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Summary: EuroCentric Cultural Literacy
Review: Hirsch is a European American who's book Cultural Literacy,is a comprehensive discussion about what European American Cultural Literacy should consist of. Americans in general should be aware of this work and how the elements that Hirsch presents relate to their Cultural Health.As an African America, I conclude that Hirsch's Cultural Literacy is a good Eurocentic work, but it is too narrow to be considered "American" Cultural Literacy. As Americans we should have much in commont, as is pointed out. But we must also have some degree of Cultural Literacy regarding the other ethnic groups we live, work, and play with; if America is to move from "racial' tolorance to ethnic harmony. Our Effectiveness as a nation, in the new Globle Village, depends on the broadest possable interethnic literacy which, should be America's great advantage.
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Summary: Cultural Literacy - Knowledge isn't Facts
Review: Hirsch make many mistakes in his book, some omission, some of commission. Perhaps the most troubling is his notion that facts are knowledge. That is not a useful idea for anyone involved in education. A core problem in our culture are books of lists. The curriculum, for the most part, is a mile wide and an inch deep. Hirsch's book does little about this, and in fact exacerbates the problem. Murray Gell-Mann, a scientist at MIT once remarked that, "education in the United States is like being taken to the world's greatest restaurant and being fed the menu." The Hirsch book helps cultivate a taste for menus.
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Summary: The Trivial Pursuit Approach to Education
Review: Hirsch, in his Introduction, argues that a four-word Shakesperean quotation, "There is a tide" (from "Julius Caesar," meaning "Act now!") would be a more apt business communication than providing a business audience with "lots of examples" and "reasons" to support the argument that it's essential to take action. Therein lies the problem, as Hirsch prefers canonical, elitist allusion to real argument. Hirsch's list of 5,000 items "that every American needs to know" is a fascinating collection of information that--it's clear--Hirsch *himself* has learned over the years. Whether WE need to know--for example--that cutting the Gordion knot means to "solve any complex problem quickly" is clearly debatable. One can't study Hirsch's list without feeling as if he's entered a time warp, as contemporary culture is almost wholly slighted (as are women and minorities, not surprisingly). There are few, if any, computer terms, only a handful of sports items--in a culture dominated by sports--and a list of musical performers that ends chornologically with The Beatles. Hirsch readily admits that he's advocating a "hazy, superficial" understanding of the terms on his list, but that doesn't stop him from positing that a recognition of those same items makes one culturally literate (and thus educated). No matter that each of us would create a different list of items that we think Americans should know. As the old joke goes, learning the items on Hirsch's list allows you to talk about anything for five minutes and nothing for ten. Nevertheless, this is a seminal work for understanding the thinking of those who've uncritically accepted the failure of public schooling in America. And it makes watching "Jeopardy!" a lot more fun.
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Summary: Great way to study for the State Department exam!
Review: I had to take the State Department's Foreign Service exam, and I found this book to be highly valuable for summarizing American buzzwords and literary allusions. If you're looking for an all-inclusive book that celebrates American diversity, perhaps look somewhere else. This is a cheat-sheet to literary allusions, so that when highly educated people talk or write you have some clue what they're referring to, whether you've read the same books as them or not.
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Summary: Great way to study for the State Department exam!
Review: I had to take the State Department's Foreign Service exam, and I found this book to be highly valuable for summarizing American buzzwords and literary allusions. If you're looking for an all-inclusive book that celebrates American diversity, perhaps look somewhere else. This is a cheat-sheet to literary allusions, so that when highly educated people talk or write you have some clue what they're referring to, whether you've read the same books as them or not.
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Summary: Essential reading for all concerned with education.
Review: I read this book in 1995 and found it fundamentally correct with respect to two ideas: 1) that a core of knowledge is necessary to infer, read-between-the-lines, and to understand wholly much written material; 2) that *content* is vital in education - the mental organization of which (though association and other means) is essential to becoming educated. To demonstrate another assertion, namely that public education is largely failing, Hirsch claims that a majority of high school seniors can not correctly answer this question: "in what decades did the Civil War, World War I, and World War II occur?" I was 35 when I read this and asked it of a 25-year-old architect - who would not even attempt it.
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Summary: Don't perpetuate the canon
Review: I read this book in college, not as part of a course, but out of curiousity because it was the favorite whipping boy of many of my peers and professors. After reading it, I understood why.
The effect of this book, intended or not, is to preserve the reverence for the outdated "Western canon". Ultimately, I found the book self-serving in the extreme, as it secures Hirsh's place in academia, if it is believed.
I admit that reading the list of items Hirsch thinks we should know and trying to place them is an amusing parlor game. However, one should not draw conclusions about one's self worth from success or failure at this game. The list itself is deeply flawed for more than one reason. First, it is heavily weighted towards the knowledge of old college professors, not young college professors, and certainly not college students. Second, it is heavily weighted by Hirsch's Anglophilia. Third, although it does not purport to be exhastive, the danger of any list, and this one is no exception, is that it will be taken as exhaustive by the lazy reader.
Finally, Hirsch's argument that his concept of cultural literacy is finally pragmatic and not philosophical in that it lays the groundwork of "common experience" for students and teachers is particularly narrow. Hirsch must have been wearing cultural blinders when he wrote this not to see that much of the common experience that people draw on today is formed not by the Academy, but by popular culture. Hirsch's argument breaks down here because he tries to force the popular culture of a different age upon the public so that they will have a common experience with him, instead of exposing himself current pop culture simply because it doesn't meet his narrow aesthetic criteria.
