The question “Whose Core Knowledge?” was the chief question (or implicit accusation against Core Knowledge) that ran through the 1990s on up to the present.
But gradually the fundamental needs of good schooling have tempered those concerns. Both the current U.S. Secretary of Education and the current head of the American Federation of Teachers have called for “national standards,” recognizing the technical need for commonality if we are to educate everybody to a reasonably high standard.
The word “whose” in the “Whose Core Knowledge?” implies that the topics we teach belong to some sort of essential identity and ethnicity that defines a person and transcends what it is to be a functioning American.
But an alternative view is that the ability of all these multifarious ethnic identities in the USA to live in peace (a great legacy to the world) can do so only because we separate the public (American) from the private (ethnic) spheres. This was Jefferson’s thought, and that of other founders. In the private sphere everybody can be what he or she wishes; in the public sphere, everybody is an American. The best-known example of this is the “separation of church and state, where we may have our own religious identities, but temper it in public to enable everyone to get along. Another example is the separation of family ethnicity, which may be anything at all, as distinct from the publicly shared assumptions of the public sphere where we can interact and connect with each other.
Core Knowledge has taken the view that the schools need to promulgate this public culture (all public cultures are artificial inventions) in order to enable everyone to communicate and learn in the public sphere. The paradox of those who wish to save us all from the imperialism of some dominant school curriculum is that when the disadvantaged children they wish to protect are not able to learn and communicate in the public sphere–especially in the public language and its associated knowledge–they become the very students who are most harmed by our anti-cultural-imperialism.
Our position has been that we need to agree on some defined public sphere sustained by the schools, CK has always said it would be happy to go along with ANY widely agreed-on common core that enables students to understand and learn from newspapers, blogs, and the books in the library. Critics of CK have not yet come up with specific well-thought out alternatives, nor with any plausible argument against the need for a common core in the public sphere.
People would certainly not pay attention to such an alternative argument unless it were couched in the common language and its shared knowledge, both of which the schools have a duty to teach. This very thread is an example of public speech based on that shared knowledge and convention system. Alas, many disadvantaged students now being turned out by our schools and protected from coherent knowledge by the guardians of their identities cannot participate effectively in this thread, nor learn from it.
“Alas, many disadvantaged students now being turned out by our schools and protected from coherent knowledge by the guardians of their identities cannot participate effectively in this thread, nor learn from it.”
They cannot “participate effectively in this thread”?
How exactly do you know this? Have you actually sat down and engaged any kids in this discussion?
Looks to me like it’s a bunch of ed-thinkers talking at one another.
Comment by Shelly — April 9, 2009 @ 3:39 pm
I’m enjoying your responses, but BFF makes me go “ewwww.”
Here’s the first response: http://education.change.org/blog/view/teaching_core_knowledge_and_21st_century_skills
More soon.
Comment by Clay Burell — April 9, 2009 @ 6:46 pm
How exactly do you know this?
I’m guessing that he might be thinking of the tens of millions of Americans who are literate, if at all, only on a very low level.
Comment by Stuart Buck — April 9, 2009 @ 7:03 pm
Stuart
Absolutely. But I still say: how do you know those folks couldn’t participate in a discussion (let alone “learn” from a discussion) about their situation? And I’m not talking about reading and replying to a blog post; I’m talking about sitting down and talking face-to-face with folks.
Do you think none of those millions of barely-literate folks have anything to say about the matter?
Comment by Shelly — April 9, 2009 @ 10:31 pm
I really like the CK sequence as a general framework, a list of things that I want my kids to be familiar with by the time they finish 8th grade. However, I do not support using it as a mandatory grade-by-grade national standard, nor do I support any other mandatory national curriculum.
Teachers should be free to tailor their teaching to meet the individual learning needs of students rather than have some committee of bureaucrats sitting thousands of miles away dictate it from on high.
Comment by Crimson Wife — April 10, 2009 @ 2:08 am
Public schools are an important means of forging some sort of national unity without obliterating diversity–E Pluribus Unum. Does a broad and compelling vision for what students should know necessarily inhibit teachers’ ability to address students’ individual needs? I’m not so sure.
As we consider important issues such as choice and personal attention to student needs, we should not lose sight of public schools’ mission to create common ground. Charles Haynes put it well: “With all of its flaws and limitations, the success of the American experiment — E Pluribus Unum — is due in no small measure to the work of public schools.”
