Cultural Literacy : What Every American Needs to Know

Rating:
Summary: The Need For Literacy
Review: This book specifies about the need for reading. Many Americans do not read at an everyday basis. Hirsch believes that illiteracy is a dilemma in the United States. Therefore, every American should read this book as it sends a powerful message to people of the United States to be able to get hooked into reading.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time
Review: We all complained that our educational system is lacking, that our children do not have the knowledge they should have, but rarely do we ask "why"? E.D Hirsch, Jr., answer to this question is the lack of "cultural literacy". Don't let the term mislead you, "cultural literacy" here does not refer to the understanding of how a certain group prepare their food or how they dress. According to E.D. Hirsch, Jr., to be culturally literate is to "possess the basic information needed to thrive in the modern world". Premises seen repeatedly throughout this book are:

1)Cultural literacy enable us to effectively communicate with others
2)Lack of cultural literacy is to blame for our children poor performances
3)[Therefore], we need a national curriculum of definite, share information for our children

Although Hirsch provided extensive research material to support his premises, his arguments were unfair and several logical fallacies were committed.

It's true that cultural literacy is an essential part in communication, this point is proven in Hirsh many examples and can also be seen in our society everyday. He gave an example of his father alluding to Shakespearean phrase "there is a tide". If everyone is culturally literate, no further explanation would be needed, for we all understand what it means. But if the person is culturally illiterate, we have to explain to them that it means "act now". This lengthens the communication process and creates barriers. In everyday life, if you tell your friend that "Hong Kong is such a beautiful place", and your friend look at you with puzzlement in his eyes and reply "but isn't that an ape?", situations like this would create a lot of misunderstanding in communications.

Hirsch second premise is unsound base on his reasoning and the experiments he presented. According to Hirsch, our children's poor performance in school is due to their lack of cultural literacy, "the decline of literacy and the decline of shared knowledge are closely related," Here, Hirsch committed the causal fallacy, is lack of cultural literacy really the cause of children's performance, or could there be other factors? Hirsch never attempt to find out, he only presented facts that support his own argument by presenting statistic of children's declining performance from the NAEP. Hirsch then demonstrate the children's lack of knowledge by using his son's class as an example. When asked if anyone knew the name of a poem written by Homer, one of the students replied "The Alamo", when the answer is clearly "the Iliad". This example supported Hirsch's claim, but the sample size is too small and does not speak for the whole population. Hirsch committed the fallacy of overgeneralization. Just because one child may not know the answer to one question, does not mean other children do not either.

Even though the first premise is true, the falsity of the second premise leads to a false conclusion. Hirsch wants our school system to create a national curriculum from the lists of material he and two other professors composed (listed at the end of the book). The list includes things we see and hear everyday such as: Hercules, eureka, Achilles' heel, seven deadly sins, and phrases like, "if the mountain won't come to Mohammed...", "don't judge the book by its cover"...To me, this is by far the most fallacious argument. First of all, the list is compose by only three professors, Hirsch (an English teacher), Kett (historian) and Trefil (scientist). This is the worst case of appealing to un-qualify authority, they're only knowledgeable in 3 fields of study, yet here they are composing a list of materials from every field known to man, from economic to geography, mathematics to political science. How did they come up with materials in fields unfamiliar to them, made them up? Or look them up in the Encyclopedia? We could do that on our own. Hirsch even admit, "We had to rely on our own experience and judgment to deciding what is central and what is subordinate in compiling such a list".

