Centroids : Saw Hirsch on C-Span and was impressed. Big gripe, he doesn't acknowledge the strengths that exist in John Dewey, and there are strengths or Dewey would never have gained traction with anybody. But Hirsch's thesis about the need for content centeredness is right on the money. VERY valuable for anyone who is concerned with public education. Basically he calls for the creation of western civ - centered curriculum, not excluding the rest of the world, but with emphasis on shared American traditions and values. Lots of bad words for so-called "child-centered curriculum," where everyone is supposed to learn their own private world and who cares about commonalities. Lots of good words for lessons of history, the US revolution, the founding fathers, etc, even a pitch for renewed study of some form of Civics. Not sure about the details, but in principle I think he is clearly more right than wrong and maybe a LOT more right. Worth looking into. Billy ================================================ _The Making of Americans_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/09/01/the-making-of-americans/) Published by _Robert Pondiscio_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/author/robert-pondiscio/) on September 1, 2009 in _Core Knowledge_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/category/core-knowledge-news/) and _Education Theory_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/category/education-theory/) . _4 Comments_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/09/01/the-making-of-americans/#comments) Tags: _core knowledge_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/tag/core-knowledge/) , _E. D. Hirsch_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/tag/e-d-hirsch/) , _Jay Mathews_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/tag/jay-mathews/) , _language proficiency_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/tag/language-proficiency/) , _Richard Kahlenberg_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/tag/richard-kahlenberg/) , _The Making of Americans_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/tag/the-making-of-americans/) .
The official publication date is still two weeks away (Sept. 15), but copies of E.D. Hirsch’s _new book_ (http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300152814) , The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools, have started to _hit the bookstores_ (http://www.coreknowledge.org/bookstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=212) . Jay Mathews gets a jump with _his review in the Washington Post_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/28/AR2009082801533.html) . “If the inventive 81-year-old had been a business leader or politician or even a school superintendent, his fight to give U.S. children rich lessons in their shared history and culture would have made him a hero among his peers,” Mathews shrewedly observes. ”Instead, he chose to be an English professor, at the unlucky moment when academic fashion declared the American common heritage to be bunk and made people like Hirsch into pariahs.” Mathews notes (correctly, I think) that Hirsch’s new book makes the case for a common curriculum “in the clearest form since his ground-breaking 1987 book, Cultural Literacy.” “The Making of Americans” puts the most troublesome elementary school subject, reading, at the center of its argument. Reading achievement and language proficiency generally have been disappointing for decades, particularly in schools full of the children of immigrant or impoverished parents. Progressives have called for engaging students with lessons that celebrate their real lives and their cultural heritages. Old books about dead white guys don’t hack it, they say. Hirsch’s research convinced him that this approach cut children off from the shared background they all must have to understand the words in front of them. Richard Kahlenberg, reviews the book in the Autumn issue of _The American Scholar_ (http://www.theamericanscholar.org/) , not yet available online: In The Making of Americans, Hirsch…widens the lens to connect his ideas on education reform to the fundamental rationales for our system of public schools in the United States. Citing the writings of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Horace Mann, Hirsch identifies two central reasons for the American “common school”: to create social mobility, allowing bright, hard-working students of all origins to enjoy the American dream; and to create social cohesion, binding children of diverse economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds into citizens of a single nation. Hirsch makes a highly cogent case to support the concept that a common curriculum is necessary in elementary schools to further both goals. The American focus on skills, rather than on content, has left low-income students bereft of “unspoken background knowledge” that is explicitly taught in countries like France and Finland, where levels of academic inequality are much lower. “It does not seem to occur to the intellectual descendants of Rousseau,” Hirsch writes, “that the four-year-old children of rich, highly educated parents might be gaining academic knowledge at home that is unfairly being withheld (albeit with noble intentions) from the children of the poor.” “American education would be far better off if leaders heeded Hirsch’s sound advice to restore a common-core curriculum, Kahlenberg concludes. “Our system would do even better still if leaders went one step further and reinvented Horace Mann’s economically integrated common school for the 21st century.” 4 Responses to “The Making of Americans” ____________________________________ 1. _1_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/09/01/the-making-of-americans/#comment-7565) momof4 _Sep 1st, 2009 at 2:26 pm_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/09/01/the-making-of-americans/#comment-7565) Regrettably, social cohesion has not been a valued goal of public education since the 60s generation replaced it with the multi-culti goals of tribalism and the rush to blame Western Civilization (America in particular) for everything bad that has happened on the planet in the past 100+ years. 2. _2_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/09/01/the-making-of-americans/#comment-7567) _Claus_ (http://www.publicschoolinsights.org/) _Sep 1st, 2009 at 3:53 pm_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/09/01/the-making-of-americans/#comment-7567) Sorry, but the “blame America first” complaint is more fiction than fact. I was in public K-12 schools from the early ’70s through the mid ’80s and saw little evidence that Western Civilization was being maligned. I still see little evidence of that in most of the schools I encounter. In fact, Robert’s posting reveals at least as much unease with Rousseau (Emile) and the Romantics as with anyone else. I’m looking forward to reading Hirsch’s book for the full scoop. 3. _3_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/09/01/the-making-of-americans/#comment-7574) Paul Hoss _Sep 1st, 2009 at 6:17 pm_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/09/01/the-making-of-americans/#comment-7574) Can’t wait to read the book. I’m sure it will be VERY interesting. 4. _4_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/09/01/the-making-of-americans/#comment-7580) Ben F _Sep 2nd, 2009 at 12:40 am_ (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/09/01/the-making-of-americans/#comment-7580) Mom of 4, My ed school professors (circa 1994) certainly tried to promulgate an anti-Western Civ attitude in their prospective teachers. I doubt my ed school was unique. Of course, not every grad parrots the party line, but I can’t help but think a certain bias did seep into our public schools. As a graduate of St. John’s College –”the Great Books College” –I have sometimes sensed this bias when I mention my alma mater. In fact I’m pretty sure that this is what explains a certain assistant superintendent’s overt hostility to me at a job interview a few years back. I actually don’t particularly care if Western civ gets inculcated in our kids –I’d just like SOME rich tradition to be implanted. I’d happily teach the Chinese classics if I could.
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