Comments on: It’s Not Your Fault, But It Is Your Problem

By: John W. Addie

John W. Addie — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:25:07 +0000

I still think the main problem with the 21st Century Skills movement is that it is presumptuous and over-reaching. Curriculum goals should not be set in terms of such goals or outcomes becuase we have little idea what base of knowledge people are starting from, let alone how much more they are going to learn. Learning is internal and autonomous, not totalitarian mind control. Knowledge-based curricular goals respect this autonomy. We can ask, or suggest that this is what you ought to know, but if want to remain ignorant, that’s your free choice. Your current ignorance may not be your fault, but its discontinuance or otherwise is your choice.

By: Valerie Yule

Valerie Yule — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:11:12 +0000

It’s not just focusing on tests which can be a problem. Critical literacy can take up so much time in discussion even in third grades subject areas that content covered can be minimal. I have just been reading an article in one of our literacy-educators journal which describes a science session like that, spent entirely on examining a text about where it said ‘rocks’ when it should have said ‘minerals’. Third grade!
Another problem is the high value on complex and conflated discourse – i.e. making things seem much harder than they are.
There is a lot of Core Knowledge that adults need to have acquired – but far too much school time can be spent not touching it, and even regarding it as ‘useless factoids’.

By: eveheart

eveheart — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:25:46 +0000

Teaching cultural literacy is not a new concept. State Content Standards for Public Schools, which exist in all content areas, including physical education, performing and visual arts, social studies, science, health, English-language development, mathematics and language arts, adequately delineate the content of a culturally literate education. We need to stop trying to fix our educational system and start using it.

By: Crimson Wife

Crimson Wife — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:45:01 +0000

A law school graduate is what- 24? How is somebody that age going to have anything of value to say about the Cold War? I’m 32 and I don’t really remember all that much about the Soviet Union. I do remember watching the fall of the Berlin Wall on TV when I was in jr. high, but any opinion I might have about the Cold War is going to be based on second- or third-hand experience.

I would imagine that the “Greatest Generation” had similar grumblings about the Baby Boomers vis a vis WWII.

By: Catherine Johnson

Catherine Johnson — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:52:17 +0000

Great find!

btw, I may have an opening here to advocate for bringing the Core Knowledge curriculum to my district —

Keep your fingers crossed.

By: Joanne Jacobs

Joanne Jacobs — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:22:49 +0000

I was raised by two college-educated parents who read books, magazines and all four Chicago newspapers. We discussed current events — should Red China be admitted to the UN? are subsidized U.S. farm exports hurting Third World nations? — at the dinner table. I read a lot of biography and history as well as tons of fiction. Being broadly knowledgeable has been enormously helpful to me. I can learn new things easily because I have context.

However, I think smart kids with poorly educated parents won’t learn most of what they need in school. They should be given reading lists == and library cards.

By: Gina

Gina — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:57:06 +0000

My 4th grader and 1st grader are able to articulate that they do not “learn anything” in school without prompting. My children attend public school, albeit because we won the school lottery in that they got into a French immersion public school. There French is excellent, but they still have learned nearly nothing about history or science in school. I home school all year long to make up for this astonishing failure. It is one of those excruciating things to deal with today – coping with the way America’s so called education “experts” completely ignore and deny how young children so easily enjoy and absorb “facts”. It is my personal belief, based on my experience as a teacher and tutor, that if you do not excite children about history and science when they are most open to it – before age 11 – than the opportunity is lost until they are adults, for the majority. I teach in several schools in an enrichment program that focuses on science and has ties to “social studies”. I’m so drained by the lack of background knowledge of the kids. I see 4th graders that don’t know why a snake is different from a bird, cannot tell me that the Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic Ocean (we live in MD), and have never heard of pioneers. Thank God for summer break. I need it to take on these challenges in the fall.

By: GGW

GGW — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:00:36 +0000

Um, hate to break it to you, but New Jersey IS a country.

By: Claus

Claus — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:11:37 +0000

Like Dan, I wonder whether your fifth grader continued to succeed through middle and high school without the background knowledge to support her continued success.

Unfortunately, much talk of closing achievement gaps focuses on percentages of children from different subjects reaching proficiency (variously defined) as measured by state assessments. We could have 100% of children from every group reaching proficiency on those assessments and still suffer from large achievement gaps. Much research on what works must rely on imperfect state assessments to define outcomes. This shortcoming limits our ability to draw useful lessons from research on high-profile reform ideas.

I agree with you that we need broader and more robust measures of achievement.

By: MS

MS — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:47:51 +0000

wow I love the line “it’s not your fault, but it is your problem.” This could be a mantra for a lot of us.