Comment by Claus — April 10, 2009 @ 8:56 am
In agreement with Claus, national standards may actually in some cases facilitate teachers addressing their students’ individual needs by laying out the goals so that a teacher may find a student-specific ‘route to achieve them’. Some evidence for how standards inhibit a teacher’s ability to address students’ individual needs has to be given to make that claim. And in terms of talking to students about their situations, it seems that they would be comforted to know that there is a set of things that they are required to know and that their teacher is required to teach so that they have the chance to be endowed with exactly what future teachers and employers will expect of them.
Comment by Alyse — April 10, 2009 @ 9:25 am
The notion that national standards are deficient because we have to meet individual learning needs is misguided. Logically, it amounts to saying that while we may need to teach students in CA that 2 + 2 = 4; in Arkansas they only need to know that 1 + 2 = 3. That, of course, is nonsense. Even if a person in New York has learning difficulty of some kind does not mean that 2 + 2 = 4 is not a standard that she has to meet.
National Standards means that there are things that everybody everywhere needs to know. It doesn’t mean that there are things that people in some places need to know that others may not. A segment in a health course on frostbite prevention and treatment might make good sense in Alaska but not in Florida, whereas one on dealing with alligators just might be necessary in some parts of Florida but never in Alaska (maybe not the best examples, but surely you get the point). National standards and individual needs are not incompatible. Let’s please put such a false dichotomy to rest once and for all.
Comment by Matthew Kent — April 10, 2009 @ 1:31 pm
“Teachers should be free to tailor their teaching to meet the individual learning needs of students rather than have some committee of bureaucrats sitting thousands of miles away dictate it from on high.”
Dear Crimson,
What if the teacher is racist? Or dumb? Or both? Or just inexperienced? You would rather have your child’s education future determined by a 22-year-old kid who got a 1600 on her SATs (out of 2400), graduated with a C+ average, and has never heard of E.D. Hirsch rather than PhDs in science and English and math? The “child-centered” classroom, like its kissin’ cousin “critical thinking,” is one of the most abused terms in modern education. I have been in dozens of classrooms all over the country and watched well-meaning teachers respond to “individual learning needs” of kids by allowing them to wander the room and stare out the window…. –pm
Comment by Peter Meyer — April 10, 2009 @ 1:31 pm
I’m with Peter. I’ve always found curious the phrase (I hear it a lot) that teachers should “free to tailor their teaching to meet the individual learning needs of students.”
I always have the same response: how can it be that this student “needs” to learn about photosynthesis, but another one doesn’t. That one child’s “learning needs” include adding fractions and understanding the three branches of government, while his classmates’ learning needs do not include this. How can this be so? And how precisely do we come to these judgements?
It is not a “committee of bureaucrats sitting thousands of miles away that dictates from on high” the necessity of this information, but rather the simple desire — no, the NEED — to avoid creating second-class citizens. A teacher — any teacher – is going to decide my child “doesn’t need to know” certain things? Such as?
The argument works both ways, and in fact is more powerful in reverse: How dare we decide a child needs a body of common knowledge? No. How dare we decide he does not.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — April 10, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
Crimson,
To piggy-back onto Robert’s well thought out line of reasoning; if teachers are supposed to “…be free to tailor their teaching to meet the individual learning needs of students…,” why do so many teachers spend the majority of the school day teaching the same lesson to the whole class? How is that meeting any student’s “individual” needs?
Even Horace Mann in the mid-nineteenth century recognized the need for a “common” course of study for all students so everyone would have equal access to the same body knowledge.
Comment by Paul Hoss — April 10, 2009 @ 5:56 pm
I’ve heard several acquaintances of mine who are current or former teachers complain that if an activity cannot be directly tied to something listed in the state standards for that grade, school administrators do not permit them to do it no matter how educationally worthwhile it is. Kids are losing out on beneficial learning opportunities in the name of “standardizing” education.
Comment by Crimson Wife — April 10, 2009 @ 7:44 pm
Peter- don’t forget it was the PhD.’s who came up with the infamous “whole language” fad and the “fuzzy math” programs TERC/Investigations and Every Day Mathematics. Just because an educrat is considered an “expert” in a field doesn’t mean that he/she knows better than a teacher actually in a classroom what works.
Comment by Anonymous — April 10, 2009 @ 7:48 pm
Again, I have to add that Core Knowledge doesn’t tell you “HOW” to teach, it simply gives guidelines on “WHAT” to teach. The “HOW” is where the teacher is allowed to innovate and use their creative energies. The “WHAT” is often a task that teachers don’t really want to do anyway. Coming up with a years worth of subject matter and then designing a curriculum on top of all the other responsibilities of teaching is exhausting. Here, Core Knowledge, helps the teacher by laying out the information to be covered. Some teachers may want to cover this by having their class do a performance of some sort, or write books, or do some sort of public speaking. Whatever the method clearly, Core Knowledge is NOT dictating this, which leaves the teacher ample freedom to teach in their own way.
I know for me, when I was tutoring to work with a little Kindergartener and found the CORE KNOWLEDGE guidelines, I was SO happy, that someone had actually gone through the trouble to guide me along with what to cover. I simply used it as a checklist while tutoring. This little guy got a lot of information thanks to those guidelines, we danced it out, sang it out, acted it out, did whatever we had to in order to reach his brain. That’s where the real teaching and expressive nature of my own teaching took place. Hope this makes sense!
Have a great day everyone!
Comment by Chrissy D'Amico — April 11, 2009 @ 8:51 am
One of the problems with Core Knowledge is that it’s relatively weak on science. The science standards may be adequate for first or second grades but by the time the students reach 3rd grade, the Core Knowledge science standards are weak compared to most state science standards and most commercially available science curricula.
The Core Knowledge standards are challenging, especially in history and geography, but they are in need of updating.
Comment by Judy — April 12, 2009 @ 5:16 pm
Robert, it would be great if your webmaster could add a “notify me of comments to this post” option – emails, you know, to those of us who stop by, so we know if the conversation extends.
Anyway, is it just me, or are most of the “of course there should be core knowledge” arguments using examples from science and math, and few (maybe none?) from social studies/history and literature? I have that impression.
Why? Because it’s harder to argue that we should dictate nationally what local students should know about history, or why they should read literary work A over work B.
Matthew confuses me a bit in his second paragraph – he seems to intend it to support his first, but it seems a strong argument against it. Like frostbite and snakebite don’t make sense nationally, they make perfect sense locally. Ditto for historical and literary knowledge: the local make-up of the community is an important factor in the historical and literary content covered in its classrooms.
I’m not suggesting an either/or. I don’t read CK as suggesting it either, given its “we only prescribe _half_ the curriculum” talking point.
And somewhere up there somebody implies that knowledge is the end of education, while somebody else straw mans “critical thinking” as staring out windows. Neither sentiment speaks well of the CK vision, if accurate. Critical thinking about shared knowledge – you know, like informed voters are expected to exercise in a democracy – that seems a higher purpose for schools than mere “knowledge.”
Doesn’t it?
Comment by Clay Burell — April 13, 2009 @ 8:13 am
Clay,
I think the reason many of us harp on knowledge is that it is utterly undervalued –if not completely discounted –in the minds of most educators. For all intents and purposes today, it is the handmaiden to “critical thinking skills” –would you disagree? Even your own post betrays this bias when you say “mere ‘knowledge’”. The way I see it, there is no such thing as MERE knowledge. A doctor reads a ton about ticks and Lyme disease –MERE knowledge –and yet this knowledge enables him to make an accurate judgement about whether or not to prescribe antibiotics when he looks at a patient’s tick bite. The knowledge BREEDS the high-level thinking. Thus it is with ALL knowledge –it’s never MERE. It spawns, breeds. The MERE fact that enters the kid’s brain makes all sorts of neural ripple effects, sending dendrites in new directions, so that even if he forgets that the Black Death hastened the decline of feudalism, he retains the understanding that epidemics can have profound social consequences and his ears now perk up when he hears “bird flu”. There is a deep, deep prejudice against facts in this country –unwarranted and possibly catastrophic. The lovely higher-order thinking that we all appreciate is the fruit of knowledge-acquisition, not its enemy. We have more to worry about from a skills-heavy curriculum than a knowledge-heavy curriculum, since knowledge, well-taught, will yield great thinking almost of its own accord, whereas “skills” instruction will not. In fact, while I acknowledge that teachers can show kids a few tricks that will catalyze kids’ USE of thinking skills, I do not believe that any teacher has ever TAUGHT a thinking skills. They are innate. Our brains naturally compare, contrast, analyze and sythesize. Yet most of my colleagues will say that they are trying to TEACH these skills. They’re fooling themselves. They might provide students a chance to exercise these capacities, but the teacher does not give the capacity. What we manifestly CAN teach is knowledge. But in America today, one does so in a shame-faced way, apologizing for implanting facts in kids’ memories as if they were rocks that will hamper the light, springy, nimble critical thinking they’re supposed to be doing. Until this wrong-headed conception of knowledge is overturned, I for one will continue vaunting the paramount importance of knowledge.
Comment by Ben F — April 13, 2009 @ 3:24 pm
Ben, you emphasize the end of my sentence and elide the more important beginning: “Critical thinking about shared knowledge.”
