All education is going to acculturate anyway – even if only
into a subculture.
E.D. Hirsch Jr., New York Times, May
1990
They had
me pegged as a reactionary, but my impulses were more revolutionary. You have
to give the people who are without power the tools of power, and these tools of
power don’t care who’s wielding them.
E.D. Hirsch Jr., New York Times,
September 2013
Cultural Literacy: What Every
American Needs to Know,
published by E.D. Hirsch Jr. in 1988, became a best-seller, initiating strong
debates in the educational community. In this and subsequent books, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy and A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, as
well as others, Hirsch diagnosed and addressed American literacy failures as a
lack of cultural literacy, (background knowledge), which he recommended be
placed at the center, or core, of pedagogical instruction with indexes and
digests of required subjects. Through his organization, the Core Knowledge Foundation, Hirsch and
his colleagues, supported initially by the Exxon Education Foundation and the
National Endowment for the Humanities, began developing curriculum for K – 12th
grades that addresses the topics of background information as the key to
improving literacy results in students through what is known as “The List”, a
compilation of 5,000 topics recommended as basic cultural knowledge. Twenty
five years later, forty-five out of fifty states have adopted the Common Core
State Standards, a redefining of curriculum and pedagogical goals in schools K
– 12 influenced by Hirsch’s theories. His
concept and implementation has influenced a generation of thinking and although
there has been sharp disagreement about his prescriptions, his influence has
persisted. I will be looking at his ideas, and how it has contributed to
education and reform today.
Background
E.D.
Hirsch began his career in English poetry scholarship and hermeneutics, the
study of literary interpretation. In his early books, Validity in
Interpretation (1967) and The Aims of Interpretation (1976), Hirsch
argued the supremacy of the author’s intentions, and made a distinction between
“meaning”, created by the author, and “significance”, the perceptions of the
reader, which were minority opinions He
became the chair of the Composition Department at the University of Virginia,
and wrote The Philosophy of Composition
in 1977. In this book, he investigated his concept of the “readability factor”
in texts: his theory held that the ease of text comprehension rested on the
clarity of the "semantic intentions” of the author; the instruction of
composition needed to focus on clarity of purpose in regards to the
"semantic intentions” of the writer. These theories were in
contradiction with the deconstructionists of the time. (Wikipedia). In
his research on the “readability factor” with students from Richmond Virginia,
their difficulties in decoding texts by Hegel and about Generals Lee and Grant
led him to discover that background information was the stumbling block: these
students did not know about the subjects they were reading on. The new findings
of the research showed the importance of prior knowledge for full comprehension
of the reading. Hirsch was galvanized into educational reform and pedagogy when
he saw the gaps in the college students results in their literacy abilities. At
a presentation at the Modern Language Association in 1981, he suggested there
was a direct link between illiteracy and lack of cultural knowledge and
expanded the concept in an essay for the American
Scholar in 1983 entitled, “Cultural Literacy”. Exxon Education Foundation, The National Endowment for the
Humanities, and colleagues such as Diane Ravitch at Columbia University joined
forces with Hirsch Jr. to support his research and development of these
theories into curriculum through his organization, The Cultural Literacy Foundation,
founded in 1986 (Hitchens).
Cultural Literacy: What Every
American Needs to Know
In
his preface to Cultural Literacy: What
Every American Needs to Know, Hirsch Jr. says, “Cultural literacy
constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children, the
only reliable way of combating the social determinism that now condemns them to
remain in the same social and educational conditions as their parents” (xiii).
In order to head off any charges of prescriptivism, Hirsch is quick to add, “Cultural
literacy is represented not by a prescriptive
list of books but rather by a descriptive
list of the information actually possessed by literate Americans” (xiv).
Rousseau is criticized for his focus on the innate instincts of the developing
child, and Dewey for his focus on skills, critical thinking and the child
developmental model, which Hirsch Jr. maintains takes us away from the pressing
educational need for a common cultural foundation. “History, not superior
wisdom, shows us that neither the content-neutral curriculum of Rousseau and
Dewey nor the narrowly specified curriculum of Plato is adequate to the needs
of a modern nation” (xvi). He counters Dewey’s rejection of symbols by
defining shared symbols as the mark of a national community communicating
effectively.
Hirsch
Jr. begins his argument with asserting the need to have increasing levels of
literacy as a nation in order to maintain our economic standing in the
world. “World knowledge” is the key to literacy skills, as Professor
Chall, reading specialist, maintains. “The function of national literacy is to
foster effective nationwide communications” (2). The reasons for adhering
to formal written Standard English is that it is “based upon forms that have
been fixed in dictionaries and grammars and are adhered to in books, magazines,
and newspapers” (3). The failure of students to understand written test
material presented by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
and results in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) illustrate the degradation of
literacy skills, and the shared common knowledge needed for rudimentary public
discourse as represented by conversation, news comprehension and civic
understanding. Business opportunities are a benefit of a rounded cultural
education, and the corporate world is quoted as anxious for literate employees.
A distinction is made between the literacy needed for job-related materials and
vocational training, which is too narrow, and the literacy of newspapers and
public writing, which needs further development. Socially, the needs of the
disenfranchised are addressed through the literacy opportunities of democracy
in action, and access to news. Examples are given of culturally educated folks
understanding enough in the news to grasp a variety of topics and
information. Social justice, democratic ideals, civic participation, all stem
from a “mature literacy”. All this firmly proves the decline, and subsequent
need to improve shared knowledge, and consequently, literacy (12).
In
looking at why cultural literacy teaching has declined, Hirsch speculates that
the democratic process has been so taken for granted, it ebbed away without our
noticing until now (19). The educational principles of Rousseau and Dewey also
share the blame, as they have inculcated a perception that any subject is
valid, as long as critical thinking and reasoning development is the focus; the
Shopping Mall High School exemplifies
the formalist educational theory with its array of choice. In the face of
charges that traditional materials represent the Euro-centric, white and
Western perspectives, schools have retreated into excessive and overly
reductive subjects. Here Hirsch maintains, “Although mainstream culture is tied
to the written word and may therefore seem more formal and elitist than other
elements of culture, that is an illusion. Literate culture is the most
democratic in the land”(21). Traditional literate forms are the most effective
for social change. Jeffersonian principles, Black Panther speeches, Oscar
Wilde, Virginian history: all attest to the virtues of cultural knowledge,
reflecting the strengths of the country.
The
recommendation to teach cultural literacy to young children early in their
schooling is strongly stated, and evidence given of young children’s abilities
to retain and memorize. Memorization is shown to be effective, and all basic
cultural knowledge should be accomplished by age thirteen to produce a
basically culturally literate student (32).
Hirsch
Jr. brings in language research that is focused on memory and its functions,
and role schemata play in the acquisition of cultural literacy. Citing
language research with memory, George Miller’s work on short-term memory is
mentioned. Jacqueline Sachs’ 1967 research showing the “original form of a sentence
is rapidly lost to memory, whereas an accurate memory for its meaning is
retained” (37). Hirsch’s experiments with Richmond college students is shared,
using a paragraph about Grant and Lee, and another on friendship, with graphed
and charted results tabulating original and degraded texts, illustrating the
differences between comprehension of original and degraded texts; however the
results were muddied by the greater evidence of background knowledge as the
greater obstacle to understanding. These experiments are the ones that changed
Hirsch’s career towards pedagogic reform, providing the results showing the
importance of background information to fill in the gaps in the texts. Younger
children and their associations with memory and words are studied, also
illustrating the use of schemata. This leads Hirsch to say, “But literacy
requires us to have both intensive knowledge of relationships and extensive
knowledge of specifics” (59), one argument against the Rousseau/Dewey model of
content-neutral instruction. The last research models show Krauss and
Glucksberg’s Social and Nonsocial
Speech, studying the interaction between language and symbols, and how
older subjects are able to use language to describe symbols that smaller
children are not. The argument for the background experience of literacy as a
reference for the interpretation of symbols is clearly stated.
