E. D. Hirsch: “American Teachers Are Being Blamed for Intellectual Failings That Permeate the System Within Which They Must Work.”
Its hard to believe that its been thirty years since the publication of E. D. Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. The book proposes,
…that all public schoolchildren should be provided with instruction aimed at familiarizing them with a wide variety of topics, including literature, geography, history, math, science, art and music, in order to have the background knowledge that would make them successful readers and learners.
The book became famous, or, depending your place on the ed reform spectrum, infamous, for the 63-page index of 5,000 essential subjects and concepts that Hirsch believed teachers should impart to students.
Hirsch, a self-described, “almost Socialist” was painted as a neo-conservative and few school districts adopted his ideas.
The current apostasy are Common Core standards.
In many schools an unintended consequence of the emphasis on Common Core-based testing has been purging classrooms of all but what is tested.
Since the 1987 publication innumerable “innovations” or “reforms” have come and gone: from Ebonics to the Common Core; the Core Knowledge Foundation (Explore Core Knowledge Sequences here), continues to support parents and schools that advocate the cultural literacy philosophy. The foundation, a not-for-profit provides a K – 8 curriculum; a grade-by-grade sequence of lessons, of E. D. Hirsch: “American Teachers Are Being Blamed for Intellectual Failings That Permeate the System Within Which They Must Work.” | Ed In The Apple:
