Posted on 11/04/2020 4:19:53 AM PST by karpov
Education reformer E.D. Hirsch may have discovered the cure for our current political divisions—but it won’t be easy.
His prescription is a total overhaul of the K-12 education system as well as our schools of education. Hirsch lays out his plan in a new book, How to Educate a Citizen: The Power of Shared Knowledge to Unify a Nation.
For many years, E.D. Hirsch has been an outsider in education circles. While the education establishment focused on critical thinking, child-centered education, and skills instruction, Hirsch insisted that content matters. Hirsch’s new book expands on that theme. In it, Hirsch repeats the evidence he laid out in his previous works on how the teaching of content affects learning outcomes—including reading comprehension—and student success. But he adds that teaching shared content has another benefit: It gives students a common understanding of our shared history and culture as Americans.
Such commonality would go a long way to healing the great rifts that have developed within our nation.
Although most of Hirsch’s book centers on K-12 education, reform must start with higher education: Specifically, in our schools of education, where the majority of K-12 teachers learn from the same misguided playbook. Hirsch calls it educational romanticism, “the idea that education should be individualized to accord with the child’s nature” and allow them to “construct their own knowledge.” Hirsch is unrepentant in his criticism of ed schools: “The dominant, child-centered idea has been so well indoctrinated in teachers-to-be by our education schools that child-centeredness has wielded an intellectual monopoly.”
It was this philosophy that gave us “whole language” instruction instead of phonics, social studies instead of history, and culturally sensitive math lessons. None of those methods work.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
AmeriKa will never be unified again.
Too late. Prepare.
There is no unifying this country.
There is no unifying America.
No thanks. Not interested.
Bingo.
Definitely too late. The Left isn’t going to let go of the schools. So the schools aren’t going to get fixed. End of story.
And the Educational System will never be corrected as long as the Democrats control the country.
Pie in the sky, especially if Trump goes down.
Schools should primarily teach language skills, basic math and science.
Engineering, construction, repair and manufacturing skills can be taught later on.
There should be no path to leftist political victory.
Divisiveness is the natural situation.
Birds scream at each other for hours each morning.
Ending the power of governments to tax will reduce political conflict.
Almost half of America votes to maintain the flow of “free stuff”.
Even Trump supporters clamor for “free” K-12 public education. This “free” K-12 education is funded by making housing high-priced. The riots in Portland are fueled by high housing costs.
Our systems are screwed up.
Our country is dysfunctional.
No ONE listened to ‘wintertime’...she has been warning us abut public education for YEARS. NOW do you get it? Communists infiltrated and took control of public education over the last fifty years, and now look...take a GOOD look.
The unity of Biden is like the peace of Islam - put on the burka, keep the rugrats quiet and make the kebabs.
Thank you. I feel validated.
That can only happen in a private school. The left has the government system by the neck and is chocking the life out of our nation.
Re: A dysfunctional country
It starts in Pre-K and doesn’t stop until university graduate school.
It actually starts with sesame street ...
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