Hirsch
Jr. explores national languages and how their formal structures came about to
support the need for maintaining formal written Standard English as part of our
cultural literacy. Following national academies and language agencies
created to standardize usage, Hirsch maintains that standardization is a
nationalistic responsibility that solidifies and strengthens a country’s
abilities as a world player. Standardization also supports industry and
commerce, legitimizing them. Hirsch Jr. presents his concept of “vocabulary”,
stating that “Our national vocabulary has three distinct domains. The first is
international…Lying beyond the core is the sphere of vocabulary needed for
literacy in English, no matter in what country the language is used…But in
addition to broadly shared, international spheres of knowledge, every literate
person today has to possess information and vocabulary that is special to his
or her own country” (75). He describes French, Spanish and English
standardization processes historically, with arbitrariness and differences from
oral dialects, finishing with, “…every national language is a conscious
construct that transcends any particular dialect, region or social class” (82).
Culture is similarly constructed, pulling together materials that are deemed of
relevance to population cohesion. “For nation builders, fixing the vocabulary
of a national culture is analogous to fixing a standard grammar, spelling and
pronunciation” (84). The example of a Scotsman, Hugh Blair, who wrote Rhetoric in 1762, is used to show how
standardization can be produced by someone from outside the culture. This leads
Hirsch Jr. to the examination of American culture-creators such as Mason Weems,
who helped forge the cultural myth behind George Washington and the apple tree
to help make him more accessible and less intimidating. Other great Americans
have been subject to myth-making and legend-creations. Interestingly, Hirsch
Jr. points out that we Americans have bypassed bloody times caused by conflict
when a national language was imposed by having inherited English (91). Hirsch
finishes his discussion on national language and culture by noting that, “Toleration
of diversity is at the root of our society, but encouragement of
multilingualism is contrary to our traditions and extremely unrealistic”(93).
Hirsch
Jr.’s interest in a national vocabulary helps establish common ground in a
pluralist nation. He thinks of American culture and its vocabulary in three
segments: at one end, civil religion, full of traditional meaning and values;
the other end, neutral vocabulary used in public discourse, objective and empty
of meaning; in the middle, the active, culture vocabulary. Hirsch Jr. believes
the two outer ends hold remain stable and brook little discussion; the middle
ground is where the cultural literacy knowledge is applied and shared in public
discourse. It is to maintain the integrity of this middle ground that Hirsch is
presenting a national vocabulary, like a dictionary, to help us navigate the
parameters of shared discourse. To clarify his position, Hirsch tells of London
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and how the many streams and kinds of
people mixed to create the English of common parlance. He says, “Literate
culture is far less exclusive, for instance, than any ethnic culture, not
matter how poverty-bound, or pop culture, or youth culture”(106).
Hirsch
Jr. ends with a critique of educational policies and curriculum, which he
blames on “romantic formalism” (110). He attacks the skills orientation
of instruction, and acknowledges criticisms that family background impedes
cultural literacy learning. He takes a look at two reports on education, the Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary
School Studies (1893), and the Cardinal
Principles of Secondary Education,
(1918), and tracks how Dewey and Rousseau shaped curriculum and policy in their
times. The Appendix: A Preliminary List
by E.D. Hirsch Jr., Joseph Kett, and James Trefil, reviews suggestions on how
to compile language, literature and scientific knowledge and content follows;
this is followed by The List, 5,000
entries of topics needed to fulfill basic cultural literacy content. Notes and
an index finish the book.
