Comments on: Core Knowledge Friday News Quiz

By: Diana Senechal

Diana Senechal — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:04:43 +0000

Actually, What Your Third Grader Needs to Know presents the “fountain of youth” story as legend or hearsay, not established fact:

“Ponce de León found gold in Puerto Rico. It made him rich, but he kept exploring. Some say he believed he could find a “Fountain of Youth in the West Indies–one drink of its water would keep you young forever. Of course, he never found a Fountain of Youth. What did he find?”

By: mickey

mickey — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:49:12 +0000

For the record… Cultural literacy != historical accuracy.

There’s no contemporaneous evidence that Ponce de León was searching for the “fountain of youth”; his charter from the Spanish crown was to search for gold. But it makes a sweet myth about rapacious Conquistadors. (See Tony Horwitz’s well-researched A Voyage Long and Strange.)

By: Robert Pondiscio

Robert Pondiscio — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:47:59 +0000

Schools may align the Core Knowledge Sequence, based on their state content standards, and to be honest, I’m not confident that 2nd graders will be able to rattle off all of the labors of Hercules. But regardless of when each of these pieces are taught, my larger point is that our daily discourse is filled with references to broad background knowledge that speakers and writers simply assume their audience will know. In my school, we had all but abandoned the idea that academic content matters. Once you tune your radar, you see such references everywhere.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:18:05 +0000

Actually, these examples highlight some of the issues I have with Core Knowledge, which is how early some of the material is introduced.

I remember learning about the Spanish explorers, and now that you mention it, about Ponce De Leon and the fountain of youth. I learned it young enough that it’s all jumbled up in the grab-bag of elementary school factlettes.

Maybe its a good idea to start planting the seeds of these stories in the early elementary grades, but I don’t think we should get the idea that if a 2nd grader reads about the Augean stables its going to stick with him in away that useful for reading Op-Eds 30 years later.

On the other hand, I’m not sure you need to wait until 7th and 8th grade to teach kids who Roosevelt and Kennedy were.

By: Walt

Walt — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:34:34 +0000

I got a 66 on the quiz.Had no idea about question #2 Not a good sign for me,since you say that literate adults would know. Why would we want or even expect an elementary student to know yet another myth. Isnt real history more noteworthy at the elementary level. My memory of 6th grade was reading the battle at thermopylae and Spartan life. That had lifelong value to me as a point of reference for hard work,strategic planning,and responsibility. Not sure what the take away is on cleaning out cattle poop.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:22:29 +0000

I like this method of demonstrating the importance of cultural literacy. However, I have to point out that the first reference is an awkward one. Ponce de Leon is a man who tried and failed to find the fountain of youth, while according to Marty Noble, Carlos Delgado has found it.

I realize that the reference succeeds because the association of the fountain of youth is successfully made, and I haven’t seen the cartoon movie that may have changed our cultural understanding of the story, but my understanding was that the interest was always on the fact that it was a failed quest.