E.D.Hirsch opposed to a core curriculum? Yes, but in college. In an essay on Forbes.com Hirsch argues against expecting colleges to do work that ought to be done by K-12 schools. ”The underlying problem is not that our professors are feckless or that our undergraduates are brain-dead addicts of iPods and cellphones who lack curiosity and passion for knowledge, he writes. “The real problem is that these young men and women, through no fault of their own, are showing up on campuses undereducated and unprepared for college-level work. They should have received a good general education before they arrived on campus.”
They need remedial courses–including “core curriculum” courses in science, history, the arts and civics–at the time in their lives when they want to launch out on their own, exploring, discovering and pursuing interests at a high level. A required core curriculum in college is not something to be devoutly wished for, but rather a concession to the consequences of a third-rate preparation for first-rate colleges and universities….But though we may currently need to do so, the last thing we should want to do is impose a table d’hôte of required classes on undergraduates who are enjoying their first taste of academic freedom and a chance to chart their own educational destinies.
“There is a real danger that in making colleges the academic safety net of last resort, we’ll absolve the public schools of their obligation to provide students with a sound, well-rounded education,” Hirsch cautions. ”It’s damaging to our students, to our country and to our higher education system, which is the lone bright star in our educational firmament. Everyone loses.”
Interesting.
I haven’t read the article yet (I will), but I sure would have benefited from a core curriculum at Wellesley & Dartmouth.
I showed up from a farm in central Illinois and took the courses that sounded good — a “colloquium” in women’s studies? Yeah! A seminar on paranormal psychology – oh boy! (We did experiments resulting in zero confirmation of paranormal abilities. Time well spent.)
I didn’t need a remedial program, exactly, though in hindsight it’s clear I needed a real algebra 2 course. I needed specialists in the liberal arts disciplines directing me to the appropriate survey courses.
As to the assertion that college students “should have received a good general education before they arrived on campus” — no question there.
Yes, we should have received a good general education before we arrived on campus, but we did not have that freedom. We were given a tender-hearted liberal education, which was skimpy on the details of history and geography and heavy on “social science,” light on science but heavy on “health,” and brushed past math in favor of “projects.” Enjoying our first taste of academic freedom might just include giving ourselves a “core” education.
Wonderful essay by E.D. Hirsch. Prof. Hirsch has long advocated for a quality content rich education and his suggestion that the core general education should be taught in K-12 and college should allow specialization makes tremendous sense.
But our schools are not on a path to improve. Our schools have no way of setting even broad learning goals nor determining if those learning goals were met. Basic elements essential for improvement.
Since no one is responsible for ensuring that our children receive a quality education, the blame for failure to improve gets shifted around from the feds to the states to the schools to poverty or to the latest excuse of the day.
So who is saying “failure is not an option”? Who is saying “the buck stops here”? No one is.
Without someone (fed, state, district, school etc…) responsible for ensuring that our students receive a quality education, the status quo will continue to reign.
Not having too many core curricular requirements was one of the things I looked for in a college. I’d had a pretty solid high school education, and by the time I started college I had a couple of solid interests I wanted to explore, and was very happy to be able to jump into a upper division political theory course my freshman year, rather than doing a more generic Western Civilization course.
I see two overlapping but not identical issues here. The first has to do with students’ level of preparation when they enter college; the second, with the degree of structure in college programs.
I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Hirsch that K-12 schools should give students a solid foundation for college-level work. When they enter college they should be in a position to work at an advanced level inside and outside their major; they should not be spending time in remedial courses.
Now for the question of requirements and electives. Ideally, college students should also have great freedom to choose their courses. The array and quality may well exceed anything they have known before, and they may not have such an opportunity again. How structured should a college curriculum be? They vary widely; both extremes carry dangers.
With too few electives, students may never have a chance to explore unfamiliar areas. Too many electives can result in watering down of the curriculum, even when the students are well prepared. There will be more courses along the lines of “physics for poets” just because the demand is higher. And then the vicious cycle begins: students perceive these courses as “guts,” put minimal work into them, and water them down still more. (Some “physics for poets” courses are great. But when they teach neither physics nor poetry, require minimal work, and grow more numerous each year, we have a problem.)
Electives are wonderful and should be there–but they should retain the rigor of a course within the major, with few exceptions. This is daunting for the student who wants to get all As. Many students won’t risk a B in a subject they don’t know. So, in order to maintain the integrity of the system, we would have to also fight the overemphasis on GPA. That doesn’t mean going to the other extreme and abandoning grades–but rather encouraging students to seek more than a perfect transcript and set their own priorities.
It comes down to this: we must not only prepare students to work at the college level, but encourage them to pursue a college education in its richest and fullest sense–not just as career preparation (which is important) or advancement within a specialty (also important) but for its own sake. Schools and colleges are not only here to boost our economy. Our economy could boom, and then what? We’d still be left with the task of making the most of our lives.
Good points! It is impractical to ask PhDs (professors or grad students) to teach core classes and to ask those who enroll in such classes to pay for facilities like advanced laboratories or university libraries.
The more logical approach is to move core classes to high school or to junior college and to remove a bachelor’s degree as a requirement for most entry-level work. Vocational or technical training for a year or so should be enough. From there, the worker can, based on his plans and recommendations from his employers, seek further education in different types of schools.
Any other type of education the person desires he can take part-time or full-time at his expense or through support from government or his employer in the form of continuing education or through the cultural institutions funded by the private sector or government, including museum and cultural tours, etc. From there, depending on what he wants to take for evaluation, he can receive credentials through various means, such as credit in the form of certification, credit-by-examination, work experience credited, etc.
The result should be a system that is flexible and reasonable.