Dear E.D. Hirsch,
My, my do you have a strong point of view on education! I'm a newcomer to your philosophy but am taken aback (greatly, mind you) by what you have to say. If you can't tell by now, I totally disagree with your ideas and want to take a moment to explain why.
My biggest issue with your ideas is within your book Cultural Literacy because I do not believe students need to know STUFF (to put it bluntly) through a uniform curriculum and then tested on it with an "objective" test of some sort. I feel like we'd be creating mini Ken Jennings all around our country (no offense, Ken) who can regurgitate useless knowledge that they aren't even sure why they know it in the first place!
Our students need to learn that stuff in context with other useful lessons... lessons that dare I say it, should be taught with hands-on, engaging activities where students not only learn from their teacher but learn from each other through dialogue, interaction and can then apply the new knowledge to other areas in their lives. When you state: "Whether a word is learned by targeted practice or by the contextual method of enriched language use, its actual meaning is, for the most part, just a brute fact. In a sense, all words are learned by rote" you imply a terrible method of learning "meaning" in which adults are the gate keepers of it all and children must obtain it from them (i.e. it sounds like a "banking" method of teaching which Paulo Freire was so strongly against).
Mr. Hirsch, while I value the fact that you've taken such a great interest in our schools and the curriculum that they follow, I do not value your philosophy and your ideas. I think progressive education is working hard in this country today and I actually hope to see some more radical approaches take a more prominent role in our schools.
Best,
Keriann
Self Assessment
17 years ago
4 comments:
Dear Keriann,
There are instances where rote memorization is an effective teaching tool. For example, there are things that teachers need to simply "tell" to students in order for learning to take place. In addition, I believe in curriculum changes which would help guide teachers in establishing goals.
Sincerely,
E.D. Hirsch
Dear Keriann,
I am disappointed in your condemnation of my books and philosophy. As far as your Ken Jennings comment - precisely, he must have read my book, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, and memorized all the terms in order to do as well as he did on Jeopardy. See, don't we want more of his kind in our society? Of course we do and we will get them as long as they subscribe to my philosophy.
Regretfully,
E.D. Hirsch
Keriann,
I agree that there is more to life than merely spitting back facts that you have memorized. I think it is a shame that this is what we are solely judged on. I think that students should be given a well-rounded education instead of producing a world of robots. We need to let our students think critically and have the ability to think by making connections and sense to them of what we are trying to teach.
Dear Keriann,
Yes I do have a strong point of view on education. So should all Americans be interested in the health of our education system. That is one of the reasons I wrote the books.
Congress, business, many American people and I believe their should be a certain base line of knowledge that must be passed in order for there to be a value to having a diploma. Otherwise that diploma is simply a worthless piece of paper. Businesses will not know if they hire someone with a high school diploma whether they have enough education to handle the job they are hiring him for.
One of the problems in the United State is that the curriculum is not uniform so business settles in one area of the country and not another because they don't feel the curriculum in the depressed area is sufficient enough to provide them with educated workers.
Knowledge is not useless Many countries make fun of the fact that American students cannot name the states or rivers in their own country. This is something Europeans have to memorize in grammar school.
You state these "engaging activities' are ways for students to learn from each other as well as the teacher. One of the problems in today's American classroom is that students are learning too much from the teacher. Discipline in our classrooms in poor because students socialize too much and don't pay attention to their lessons. What we don't need is a student trying to find an answer from another student who is just as ignorant.
Sincerely,
E.D. Hirsch
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