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Rating: Summary: They've Spent Years Telling Me What My Learning Style Is.... Review: ... When the hell are they going to teach me something?!Courtesy of the graduate of an affluent public school district, where every Thursday afternoon for a semester the Junior class had a Unit on Self-Esteem. They did not, however, learn to write a five-page paper, or to identify theme and point-of-view in fictions, or the historic origins of the democratic ideals of America's founders, or the twelve points Woodrow Wilson promoted at the end of the First World War (there was more than one???), or the difference between compound and simple interest paid on savings. Hirsch offends so often because what he says is irrefutable: one must have language and ideas to use as comparisons and contrasts to all texts, cultural and written, or one cannot achieve higher level reasoning skills. This notion is so threatening to those without higher reasoning skills that they call names -- elitist, classist, mono-culturalist. But the fact is that ignoring the need for a common core of information about which people within a culture (or say, even at a given location at a specific moment in time) can discourse, we create an artificial elite that "represents them because they cannot represent themselves" -- vanguardist intellectuals who become, themselves, a privileged overclass who make their living protecting others from gaining the privilege and mastery they desire. You go, E.D.!
Rating: Summary: interesting, but wrong Review: As (another) educator and an open-minded seeker, I try to understand all sides of issues, especially in education. In that spirit, I have read several of Hirsch's books even though his ideas about what constitutes a good education are vastly different than my own -- and those of most respected figures in education. Hirsch's latest book merely expands on and defends ideas stated in his previous works. If you agree that education is more about learning facts and concepts than learning *how* to learn facts and concepts on your own, then you will like this book. But if you accept the findings of the vast majority of modern research about how the human brain learns, then you will find this book as elitist, ethnocentric, and deeply flawed as I did.
Rating: Summary: In response to review of 7/26/00, et.al. Review: At the turn of the 17th century in England, most of the important educational and scientific work was being done outside of the universities. Bound up as they were by the Aristotlian philosopies, English universities were incapable of advancing knowledge. It took Sir Francis Bacon and his advocacy of empiricism to shake Aristotle out of the universities. Without Bacon, there would have been no Newton, no Faraday, no Boyle, and Harvey might never have published his findings. Today, our schools are dominated by Rousseau, by a seductive, romantic philosophy that lets everyone feel good about themselves and shifts any blame for their failings to society. Hirsch documents how the dominance of this single, irrational ideology in all of its mutations has corroded the educational process. He argues that schools should be held accountable for their performance, and that we should be using what has been proven to work to educate and evaluate students. In short, a new empiricism for educational methods as well as for scholarship is needed. Hirsch argues that reform of the educational system, as in Bacon's day, will have to come from outside, because educators, wedded as they are to Romanticism, will never change unless forced to do so.
Rating: Summary: What is really terrific about this book... Review: Hirsch's book does two things... 1. Tries to convince us that we need a national curriculum. (You can take it or leave it. That's up to you.) 2. Shows that education doesn't change, it just cycles. Remember that golden idea that cropped up a few years ago and everyone jumped right on the bandwagon? Well, its exactly the same as a golden idea that was tried and rejected decades ago and it even went by the same name! (Sorry. This is a, "No Spoilers," review.)
Rating: Summary: In response to review of 7/26/00, et.al. Review: I don't like to see Hirsch's work obscured by simplistic charges that he urges schools to abandon the teaching of critical thinking skills. He simply presents evidence for the Jeffersonian view that critical thinking ability is dependent upon factual knowledge, that a school which prioritizes critical thinking so as to neglect the requisites for acquiring knowledge (reading fluency, a strong vocabulary, communication skills, etc.) will fail all the way around. Having had children in that scenario, I affirm Hirsch's position. Those with a burning desire to hold well-informed opinions on education reform should know Gardner's work. They should also avoid the pitfall of allowing judgments on education to be informed solely by members of the education community; the science community has important contributions to make via research methodologies and the knowledge emerging from the Decade of the Brain. The report of the National Reading Panel - and the grounds upon which some educators have discounted it - is instructive. The Panel felt charged by Congress to apply the standards of scientific evidence - methodological rigor, reliability, validity, replicability, applicability - to its review of the existing research on reading instruction. By that standard, only quantitative research was deemed valid in answering cause-and-effect questions as to the efficacy of various elements of reading instruction. That meant that the qualitative research often used to establish efficacy for 'pure Whole Language' methods was found inadequate to that purpose. The Whole Language faithful saw these scientific standards as a mere reflection of 'philosophical orientation' and bias on the part of the Panel's majority and attacked the relevancy of the Report. The morass of American education - and the skeptical response of teachers to research claims - is better understood when one reads that less than 1/3 of the 115,000 reading studies conducted over the past 30+ years met standards that rendered them useful to the Panel. Presumably, many were designed by educators with inadequate training in scientific standards for research. (Such a disconnect