kids will be prepared for adulthood without that.
It is all about the implementation. If you don’t give the teachers time to read entrails and update the star charts for their students (hello- class size issue!) then how can they be expected to pass such a high-stakes test?
And whose district has had sufficient funds to send their soul to the Great Deep for professional development? Because mine sure hasn’t since I was inhabiting this body.
This needs to be a book. I want to read it.
What, are selkies and rusalkas not part of the fourth-grade requirements any more? How do kids these days expect to make it in the real world if they never hear about selkies and rusalkas.
That’s the kind of PC multicultural blather that keeps our children from learning proper runecasting until sixth grade. Identifying rusalki and greeting the Black and White Guards of Impermanence can and should wait until a child has a solid understanding of how to conjure, control, and dispel threats native to OUR shores and groves.
Remember, teacher salaries and continued possession of sanity and/or all original limbs is directly tied to the percentage of “proficient” marks their students receive! We think this will motivate better teaching, and allow for the downsizing of bad teachers under the “no additional limbs” clause of their contracts.
John Bauer illustration FTW!
speaking of corpse roads, who else is excited that the last raven cycle novel is out? maggie stiefvater you hold the secret keys to my heart
I had a real hard time developing my Sunday Eyes as a child. Thank heaven for an excellent Were-teacher who took the time.
May the Light bless you, Mallory….May the Light bless us all.
because I was a kid obsessed with urban fantasy novels and a Tween Wiccan this is actually….not that far off.
This totally explains all the recent drama at my daughter’s school — prejudice against wizards as instructors, plus they said he was going too fast through the curriculum, what with some children already sending their spirits forth and others not being able to use scissors to cut off the hair of their enemies for the doll-making.
This curriculum is just more evidence of how helicopter parenting is ruining a generation. When I was growing up, we’d be placed in a tangled, overgrown hazel copse on our fifth naming-day, and left to our own devices. If we didn’t have an animal familiar within a week, we’d be sold off to the goblin mines!
Luxury!
We used to *dream* of livin’ in a goblin mine! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t’ shoebox in t’ middle o’ road.
I just ordered the last book today! I also thought of the Raven cycle the second I read “corpse road”. I would only ever send my child to a school that allowed them to take Maggie Stiefvater’s course in the training in care of carnivorous horses as a PE elective.
"There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead!"
Grade 7
Students are expected to choose their own adventure from one of the six books of The Faerie Queen. Those who choose to follow Arthurian legend instead will be held back a year.
Grade 8
Those who have received letters from Hogwarts may attend. Those who have no will be allowed to grieve for a period of time before being chivied over to chem class where they will address each of the elements of the periodic table with a haiku that matches one of the four natural elements. To pass gym, students will be required to airbend.
And they use that lovely organic pink Himalayan rock salt rather than the off-brand table salt that the public schools use.