Joanne Yatvin, who served for many years as a teacher and principal in Oregon, is a literacy expert. She here expresses her view of the Common Core English Language Arts standards.
What the Dickens is Education All About?
Did you know that Charles Dickens denounced the Common Core Standards more than 150 years ago and didn’t think much of the value of higher education either? In his 1854 novel, Hard Times, Dickens devotes the first two chapters to satirizing education in the grade schools of his era, and it looks a lot like teaching in our schools today.
Right away, Dickens introduces Thomas Gradgrind, owner of a small school in an English industrial town, who makes clear what he thinks education should be: “Now what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. “
Next, Gradgrind, an unnamed visitor, and the schoolmaster, Mr. M’Choakumchild enter a classroom and lessons begin with Gradgrind in charge. He looks around the room and points to a young girl: “Girl number twenty” he calls out. She stands up and gives her name: “Sissy Jupe, sir.” “Sissy is not a name,” charges Gradgrind. “Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecelia.”
After learning that Sissy’s father performs with horses at the local circus, Gradgrind demands, “Give me your definition of a horse.” When she doesn’t answer, he turns to a boy named Bitzer and repeats the order. Bitzer says, “Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eyeteeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.” “Now, girl number twenty,” gloats Gradgrind, “You know what a horse is.”
Later, while lecturing the class on the foolishness of using representations of horses and flowers in home decorations, Gradgrind calls on Sissy again, asking her why she would have such pictures on carpets where people would step on them. Sissy, no longer tongue-tied, replies, “It wouldn’t hurt them, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy….” “ But you mustn’t fancy,” cries Gradgrind. “That’s it! You are never to fancy.”
Having humiliated Sissy once again, Gradgrind turns the lesson over to M’Choakumchild, who, Dickens tells us, has been thoroughly trained for his job: “Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveying and leveling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the end of his ten chilled fingers ……He knew all about all the Water Sheds of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings on the two-and-thirty points of the compass. Ah, rather overdone, M’Choakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more.”
Dickens then ends the chapter with a metaphorical musing that compares M’Choakumchild’s teaching to Morgiana’s actions in the story, “Alibaba and the Forty Thieves”:
“Say, good M’choakumchild. When from thy boiling store,
thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within—or sometimes only maim and distort him.”
While these excerpts from Hard Times are fresh in our minds, let’s consider their connection to today’s Common Core English Language Arts Standards. Below is a key statement from the official CCSS guide for teaching reading.
.The Common Core emphasizes using evidence from texts to present careful analyses, well-defended claims, and clear information. Rather than asking students questions they can answer solely from their prior knowledge and experience, the standards call for students to answer questions that depend on their having read the texts with care.
Although this statement does not include the word “facts,” it argues for the type of education that Gradgrind championed. Incidentally, neither “imagination” nor “creativity” is mentioned anywhere in the Standards documents.
To further emphasize the place of factual information in standards-based education, David Coleman, the primary architect of the Standards and now President of the College Board, has repeatedly asserted his view that students’ experiences, beliefs, and feelings should not be part of their educational journey. Below, is his explanation of how Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address should be taught:
The idea here is to plunge students into an independent encounter with this short text. Refrain from giving background context or substantial instructional guidance at the outset. It may make sense to notify students that the short text is thought to be difficult and they are not expected to understand it fully on a first reading —that they can expect to struggle. Some students may be frustrated, but all students need practice in doing their best to stay with something they do not initially understand. This close reading approach forces students to rely exclusively on the text instead of privileging background knowledge, and levels the playing field for all students as they seek to comprehend Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Since I had not seen any lessons that fit Coleman’s criteria in my visits to classrooms, I turned to a website called “America Achieves” and viewed the only video there that portrayed the Common Core concept of proper teaching of a complex text.
That video shows a 9th grade teacher teaching a lesson on Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” that depicts a yearly event in a small rural village in which every family must participate. In this “lottery” the person who draws the one paper with a black dot on it is stoned to death by the crowd. Clues throughout the story let mature readers know about the lottery’s ancient origins and its initial purpose to persuade the gods to provide a good food harvest for the community, information that the story’s characters are never aware of.
At the video’s beginning the teacher describes her class to the audience as low-level readers with several English Language learners among them. She explains her choice of “The Lottery” as a complex text, yet within the range of suitability for ninth graders. The classroom scenes that follow show her asking students to locate specific bits of information and explain their literal meanings. She never asks why the story’s characters speak or act as they do. Also included in the video are short breaks where the teacher addresses viewers directly explaining her teaching further.
