1. The Common Core State Standards and the earlier No Child Left Behind legislation has been discussed in several chapters in this book. Do they deserve this much attention? How do you think NCLB will affect your life as a teacher?
2. As you consider a career in teaching, you need to develop your own answers to the questions regarding the purpose of schools. What should schools accomplish? What is the relationship of schooling to the needs of a larger democratic society? What is included— and excluded— in the responsibilities that society properly gives to its schools and to teachers? What would constitute success for all students in the kind of schools we hope for? How are your answers to these questions reflected in your own philosophy of education, or when you think about the way you would like to conduct your first class?