Bill,
Interesting . However, the skill or reading, critical reading, writing about reading, making shared meaning from a text -- none of that depends on a particular text ( or core content). And all those skills transfer to any text. I would agree with Hirsch that you need some text to work with, preferably a well-written text, but you do not need to read Stevenson or Twain or Shakespeare to learn to read and comprehend well. If Hirsch and Willingham a re right that the workplace skills such as team problem solving and working collaboratively don't transfer from school to the workplace, we should send our kids to work instead of to school -- like they did a few centuries ago. Or maybe we should redesign schools so they are more like the workplaces our kids will someday encounter. So learning is project based and collaborative. I don't think Hirsch would like that, as the content would become secondary to the skills and the structure. If a student team in US History cho se to study the immigrant experience through the changing demands in this region for migrant farm workers, or another studied the economics of agriculture in our community, would they have time to learn the specifics of US history that Hirsch believes we all should learn? And maybe that's OK. I needed to know very little (if any) US history in my 20 years in newspapers. An my friends who went into music and medicine and construction needed to know even less. But wouldn't those kids be learning to work as a team and dig deeply into a subject (a problem) and produce some kind of clear, meaningful report and perhaps even recommendations for change? Schools don't think they can do that now, and teachers don't feel they have time to dig deeply into anything, because we're all chasing the almighty "core content." We have to "cover" so much stuff that there isn't time to really explore anything deeply. In my 6th grade language arts class, I am happiest when kids are discussing a text that catches them in some way, and they leave me out of the discussion. I sit back, maybe ask a followup or a challenge question to get them to dig deeper into somebody's idea, then help them summarize their new ideas at the end. It doesn't matter to me if they miss some specific element of that particular novel. The fact is they're taking a text and finding meaning in it that is useful or relevant to their own lives. What were the classics good for, if not that? Dave Hoh South Jersey _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
