A basic assumption of progressives is that subject matter is not really important.
Here's a Christmas gift suggestion for everybody on your list who is concerned about the state of public education: E.D. Hirsch, Jr.' s latest book, The Schools We Need: And Why We Don't Have Them (Doubleday, 1996). Hirsch, who made a lot of people angry with his 1987 book, Cultural Literacy, will probably infuriate still more with this brilliant, combative, and intensely practical discussion of how our education system got into its current mess and what we must do to pull it out.
For years we have been hearing that progressive ideas will save our schools. Skeptics who point out that these ideas have consistently failed are told that they haven't had a real chance - if school districts don't mess them up in adopting them, teachers mess them up in the classroom. Hirsch agrees with the skeptics. The problem, he says, does not lie in the way progressive ideas have been implemented but in the ideas themselves. Giving schools an even stronger dose would not reverse the damage. It would be like giving a diabetic who is in insulin shock another shot of insulin.
A basic assumption of progressives is that subject matter is not really important. Schools are teaching the "whole child," so it's up to them to choose the subject matter they consider appropriate. Indeed, progressives dismiss specific content as "mere facts" and say that teachers who concern themselves with it are condemning students to a painful process called "rote learning." The result is kids who are crammed with facts but who can't think for themselves and don't take any joy in learning.
Instead of worrying about content, progressives say, schools should teach children "problem solving," "higher-order thinking skills," and "critical thinking" - in other words, how to think. After all, the kids can always look up the information they need or find it on the Internet. And changes in the nature of work mean that thinking skills will be much more important than specific information.
All of this sounds plausible, but Hirsch says there is nothing to it. The picture of traditional educational practices is a caricature designed to shut off discussion; and there is no battle between learning and learning how to learn. Our schools have been disregarding content in favor of process for years. Furthermore, Hirsch says, there is no basis for accepting progressive ideas about how you teach children to think. The dismal record of student achievement points to the opposite conclusion. So does all the important research about how kids learn.
This research has shown that there is no such thing as an all-purpose thinking skill. Skills are domain-specific. That is, you need specific skills to think about geometry that are different from the ones you need to think about American history. Moreover, the dichotomy between content and skills is false. You cannot think without facts and information any more than you can bake a loaf of bread if you have a recipe but no flour or yeast or water. And, generally speaking, the more well-stocked your mind is, the better able you are to make the connections that are basic to thinking. If, on the other hand, you lack the necessary information, what you read will be meaningless. Most Americans who have tried to read a story about cricket in an English newspaper will understand this point. So, in order to develop thinking skills, children need what Hirsch calls "a generous number of carefully chosen exemplary facts."
As for the notion that teaching children content will turn them off learning, anybody who has seen the delight with which kids master the facts about dinosaurs or baseball teams or Egyptian mummies knows that is not the case. Hirsch concedes that focusing on content and guiding children in learning how to use what they know are not necessarily easy. But if we don't question the disciplined effort children must make to get on the soccer team or play the piano, why do we consider it a hardship for them to master important academic skills?
What should good schools look like in Hirsch's view? Teachers have detailed knowledge of the subject matter they teach. There is an agreed-on core of knowledge and skills that children are expected to learn in each grade, so that knowledge can build on knowledge and teachers can be sure of what their students have already learned. Because the goals are specific, students can be monitored and helped when they need it, and parents can know exactly what their children are learning. If this sounds like a traditional, no-nonsense, subject-matter-centered school brought up to date, that is exactly what Hirsch has in mind.
Progressives in education would tell you that one of John Dewey's central ideas is experimentation - try new ideas to see if you can do better. They seem to have forgotten that if you do worse, you should try something else. E.D. Hirsch's penetrating discussion of why the progressive experiment has failed won't win any applause from those who want more of the same, but the rest of us should be grateful for The Schools We Need {