I agree that knowledge is foundational. I think it’s “mere” if it leaves students “bookful blockheads,” to quote Sam Johnson, who consider their ability to win at Trivial Pursuit as a sign of high culture or education.
If you teach, what subject do you teach? So much of my own point of view comes from my role as a humanities teacher. And in that role, I can tell you that I’ve seen high school students able to spout off facts (and learn them impressively), without the slightest ability to ask the basic questions that _thinkers_, not mere _knowers_, ask about received knowledge, be it from teachers, parents, preachers, politicians, textbooks, the media or the press.
If they’re only taught to know the stuff, and not trained to ask questions about it, then whatever “innate” critical thinking they may be capable of at birth is still going to whither in schools. (We’re all innately capable of playing the piano, too, but without training we don’t get beyond Chopsticks.)
I’m starting to feel like a broken record on this space by repeating my question: why are we framing knowledge and critical thinking (and other skills like writing) as mutually exclusive? In my practice they’re not at all.
And I’ll tell you this: Nothing turns students on to a textbook like a teacher who starts the year by saying, “As we learn the material in this thing, we’re also going to talk back to it, criticize it, ask why it left these facts out while including those, and what sort of person it’s trying to mold you into. We’re going to reward anybody who comes up with a good case for calling bullsh*t on the textbook.”
Calling BS on any authoritatively packaged knowledge is mere slang for “critical thinking.” It keeps students awake, makes the knowledge more interesting, and the future less prone to demagogues.
Comment by Clay Burell — April 14, 2009 @ 4:04 am
I’m not sure I see anyone making a case that knowledge and skills are separate, Clay. There is an unfortunate tendency, especially among those who promote “21st Century Skills” to treat knowledge as simply the stuff of critical thinking. There’s no need to reargue this point, since it’s been done so at great length in this space over the last many months. But in short, I see a lot of lip service paid to content by popularizers of 21CS. Critical thinking cannot be taught as a transferable skill. It’s embedded in the content, as your example of “Calling BS on the textbook” demonstrates. That’s critical thinking. And great teaching.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — April 14, 2009 @ 6:26 am
I am retired but as a teacher am intensely interested in the ideas behind educational practices. What I have seen for 30 years is a set, standard curriculum of innovation, thinking skills, projects, discovery learning, child-centered teaching, and so on. Therefore I am happy to see (what seems to me to be) an expansion of the thoughtful and informed answers to that standard curriculum. I would like to offer my version of some of those answers.
There is nothing wrong in teaching western civilization; indeed it is right to teach it to those of us whose whole culture and thinking are rooted in this history. What I find wrong is to teach it as though this view of history and culture were all that exists, and not to teach about other cultures and history.
About individualization: not an individualized curriculum, but individualized attention. Every child needs on a regular basis to have time with the teacher, whose task here is to help that child understand when he doesn’t, to encourage when needed, to point out things that will further learning, all the many ways to help each student’s own ways of learning and viewing strengthen study of the core curriculum. Also and always, to help each child take on his or her personal responsibility for learning.
It seems to me that–in a way–the specific content is less important than the fact that there is content: substantial, sequential content. As Professor Hirsch keeps pointing out, learning something new is advanced when there is already information. Yet, in another way, the content needs to FIRST show children what their own culture is and help them function in the world they inhabit, and next provide a foundation for further study.
Thanks for the opportunity to express some of my thoughts.
Comment by Susan T. — April 14, 2009 @ 9:16 am
I can tell you that I’ve seen high school students able to spout off facts (and learn them impressively), without the slightest ability to ask the basic questions that _thinkers_, not mere _knowers_, ask about received knowledge, be it from teachers, parents, preachers, politicians, textbooks, the media or the press.
But you’ve never seen the inverse, i.e., students who were whizzes at “critical thinking” (whatever that means) but who didn’t know how to read, had never heard of the institution called “Congress,” who thought the sun revolved around the earth (as a substantial minority of American adults still believe), and who thought that 2 + 2 = 5.
At best, your point is that wide knowledge isn’t sufficient to be a critical and creative thinker. But it’s definitely necessary.
Comment by Stuart Buck — April 14, 2009 @ 10:50 am
I doubt Clay would disagree with you, Stuart, but I’ll let him speak for himself. Here’s a question for you, Clay: As a high school humanities teacher clearly concerned with critical thinking, is there a body of background knowledge that you assume all of your students come to you with? If so, what does it include and how did your students come by it?
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — April 14, 2009 @ 11:01 am
Robert, thanks for stating what I’d thought I made obvious.
