Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories - Softcover

Hirsch Jr., E. D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1612509525 ISBN 13: 9781612509525

Publisher: Harvard Education Press, 2016

Synopsis

In Why Knowledge Matters, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., presents evidence from cognitive science, sociology, and education history to further the argument for a knowledge-based elementary curriculum.

Influential scholar Hirsch, author of The Knowledge Deficit, asserts that a carefully planned curriculum that imparts communal knowledge is essential in achieving one of the most fundamental aims and objectives of education: preparing students for lifelong success. Hirsch examines historical and contemporary evidence from the United States and other nations, including France, and affirms that a knowledge-based approach has improved both achievement and equity in schools where it has been instituted.

In contrast, educational change of the past several decades in the United States has endorsed a skills-based approach, founded on, Hirsch points out, many incorrect assumptions about child development and how children learn. He recommends new policies that are better aligned with our current understanding of neuroscience, developmental psychology, and social science.

The book focuses on six persistent problems that merit the attention of contemporary education reform: the over-testing of students in the name of educational accountability; the scapegoating of teachers; the fadeout of preschool gains; the narrowing of the curriculum to crowd out history, geography, science, literature, and the arts; the achievement gap between demographic groups; and the reliance on standards, such as the Common Core State Standards, that are not linked to a rigorous curriculum.

Why Knowledge Matters makes a clear case for educational innovation and introduces a new generation of American educators to Hirsch’s astute and passionate analysis.

About this title

About the Author

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., is the author of numerous books, including the bestsellers Cultural Literacy and The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (both Houghton Mifflin). Other books by Hirsch on related subjects are A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Mariner); the Core Knowledge Sequence, What Your [First Through Sixth] Grader Needs to Know (Doubleday); The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them (Anchor); and most recently, The Making of Americans (Yale University Press). These works have influenced recent educational thought and practice in the United States and other countries.

Hirsch is a graduate of Cornell University, and holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Yale University. He began his teaching career at Yale, specializing in Romantic Poetry and Literary Theory, and in 1966 became Professor of English at the University of Virginia, where he served twice as chairman of his department. Before his retirement in 2000 he held the position of University Professor of Education and Humanities. In 1977, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1997 to the International Academy of Education. He is the recipient of several honorary degrees, has been a Fulbright and a Guggenheim fellow, a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, a Humanities fellow at Princeton University, a fellow at the Australian National University, and an honoree of the Royal Dutch Academy and of the National Academy in Rome. He received the biennial QuEST award of the American Federation of Teachers in 1997, and the Fordham Award for Valor in Education in 2003. In 2012, the Education Commission of the States presented Hirsch with the Conant Award for “Outstanding Contributions to American Education.” He has served on many advisory boards, including the National Council on Educational Research.

Hirsch is founder of the nonprofit Core Knowledge Foundation, an organization that continues to advise and help schools, with over one thousand Core Knowledge schools in forty-seven states and abroad.

From the Back Cover

Why Knowledge Matters addresses critical issues in contemporary education reform and shows how cherished truisms about education and child development have led to unintended and negative consequences. Drawing on recent findings in neuroscience and data from France, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., provides new evidence for the argument that a carefully planned, knowledge-based elementary curriculum is essential to providing the foundations for children’s life success and ensuring equal opportunity for students of all backgrounds.

“Knowledge matters! Anyone who has struggled to read an article stuffed with technical or legal jargon, or with arcane references to obscure places and events, has had a taste of what it’s like to be a child who has been deprived of the cultural touchstones that literate adults take for granted. Hirsch is performing a brave and invaluable service by reminding us that proficient reading depends not just on skilled eyes and ears but on an educated mind.”
—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, author of The Language Instinct and The Sense of Style
 
“Hirsch has done it again. He has produced the most clear and well-grounded argument for why a knowledge-centric education is critical for enhancing educational equity. He pulls no punches. Why Knowledge Matters provides thoughtful solutions to important education issues.”
—Susan B. Neuman, professor and chair, Teaching and Learning Department, Steinhardt School, New York University
 
“If you are frustrated and angry about the over-testing of students, the narrowing of the curriculum, the scapegoating of teachers, and the persistence of the achievement gap, you must read this brilliant book. Hirsch persuasively explains how all these phenomena are related, and points the way forward to a better education for all.”
—Daniel T. Willingham, professor, University of Virginia

E. D. Hirsch, Jr. is the founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation.
 

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard Education Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1612509525
• ISBN 13: 9781612509525
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280