If Not College, Then What?
Robert Pondiscio of CitizenshipFirst writes again to Deborah Meier.
Dear Deborah,
Let me divorce you of a misconception. If I am fixated, as you insist, on "deciding what children should know," it is because I see how our language proficiency is largely a function of theknowledge and vocabulary we possess.
I have no burning desire to play curriculum content czar. But the broader your knowledge base, the better equipped you are to speak, listen, read, and write with understanding. Once that's clear, it makes no more sense to be unconcerned with the content of a child's education than to be unconcerned with her diet. We would never say to parents, "The food your child eats isn't what's important. What's important is creating a lifelong love of eating!" That's basically what many of us say about reading every day. It's simply not true.
But I'm content you get this, Deb. You wrote, "Learning to use one's mind well requires content knowledge." So we agree. Or at least we agree enough.
If every teacher and parent in America understood that our big-picture goals for schooling—reading comprehension, critical thinking, problem-solving—depend on specific knowledge, and that there