Critiques
of Cultural Literacy
In
looking at the critiques of E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s Cultural Literacy concept, we need to look at the discourse before
its publication. Social sciences and humanist studies see the research on
literacy from different perspectives. The social scientists such as Scribner
and Cole and Heath bring in the social aspects involved in individual
literacies, and have broadened their perspectives as a result. The humanists
such as Eric Havelock and Walter Ong perceive a duality that is defined by
orality and literacy, or the “Cognitive Divide”, where the mental attributes in
cognitive development stemming from literacy are measurably different and of
greater social and educational value. The humanist perspective, which sees no
such connection to social variables in achieving literacy, has been aligned
with secular schooling frameworks of expectations, bringing up the question: is
the literacy they reference based on academic literacy? Coming from Western
schooling? As Patricia Bizzell notes in “Arguing About Literacy” (1988,) in
advocating Standard English as the solution to Black English test scores, “…
does not recognize the existence of any literate abilities here because the
students have not mastered the literate abilities that count for him namely
those associated with academic literacy” (144). Hirsch’s The Philosophy of Composition has placed his thinking about writing
along traditionalist lines and placed his focus on academic literacy.
Hirsch believes that instruction in formal written Standard English is the
answer. As issues around the “Cognitive Divide” debate bring the factor of
social context more into focus, Hirsch is grappling with the new evidence of
prior knowledge and its impact on reading comprehension, and his ideas in Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs
to Know are seen to some to be a “corrective” to the “Great Divide”
(Bizzell 144). He is now seen as in the social science camp, as it
counters the “deficit” model of the humanists. So, strong objections rest
on the veiled dominant cultural reinforcements that this approach to literacy
covers. His list seems prescriptive, and although he qualifies this with saying
local input is necessary, it appears “his dream [is] for a national curriculum
[that is] totalitarian, racist, sexist, and laden with social class prejudice”
(Bizzell 146). Bizzell’s argument that Hirsch’s reliance on historical
perspectives and references in the name of national identity represent the
status quo, saying that somehow history has cemented these perspectives into
rightness. This is the entrance fee to being a part of the “public
discourse”, to being considered literate, or is it academically literate?
Then
there is the issue of exactly how a literate person becomes literate. Is it by
sitting down and plowing through a list of topics? Thomas H. Estes, Carol J.
Gutman, and Elise K. Harrison object to the idea of “transmission”, saying, “
By implying that [“list-knowing”] equals competence, he reverses the process of
literacy acquisition knowing the list becomes the criterion for being literate
rather than the result of being literate” (16). Others find the “list” approach
to literacy too reminiscent of Dickensian days, when knowledge was funneled
down students’ throats.
The
question of how an individual builds the schemata to then retain the
information is also left unanswered by Hirsch Jr., which makes his approach
seems static and curiously lifeless, contributing to the sense that things have
been reversed in his approach. Wayne C. Booth, a personal friend to
Hirsch Jr., writes an impassioned open letter to his friend, trying to explain
the parts of his concept that need reconsideration:
Everything
that we experience, of course, carries with it what you call information, but
no information is ever sucked in unless charged by some motivated experience.
You rightly mock the effort of some “skills” enthusiasts to teach skills as
broken-down units, skill by skill, on the mistaken assumption that skills are
simply transferable, independent of what they are exercised on. Why do you not
then acknowledge that teaching bits of deliberately superficial information
will be subject to the same corruption: information that is picked up to
satisfy factitious experiential demands, such as a threatening test, will
seldom last beyond short-term memory; what sticks is what we can construct into a context, one that
provides a reason for attending to it. (17)
Booth
takes it one step further: “The truth is that nobody learns anything by being taught it unless by teaching we mean discovering how to turn passive
indifference into an active grasping of some corner of the world’s riches”
(18).
Stephen
Tchudi in “Slogans Indeed: A Reply to Hirsch”, also finds the devil is in the
details in Hirsch’s concept. The idea that background information does not
include what the reader brings to the text, and does not entails making meaning
through instruction is anathema; force-feeding and memorization are also
counter-productive to teaching children. Tchudi challenges Hirsch’s contention
that there was a period in the late nineteenth, early twentieth centuries when
teaching literacy was smooth, productive and integrated into the curriculum.
Most importantly, he emphasizes the role of context in creating
experiences for students that root their learning, and reminds Hirsch that
learning language and acculturation is a natural process, not automatic
(72-73).