Overall this book is a waste of my time, Hirsch could summarize his ideas and research into a two-pages essay. This 151 pages book contain nothing more than a simple idea "cultural literacy is everything", an idea which he repeated countless of times in the book. Our children do not need to know who Marilyn Monroe or Cyclops is, and what cost-of-living means (listed in Hirsch dictionary), to thrive and succeed in today's world. These are things we learn as we grow through life. Hirsch list probably would help us understand a joke, or a remark, but not necessarily essential in the education process.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time
Review: We all complained that our educational system is lacking, that our children do not have the knowledge they should have, but rarely do we ask "why"? E.D Hirsch, Jr., answer to this question is the lack of "cultural literacy". Don't let the term mislead you, "cultural literacy" here does not refer to the understanding of how a certain group prepare their food or how they dress. According to E.D. Hirsch, Jr., to be culturally literate is to "possess the basic information needed to thrive in the modern world". Premises seen repeatedly throughout this book are:

1)Cultural literacy enable us to effectively communicate with others
2)Lack of cultural literacy is to blame for our children poor performances
3)[Therefore], we need a national curriculum of definite, share information for our children

Although Hirsch provided extensive research material to support his premises, his arguments were unfair and several logical fallacies were committed.

It's true that cultural literacy is an essential part in communication, this point is proven in Hirsh many examples and can also be seen in our society everyday. He gave an example of his father alluding to Shakespearean phrase "there is a tide". If everyone is culturally literate, no further explanation would be needed, for we all understand what it means. But if the person is culturally illiterate, we have to explain to them that it means "act now". This lengthens the communication process and creates barriers. In everyday life, if you tell your friend that "Hong Kong is such a beautiful place", and your friend look at you with puzzlement in his eyes and reply "but isn't that an ape?", situations like this would create a lot of misunderstanding in communications.

Hirsch second premise is unsound base on his reasoning and the experiments he presented. According to Hirsch, our children's poor performance in school is due to their lack of cultural literacy, "the decline of literacy and the decline of shared knowledge are closely related," Here, Hirsch committed the causal fallacy, is lack of cultural literacy really the cause of children's performance, or could there be other factors? Hirsch never attempt to find out, he only presented facts that support his own argument by presenting statistic of children's declining performance from the NAEP. Hirsch then demonstrate the children's lack of knowledge by using his son's class as an example. When asked if anyone knew the name of a poem written by Homer, one of the students replied "The Alamo", when the answer is clearly "the Iliad". This example supported Hirsch's claim, but the sample size is too small and does not speak for the whole population. Hirsch committed the fallacy of overgeneralization. Just because one child may not know the answer to one question, does not mean other children do not either.

Even though the first premise is true, the falsity of the second premise leads to a false conclusion. Hirsch wants our school system to create a national curriculum from the lists of material he and two other professors composed (listed at the end of the book). The list includes things we see and hear everyday such as: Hercules, eureka, Achilles' heel, seven deadly sins, and phrases like, "if the mountain won't come to Mohammed...", "don't judge the book by its cover"...To me, this is by far the most fallacious argument. First of all, the list is compose by only three professors, Hirsch (an English teacher), Kett (historian) and Trefil (scientist). This is the worst case of appealing to un-qualify authority, they're only knowledgeable in 3 fields of study, yet here they are composing a list of materials from every field known to man, from economic to geography, mathematics to political science. How did they come up with materials in fields unfamiliar to them, made them up? Or look them up in the Encyclopedia? We could do that on our own. Hirsch even admit, "We had to rely on our own experience and judgment to deciding what is central and what is subordinate in compiling such a list".

Overall this book is a waste of my time, Hirsch could summarize his ideas and research into a two-pages essay. This 151 pages book contain nothing more than a simple idea "cultural literacy is everything", an idea which he repeated countless of times in the book. Our children do not need to know who Marilyn Monroe or Cyclops is, and what cost-of-living means (listed in Hirsch dictionary), to thrive and succeed in today's world. These are things we learn as we grow through life. Hirsch list probably would help us understand a joke, or a remark, but not necessarily essential in the education process.

Rating:
Summary: worth the read, also check out the Dictionary
Review: Worth the read, some interesting ideas to chew on. Someone mentioned in a review about putting the stuff in the list online. Well, there is a book by the Hirsch called "The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy" which might be a nice compliment to any classroom, I have one in my 3rd grade class.