Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories

Hirsch (Cultural Literacy), founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation, assesses recent reports on education in the U.S. and abroad to reaffirm his career-long crusade for a coherent, cumulative, and content-specific K-12 curriculum. The problems besetting the American system can all, he insists, be attributed to a fragmented, diluted curriculum caused by faulty ideas about individualism, child-centeredness, and theories of natural development not supported by cognitive science. The news from the educational experiments in France, Sweden, and elsewhere in Europe, Hirsch reports, is that so-called “progressive education” that valorizes skills of critical thinking, creativity, and communication without trying to instill a broad base of knowledge produces declining test scores, inequality, and social injustice. What is called for, he says, looking at examples of high-performing Asian schools and the example of a N.Y.C. school that adopted a Core Knowledge curriculum, is a return to community-centered ideals and traditions of shared knowledge that equip citizens for full participation in the public sphere. The structure of the book leads to much rehearsal of its main points with selective or highly summarized glances at the research, and Hirsch sidesteps the question of who gets to decide what is communal knowledge, insisting that knowledge-based learning is not a Gradgrindian emphasis on rote facts but is fun and playful and involves empathetic teaching. Though shy on practical implementation strategies, Hirsch’s call for “a better-educated citizenry” should be heeded by educators and administrators alike. (Sept.)