That last question is too huge for 2.13 a.m. Korea time, but it’s a good one. Let me sleep on it. (Really, get your webmaster to put a notify me of new comments plugin on this blog, I’m begging you.)
Comment by Clay Burell — April 14, 2009 @ 1:15 pm
Clay,
I teach medieval world history to twelve year olds.
I’m not sure who these unthinking young knowers that you write about are. In my experience the kids who know a lot tend to be the ones who pose the best, most-penetrating questions. In any event, I don’t think America has to worry about having too many youth whose heads are overstuffed with facts given the content-doesn’t-matter-too-much attitude of most teachers.
Your talk about calling BS on the authorities prompts me to try to articulate inchoate thoughts I’ve had for a while… I understand that you use this technique to pique kids’ interest, and I hesitate to argue with anything that manages to pull off this difficult feat, but something about it stirs deep unease in me. Why is this a necessary or desirable way to have kids approach academics? Is there really some conspiracy among adults to pull a fast one on kids, to insert dubious facts into the curriculum? Should the mental posture of kids, when it comes to academics, be on guard, rather than docile and receptive? Do we really need to be assiduously sowing seeds of suspicion about the veracity or intentions of textbooks or other authorities?
I am no fan of most textbooks, but mostly because they tend to be vapid or confusing, not because I think they’re trying to dupe or manipulate students. And I definitely want educated adults to be leery of and think critically about certain authorities, etc. But I worry that encouraging our kids to hold a suspicious posture toward the very materials we’re providing them is not at all constructive or needed. You and I should have a suspicious posture, but once we’ve chosen the materials, their trust in us should transfer to the materials. Why can’t the kids just listen and learn and grasp, and not have to apply scepticism? (And, by the way, who provides the tools for meaningful scepticism –the teacher, no?) Some of my twelve year olds already sport this kind of pan-critical stance. For example, many students will simply scoff when I tell them that Finding X has been supported by scientists at most of the world’s most prestigious institutions, if the finding doesn’t seem sensible to them: they readily place the authority of their own judgment over the judgment of eminent scientists. This is an empty, ignorant and destructive “critical thinking” –an unearned worldliness.
I think a lot of adults in America have a problem with authority. The attitude seems to be that it must always be questioned. But there is such a thing as genuine authority (albeit never perfect) and such authority should be listened to, not roughed-up with jejune scepticism.
I think a lot of adults have problems BEING the adult. They try to be on the kids’ side always –against THOSE people, the fraudulent ones who claim to be authorities, the ones who make stupid rules, the ones who must always be questioned, the ones who must earn our (the kids’) respect… These adults are loathe to be seen on the adults’ side, and unwilling to take on the mantle of authority (except in the matter of pronouncing the need to question authority).
Sorry –thoughts haven’t crystallized as well as I’d hoped. But it’s late, and I’ll let this suffice for now.
Comment by Ben F — April 15, 2009 @ 1:17 am
Ben, thank you for your excellent points. Yes indeed, there is a tendency to demand skepticism of young people.
Now, if a textbook is really stupid, we shouldn’t have to use it in the first place. We should be able to select the best books available and then expect the students to trust the material in it.
They may question it, of course. But we should not encourage them to distrust everything we give them. We should not treat trust in authority as a character weakness. They need to trust in authority. They should not have to do so recklessly. If we do not offer authority ourselves, they will seek it elsewhere–in their slightly older or more confident peers, in popular culture, in advertising, on the internet, and in various groups and gangs.
Comment by Diana Senechal — April 15, 2009 @ 7:08 am
Good points, Diana –here and at Bridging Differences.
I think the on guard stance really inhibits learning –as Mortimer Adler writes in his Paideia Proposal, real learning requires a certain docility and receptiveness, not self-assertion and wariness. Through this intensive internalizing and learning phase, a human will acquire the wherewithal to be meaningfully skeptical later on. (Often I come back to the metaphor of plant growth cycle: sowing, fertilizing, cultivation…harvest comes at the end. So many current education approaches seem to want harvest NOW.)
Sadly, I think one reason many teachers shy away from trying to be the authority is that many lack authority in their subject matters –they themselves are victims of flimsy educations. Most of my English teacher colleagues profess weak grammar knowledge (my own could stand some brushing up as well). Even literature majors at Ivy League Penn (according to one literature professor I spoke to there) “don’t know anything” except for techniques of deconstruction.
The good news is that we’re the grown ups and can bone up on what we need to teach –if only we start to understand that this is the key to improving American education.
Comment by Ben F — April 15, 2009 @ 8:58 pm