between the education and science communities - further illustrated in the current math wars - is not helping the teaching profession with its respect issue.) Speaking only as a parent who felt charged to learn as much as possible so as make better decisions for my children, it seems to me that the research emerging from cognitive psych and neurology spells trouble for the holistic ideologies that undergird 'progressive' education. Empirical support for explicit and systematic instruction of a pre-set hierarchy of skills (the Hirsch camp) appears to be on the grow. At the same time, neuroscience is helping us understand that the processes of learning to read, write and compute are not 'natural' to the brain - that the Romantic ideals of naturalism and developmentalism, which undergird the 'progressive' tradition with which Gardner is generally aligned, have turned out to be a poor fit with the neurological requisites for certain learning. I find Mr.Gardner to be a good read; teachers in my acquaintance who have attended his programs feel they've been to Sinai. But, my experience of three children has validated for my purposes the positions of Mr. Hirsch: that reading / writing fluency, automaticity of basic math operations and a framework of core knowledge which is rich in content needs to be education's first order of business. If the most efficient instructional methods for achieving those goals are used, curriculum time should remain for honing thinking skills through deeper exploration of specific topics. But when schools don't make core knowledge and basic skills a priority - and most have not - academic success is reserved to those children with parents who do. In my experience of several public and private schools, that fact explains why the gap between America's 'advantaged' and 'disadvantaged' widens with each year of schooling. I am mystified when Hirsch is charged with elitism; what is elitist about urging methods which empirical evidence suggests is most likely to close that gap? I think the work of both men and the schools of thought they ably represent will ultimately merge into a unified model in which the consumers of American education can have justified confidence. The success of that merger will depend upon the degree to which critical decisions of sequence and relative weight are informed by well-designed research. Unfortunately, the longer education remains a subject of bitter political partisanship, the longer it will take for the unbiased review of empirical evidence upon which such a merger depends.
Rating: Summary: The Emperor Has No Clothes Review: I found The Schools We Need by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. to be a much-needed oasis of common sense and academically rigorous prose in a seemingly endless desert of single-perspective educational fluff. From the first few pages, one thing became absolutely clear: I am not alone in questioning some of the major premises that undergird current educational theory. By the end of the first chapter, a second notion became equally clear: This book will never see the light of day as assigned reading in any of UF's teacher training classes. I am sure that some would be surprised to find myself, an uncompromising libertarian, agreeing so passionately with a self-avowed liberal's liberal like Hirsch. While I certainly disagree with Hirsch's final prescription for solving America's educational crisis as well as his leftist understanding of true equality, we both agree that something is amiss in America's colleges of education. I was glad to see Hirsch dedicate the last thirty pages of his book to the educational terms and phrases that promulgate colleges of education (including UF's). These phrases (many of which have been simply renamed and then reissued) have dominated the discourse in every one of my education classes. The reoccurrence of these pieces of shallow rhetoric have caused me to question the very intellectual and moral integrity of the teachers that "teach" them to preservice students. This indoctrination of phraseology (as codified in such required text as Methods that Matter) is ironic in that the very people who stress critical thinking are actually those that seem to be incapable of thinking critically. They can do no more than parrot such unfounded and nonsensical phrases such as "Teach the child, not the subject," "Drill and kill," "Facts are inferior to understanding," and "Learning to learn." I was also extremely glad to see someone counter the ridiculous claims made by a previous teacher of mine that all research ever done claims this or that progressive theory is superior. I have sat in disbelief on many occasions as my former teacher made claims that could very easily be refuted. Hirsch makes ample note of this as well as explains the odd separation between professors of education and professors of various disciplines on college campuses. Though I believe that enrolled in and passed UF's Foundations of Education course (with an A), I entered into reading The Schools We Need not knowing the reason for much of this strange separation. It was comforting to learn of its revealing origins as well as to gain a more accurate history of American education in the 20th century. As is probably expected, I found The Schools We Need to be highly effective in promoting strong, research backed teaching methods as well as a solid critique of the teaching of progressivist schools of education. However, there are areas in which Hirsch could do a better job in securing his arguments. For one, he does not make clear exactly who is involved in the international studies that compare American test scores with those from other countries. While I have no doubt that foreign countries can be equally as diverse as ours, I wonder if the testing is as "across-the-board" as it is in America. Also, Hirsch's critique of a "market place of schools" in which parents choose a school is based not on empirical research (as is most of his book), but on his leftist opinions about the ability of individuals to choose what is best for them (or their children). Because of his political beliefs, Hirsch continually fails to see that there is no one "right" set of knowledge that everyone "should" learn. It is my belief that each family (or individual, depending on age) must be empowered to make that decision.
