EdAction
Maple River Education Coalition PAC
105 Peavey Rd, St 116
Chaska, MN
55318
952-361-4931
http://www.EdAction.org
E-mail
December 30, 2003
Last week, the Chair of the MN Education Committee stated that
he would schedule a legislative hearing on January 23rd "in reaction"
to the social studies and science academic standards proposed by the MN Academic
Standards Committee. He also indicated that he would expect to make changes in
the proposed standards. In light of Senator Kelley's expressed rejection of the
Declaration of Independence as a founding document of our country, this raises
serious concerns about the changes Senator Kelley intends.
Please plan to attend these hearings. We will be providing you with time and
location.
Standards are foundation
for building knowledge
BY JEREMIAH REEDY
Guest Columnist
St.
Paul Pioneer Press
Being a self-appointed educational reformer and one who is passionately
interested in K-12 education, I have been perusing the public comments on the
proposed social studies standards, all 198 pages of them and following the
discussion in the media. Interesting patterns have emerged, and also a number of
what I consider serious misconceptions. Here I shall deal with two of the more
serious, "educational formalism" and the claim that we don't know what
students should study because the "knowledge explosion" renders facts
obsolete as fast as we and they learn them.
Educational formalism is the belief that the content of education is arbitrary
any content will do as long as the desired skills are acquired. Among skills
mentioned are critical thinking, decision making, problem solving, analysis,
synthesis and "metacognitive skills" (how to think about your
thinking). I shall begin, however, with the most important skill of all,
reading.
In his 1987 book "Cultural Literacy," E.D. Hirsch made a powerful case
for the claim reading is not a "general, transferable skill" that can
be taught in the abstract or in a vacuum. In order to read even a newspaper with
understanding, one must have the background knowledge that writers assume
readers have. Putting it another way, all writers assume the existence of an
"ideal reader" with whom they share a body of knowledge. This is why
in our culture, writers don't have to identify Jesus or George Washington or
Martin Luther King Jr.; nor do they have to footnote Cleopatra, Columbus or
Sitting Bull. On the other hand, one mentioning Jacques Derrida in a letter to
the editor should explain who he is. One must have a great deal of factual
knowledge to read, and this is what our schools should be teaching. Those of us
who teach foreign and classical languages know that we can't simply teach
grammar, vocabulary and perhaps "decoding skills" and turn students
loose on texts. It is impossible to read any language without background
knowledge about the culture of the speakers.
What Hirsch proved about reading applies also to other skills, which means
educational formalism is a chimera, "a vane and foolish fancy." If it
weren't, one could take a course in "thinking like a lawyer" and not
have to attend law school. Does anyone really believe people who have taken
courses in problem solving and decision making could solve our medical problems
and make decisions about treatment even though they hadn't studied medicine?
No one denies a "knowledge explosion" has taken place in the natural
sciences and their offspring, technology. There has, however, been nothing
comparable in the humanities (literature, history, philosophy, etc.) or in the
social sciences (psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.). No one is writing
better stories today than Homer's epics, the narratives of the Hebrew scriptures
or the parables of the New Testament. Still the question remains, "Do we
know what students need to know?"
In order to participate intelligently in "democratic processes,"
citizens should be able to read newspapers, magazines such as Time and Newsweek,
and books addressed to the general public. What one needs to know to read these
is an empirical question that Hirsch and his associates answered empirically by
examining the aforementioned publications. See the list of 5,000 items in the
appendix to "Cultural Literacy." This is the knowledge base that
graduates of high schools should have and without which they will not be able to
read, much less master, the "higher order thinking skills." This is
why we need "content-rich" curricula and why the standards for social
studies proposed by the Education Department with their concrete and specific
requirements represent a gigantic step forward for our students and our state.
Reedy is professor of classics at Macalester College in St. Paul.