If you read this book, read it as a cautionary tale about trying to quantify any concept so nebulous as "cultural literacy."
Interrogate the precepts of this book by trying to have a converstaion about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its relationship to religion among American teenagers with any of your "old guard" religion or philosophy professors. Now who's culturally illiterate?
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Summary: give it a read
Review: I thought it important to say that this books does not come from the same viewpoint as "Closing of American Mind" -- to which it is often compared. The ideas here deserve a read by anyone interested in education and especially by teachers.
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Summary: The importance of knowing facts
Review: I'm not quite convinced about everything Hirsch says, but I think his central thesis is worth noting. Hirsch argues that literacy doesn't just depend on our ability to read, but also on whether or not we have the knowledge that the author assumes that we have. When we speak to others about a given topic, we can speak more fluently if everyone has general knowledge about the topic; if not, then much explanation must be done, and much time will then be wasted. Many people will take issue with his list of what "literate Americans" should know, but few can deny that people do need to share collective knowledge in order to communicate effectively, and that we would all do well to learn as much as we can about things that shape our culture and nation, regardless of whether or not we agree exactly on what things they are.
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Summary: Clearly Stated, Much Truth, Left Something to Be Desired
Review: In "Culture Literacy" Hirsch attacks the skill approach to education in favor of a fact oriented approach. Hirsch argues that American education practice has been dominated by the theories of Rouseau and Dewey, focusing less on content, the learning of facts about Western and American history, the sciences, humanities, etc... and more on skills like critical thinking and problem solving. In Chapter 2, however, Hirsch marshalls psychological evidence that a great amount of background information, knowing these facts, is crucial in being a good readerr, thinker, problem solver; hence, the attack is at a technical level, that one can't become a good reader or thinker without alot of background information, that that is just how it works. To quote him from the second to last page of the book, "By stressing the essential role of content in reading, this book should have punctured the myth that reading and writing are like bike riding or map reading, skills that require only a narrow range of specific information plus some practice... The skills model of education is illusory, because it overlooks the fact that reading and thinking skills alike depend upon a wide range of specific, quickly available information. Every citizen needs to have immediately at hand a critical mass of specific information in order to posess that skills of skills which is literacy" (pg 144). The above is the main thrust of the book, however Hirsh does not believe that education is solely about the accumulation of facts. He distinguishes between an extensive curriculum, which gives exposure to a wide array of facts, and an intensive curriculum, which specializes on learning a particular subject matter, giving alot of time to one thing. Hence, the criticism of the reviewer from April 27, 2000 is not totally justified. He misses the fact that Hirsch feels the need to focus on facts because they are being neglected but does not deny the importance of concentrating in depth and learning to think critically about a given subject. He does not reject the development of thinking skills but argues that at this point in time a focus on more facts is going to be most profitable for education, "The intensive curriculum, though different, is equally essential. Intensive study encourages a fully developed understanding of a subject, making one's knowledge of it integrated and coherent" (pg 128). Or again, "The idea of cultural literacy does not embrace the whole of education. This book focuses sharply on the background knowledge necessary for functional literacy and effective national communication. THIS LIMITED EDUCATIONAL GOAL, WHILE NOT THE WHOLE STORY, IS ONE THAT NEEDS SPECIAL EMPHASIS TODAY" (pg xi, Preface). All that said in explicating and defending Hirsch, I have some reservations about the book. As long as this is to be only a partial though necessary end of education, fine, but I agree that this kind of superficial acquaintance with facts is not enough to be truly educated, which I think requires the kind of focus and expertise that allows one to think intelligently about an issue for oneself. Brand Blanshard in "The Uses of a Liberal Education" thinks the existence of shared knowledge among members of a community an important common bond but sees the real aim of education as training minds to be able to think clearly and critically about issues, to become practiced in the use of reason. Perhaps Hirsch is aiming at a broader audience while Blanshard's message is for a more elite group; or perhaps Hirsch sees the achievement of this ideal by the mass of people as unrealistic. And I think that begins to touch on my main dissapointment with this book. While I agree with its main thesis, though the 145 pages book could have been reduced to about 80 pages, it didn't affect me powerfully as an individual, while the two other books on education which I have read, "The Closing of the American Mind" by Alan Bloom and "The Uses of a Liberal Education" by Brand Blanshard did. The reason is that Hirsch is concerned with raising the literacy level of the nation as a whole, with stopping the slip in education among Americans, seen as a whole. While these are important concerns of the other two books, I was able to take away things of a personal value from them. Bloom's book made me more aware of the intrusion of relativism about values and truth that has intruded into our universities, as well as the historical genesis of that intrusion by tracing our present day situation to the German philosophical tradition. There were also many tangenital and true insights about contemporary culture and human nature. Blanshard's book touched me so deeply that I am really not prepared to write about it here. Summing up, I agree with Hirsch's fundamental point, I think it is well taken, but it definitely could have been said more concisely, as he frequently repeats himself even in a 145 page book, and the personal value to an already educated person who takes his education seriously is rather limited. Hirsch accomplishes his task, shows his point, though I suppose I'm just not terribly excited about that point.
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