HW # 45 More Big Thoughts on Schools

When I first read Sol Stern's article called "E.D. Hirsch's Curriculum for Democracy," I felt somewhat annoyed by his criticism of proggresive education which seems to focus more on teaching kids how to think as opposed to what he reccomends: learning a whole bunch of facts. The quote that really got to me was, "By now, it should be evident that teaching children in the early grades "how to learn about the Civil War" will not necessarily lead them ever to learn about the Civil War-or about any of the other pivotal events in their country's history." He is also upset that every kid doesn't know who James Monroe is in the first grade. It makes absolutely no sense to me that first graders should be fed a lot of facts about the Civil War. And it seems crazy to say that not learning a series of facts in first or second grade will mean that kids won't be able to absorb facts when they're older. Actually, I think the opposite is true. If kids are thought how to think about important events when they are little, like for instance how different it was growing up in the north as opposed to growing up in the south, then when they are older they will have a context to put the facts they are learning in.

Another thing that was annoying to me about Hirsch's thinking, according to Sol Stern, is the way he thinks about the connection between education and democracy. Hirsch, he says, thinks kids should learn the same facts based curriculum in every grade so that they would all think similarly. " The school would be the institution that would transform future citizens into loyal Americans...It would teach common knowlege, virtues, ideals, language, and commitments." This kind of teaching doesn't sound good for democracy at all. It sounds more like what a totalitarian government would do. Ted Sizer, the progressive education guy, says, "Students should leave school well-informed skeptics, able to ask good questions as a matter of habit." In other words, kids should develop their well-informed opinions and not just be taught one way to think. Sizer also said, "If democracy is about responsible freedom, it depends on a citizenry which sees the world clearly, which is repectful of past ideas, but never their prisoner..." This way of thinking is obviously a much better way to think about how to develop citizens who can participate in a democracy that will work. Hirsch's idea that he and the Founding Fathers had more in common than the Founding Fathers and Sizer would've had also sounds pretty crazy to me. I don't think the Founding Fathers were thinking about a lot of diversity in the voting pool. They weren't thinking about how young black kids, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, and Jewish kids whose grandparents had been killed in the Holacaust could all feel a part of being American.

As far as coming up with a way that Hirsch's theory of a good education and Sizer's theory could work together, it is important to know that Hirsch focused more on the earlier grades and Sizer focused on high school grades. It seems to me that there should always be an emphasis on teaching kids how to think about specific subjects at all grade levels. Obviously, facts need to be learned as well. Just learning facts is not only boring but it's also not effective because they will be forgotten if they are not in a context. The context would be an argument or a way of thinking that uses the facts the student has learned. I think the problem in the difference in their thinking has to do with testing. Hirsch believes in a lot of standardized testing at younger ages, and wealthier kids have always done better on these tests on the whole. Sizer's approach is fairer for kids from different economic and ethnic backgrounds. All kids need to learn a lot of facts, but they also need to learn how to develop ideas and opinions so that they can develop their minds and contribute to their society and also be smart voters.