Rating: Summary: Higher Ed is not immune. Review: I, too, speak from long experience in k-12 education, although most of it belongs to my parents and grandparents. After 10 years teaching boring math to 8th graders - Hirsch's indictment of "spiraling," reteaching the same stuff every year, is nowhere more evident than in K-8 math classes - I moved on to teaching undergraduates. Not only is it true that they are increasingly unprepared to do college level coursework, but the educationists are trying to foist the same destructive practices on college faculty that have ruined K-12 education and that Hirsch describes so clearly in this book. Regional accreditation groups have forced "authentic" assessment (as opposed to grades) into all coursework and programs. We are urged to teach processes rather than facts - students practice the scientific method without learning taxonomy in biology courses, writing without studying history, literature, or science - and traditional courses are replaced by "culturally appropriate studies." Hirsch and his colleagues at exclusive institutions probably are unaware of the dangers; I doubt that Harvard or Duke deans talk about teaching "critical thinking skills" with their faculties. Since applications at these school exceed acceptances, they will probably resist pressures to change - at least for some time. However, go into the middle grade public colleges, or especially into community colleges, and it's all there in force - endless agonizing over improving teaching strategies, watering down course content, improving student services,... These schools are desperate to maintain and/or increase enrollments, and to appease parents' and state legislatures' attacks. They will do almost anything to recruit and retain students, even if it means giving out meaningless degrees. I'd like to require all faculty members and administrators at the college where I teach to read this book; sadly, a lot of them probably lack the skills to do so.
Rating: Summary: Thinking Critically Review: In this book, Hirsch examines the educational system of America with a critical eye. He describes the problem as being too much of a Romantic influence and not enough of the Enlightenment. Hirsch says, "My chief complaint against educational Romanticism is that it fails to conform to educational reality. The strongest case against it lies not in the opinion that it is wrong in its ideology but in the fact that it is wrong in its empirical assumptions, and hence ineffectual in practice." Hirsch states the two basic doctrines of education are formalism and naturalism, and they are both inaccurate. Formalism states that "intellectual capital" is not as significant as obtaining the tool one needs to learn more. Naturalism is the principle that education is "a natural process with its own inherent forms and rhythms." Although I am not an educator, and found many subjects discussed in the book to be a little over my head, I was able to grasp the main concept Hirsch was trying to convey: that the American school systems are behind the times...as in stuck in the Romantic Era. If I were an educator, I believe that I would definitely look further into Hirsch's methods for better education.
Rating: Summary: The Schools We Need Critical Thinking Review: The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them puts forth arguments about why we don't have the educational schools, that the United States Government is not putting forth. E.D. Hirsch, Jr., who is a teacher himself argues this points and puts forth the much required facts from both historical context and present research, that indeed confirms our beliefs about why the United States doesn't have such educational schools. E.D. also proposes ideas and methods upon, which the United States can reform the educational schools across America. The main points of his arguments are as follows: The promotion "of natural, integrated project-learning focused instruction leading to well-practiced operational skills in reading and mathematics, and well-stocked minds conversant with individual subject matters like history and biology" is an ineffective method, that should be refocused into a new method, which can balance study skills and learning abilities because each child has his/her own way of learning. "Formalism", a "belief that the particular content which is learned in school is far less important acquiring the formal tools which will enable a person to learn future content" and "Naturalism" is a "belief that education is a natural process with its own inherent forms and rhythms, which may vary with each child, and is most effective when it is connected with natural, real-life goal settings" but both commit the same fallacy of "emphasis on formal skills", which child may or may not have. Another flaw, that U.S. schools focus on is how they create their courses. Each course may have a general description upon which a teacher can interpret his/her own way but what the schools need to focus on is the same concepts Nationwide. Not just state or town wide because every town has their own system. The Government should simply focus on one main set of ideas, that are set as ground rules for teachers and students and school boards. Schools should focus less on standardized test and relying on racial information to determine how a student learns and focus more on the students learning. Each argument is based in fact, that E.D.Hirsch has gathered and each appears to be logically relevant. The reasoning Hirsch uses is good and supports his case clearly enough. There appeared to be no logically fallacies committed and the arguments appeared to be complete. The evidence was relevant to the argument and based entirely on research, that was conducted across the US and in some cases across Europe and Asia. The argument was inductively strong since every argument agreed with each premises. The argument was fair in each case since the arguments are based in actual research and evidence and he examines both sides of each argument to show what is really needed in the long run. Hirsch in fact proves why we need the schools, that we don't have. If only schools would focus less on natural learning, formalism and naturalism and straighten out their curriculums, focus less on racial context, and less on standardized test then we would truly have the schools, that the United States could really use.
Rating: Summary: Every administrator should read this. Review: This book is absolutely outstanding. It describes in great detail how utterly ridiculous the current Progressive movement in education is. All the things that made sense to me as a teacher are clearly articulated in this book with plenty of research and historical backgrounds to back it up. I teach high school mathematics and I wish every one of my administrators would read this book. I would buy a copy for them if I actually thought they would read it.
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