SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. – We’ve heard reports that Common Core is causing anger and frustration among parents and teachers across the nation – but laughter? That’s a new one to us.

But that’s exactly what happened during last week’s meeting of New York’s Saranac Lake Central school board.

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise reports Superintendent Diane Fox had board members laughing in disbelief when she told them of a Common Core-aligned English unit about early world civilizations suggested by the state.

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By the end of the state-suggested unit, first graders should be able to locate “Mesopotamia on a world map or globe and identify it as part of Asia” and to “explain the importance of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the use of canals to support farming and development of the city of Babylon,” Fox told the stunned board members.

“I’m not making this up,” Fox laughed.

Member Terry Tubridy quipped, “That alone could be a thesis.”

Superintendent Fox then read from another suggested Common Core-aligned unit found on EngageNY.org that asks students to “identify Judaism, Christianity and Islam as major monotheistic world religions.”

“Looks like, if our first graders understand all of this, they’ll be candidates for Jeopardy,” board member Miles Van Nortwick joked, according to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.

Fox pointed out that not every Common Core-aligned unit suggested by the state has ridiculous expectations, but she noted that such lessons only add to the confusion surrounding the new learning standards.

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“Remember this is all a guide,” Fox said. “As a teacher, you don’t have to use all of this. That’s where as a professional you have to use your own judgment as to what you’re going to put together.

“But it’s not surprising to me that we as a state or a country are not able to have a meaningful conversation about Common Core, because even those of us who are living it really do not understand it.”