Conclusion
In the 90s, when talk
about standards dominated, and studies such as the National Assessment of
Educational Progress and the National Endowment for the Humanities were showing
sliding literacy abilities by students, E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s concept had the
reassuring ring of manageable results in educational reform. Certainly, the arc
of his scholarly concerns showed his commitment to the intention of a text, and
the need for a disinterested conveyor of meaning, i.e. the interpreter, who can
objectively supply the meaning (Hitchens). This lines up nicely with being the
conveyor of a clear path out of the wilderness of low cultural literacy, and
Hirsch Jr. has steadfastly maintained his position through the years of
foundation work on pedagogy and curriculum and a stream of books: the Core
Knowledge Series, which starts with What Your Preschooler Needs to Know
, and moves up the grades; The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them
(1996); The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American
Children (2006) and most recently, The Making of Americans (2010). His rebuttals and articles stay on
message. In prescribing a solution for the fourth grade slump in test scores in
“Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge – of Words and the World”
(2003), Hirsch Jr. declares, “Decoding fluency is achieved through
accurate initial instruction followed by lots of practice” (12). His simple
solution for cultural literacy as well. This steady drumbeat has produced
results. In addition to the Common Core State Standards being implemented
widely in schools, and tied to the curriculum in the High School Equivalency
(HSE) tests beginning in 2014, the Core Knowledge Series and curriculum
generated by the Foundation have been very popular, particularly in charter
schools. England is implementing a new approach to education said to be much
influenced by Hirsch Jr. (Wikipedia). Professors such as Jeremiah Reedy
consider the question of background knowledge to be an empirical question,
answered by Hirsch empirically, and Reedy is interested in implementing a
college-level cultural literacy list, which he has initiated in “Cultural
Literacy for College Students” (2007).
Finally,
in Al Baker’s New York Times article,
“Culture Warrior, Gaining Ground: E. D. Hirsch Sees His Education Theories Taking
Hold” (September 27, 2013) E.D. Hirsch
Jr., age 85, is lauded and credited with the current changes in educational
reformn being carried out across the nation. “This is a redemptive moment for
E. D. Hirsch, after a quarter-century of neglect by people both conservative
and liberal,” said Sol Stern, an education writer and senior fellow
at the conservative Manhattan Institute. It seems instructive in the
efficacy of being tenacious to the end.
References
“E.D. Hirsch Jr.” Wikipedia, The
Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 3 (Dec. 2013). Web.
Baker, Al. “Culture Warrior, Gaining Ground: E.
D. Hirsch Sees His Education Theories Taking Hold”. The New York Times.
(September 27, 2013).
Bizzell, Patricia. “Arguing About
Literacy.”
College English. Vol. 50, No. 2.
(Feb., 1988). Pp. 141-153.
Booth,
Wayne C. “Cultural Literacy and Liberal Learning: An Open Letter to E.D. Hirsch
Jr.” Change, Vol. 20, No. 4 . (Jul -
Aug. 1988). pp 10-21.
Estes,
Thomas H., Gutman, Carol J., and Harrison, Elise K. “Cultural Literacy: What
Every Educator Needs to Know.” Educational
Leadership. September 1988. pp. 14-17.
Hirsch Jr., E.D. Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs
to Know. Vintage Books, New York. May 1988.
Hitchens, Christopher. “Why We Don’t
Know What We Don’t Know Just Ask E.D. Hirsch.”
The New York Times Magazine. (May 13, 1990).
Krauss, R. M. and Glucksberg, S.
“Social and Nonsocial Speech.” Scientific
American, Inc. (1977). Pp. 65-67.
Reedy,
Jeremiah. “Cultural Literacy for College Students.” Academic Questions Winter 2006-07. The National Association of
Scholars. www.nas.org. Web.
Tchudi, Stephen. “Slogans Indeed: A
Reply to Hirsch.” Educational
Leadership. (Dec . 1987 – Jan. 1988). pp. 72-73.
No comments:
Post a Comment