My response to the video was strongly negative. I felt that the teacher’s approach was mechanical and shallow. Without background information the students missed the author’s clues and failed to see the significance in the characters’ comments and behaviors. For them this was just a fairy tale without rhyme or reason. As a seasoned educator I could not accept the teacher’s choice of a text for this class or her failure to give them sufficient information beforehand and guidance during reading
It’s probably not fair for me to pass judgment on the Standards teaching methods after seeing just one video. But, if this new approach to K-12 education is so powerful why aren’t there more videos on this site—or elsewhere–showing teachers practicing more sophisticated teaching? Without research, field-testing, or evidence of student improvement, the case for the Standards right now is weak at best. Yet, most of our states’ governors, policy makers, pundits, and school officials have fallen for it. What we need is a reincarnation of Dickens to give us a picture of a modern classroom with a gifted teacher and a new Bitzer and Sissy to show us the difference between spouting “facts” and demonstrating genuine learning.
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Thank you for posting this and thanks to Joanne Yatvin for this thoughtful deconstruction of David Coleman’s close reading approach. Gradgind is the perfect metaphor for the Common Core approach to literacy instruction.
Thank you for helping this important post gain a wider audience.
It is heart-aching after reading this thoroughly analytic article. Truthfully, and scientifically, all fruitful facts are yielded after the SEED of many creative ideas, and imagination have been nurtured and put in action.
The Common Core Standard Education is invented to disable the creativity of many young generations. What is the real purpose? Being as educators, and parents, we should demand this CCS Education being published and broadcast publicly. If not, people whoever are behind this CCS Education, should resign from their positions and never allow to work with PUBLIC Education. Back2basic
The “unknown visitor” in Gradgrind’s school is a government inspector! I make a point of teaching this section of Hard Times to my juniors right before state testing 😉
Sneaky, commie, socialist, pinkos abound everywhere, eh!!
Welcome to the club!
Señor Swacker: TAGO!
😉
And is it just me, or is “close reading” just another way of saying “writing advertising copy” and “the how-to of propaganda”?
To everyone else who commented:
Most krazy props!
One of the best postings and threads since this blog began.
😎
Attacking a text without understanding its context is similar to diving into a pool without checking the depth of the water, an easy way to drown in shallow water.
well put, Robert!
It is a form of brainwashing, really. One requirement is that the mind is disconnected from all experiences, emotions,etc, leaving the individual dessicated and ready to absorb any propaganda poured into the self. Information in isolation.
Robert j. Manley:
Well, a reader isn’t ever going to completely understand the full context of a text, even if the reader is the one who wrote it. Figuring out the relevant context can be part of the fun of interpretation (and is part and parcel of the act of reading). And the process can take place through multiple readings over many years. That’s part of the fun of teaching certain stories and poems over and over. Understanding evolves with time and experience. The amount of context a teacher provides, or asks the students to speculate on, before the bulk of the reading commences is a matter of professional judgement.
There’s nothing wrong with occasional or even frequent cold reading assignments for advanced high school students, especially if they’re given a chance to compare notes and discuss their interpretations with one another before making a formal presentation.
The crime is in depriving an inexperienced reader of key background information that he isn’t likely to possess. A good teacher will have an idea of how difficult a text will be for the students he’s assigning it to, and will decide how much support to give.
Even worse, though, is Coleman’s admonition to both teachers and students to avoid making connections with anything other than the words on the page. Aside from the fact that it’s impossible, it’s just bad practice to even consider it, as many others have pointed out. The idea that “close reading” requires the reader to stay within “the four corners of the text” runs counter to what is currently known about reading comprehension, and hasn’t been popular among literary theorists for quite a few decades.
Even in the interpretation of legal contracts, where that phrase appears to have originated, the idea is controversial. (In my opinion, a text does not have four corners.) Here’s an excerpt from an article about the legal controversy–no, I didn’t read the whole thing, but this excerpt is enough to deflate Coleman’s use of the “four corners rule” as a definitive metaphor for how to approach a reading assignment:
“Two divergent schools of contract interpretation exist today: what can be labeled the “four corners school” and the “Corbin school.” The four corners school relies on the text of the document itself—if there is no facial ambiguity based on the plain language of the contract, then no resort to extrinsic evidence can be had. Evidence of trade usage and custom is excluded from consideration under this approach.
“The Corbin school rejects the proposition that words have “plain” or “objective” meanings that can be discerned simply by reading a document. Instead, Corbin’s analysis looks to the surrounding factual context to understand what the parties intended the words to mean.”
From “Let’s Talk About Text: Contracts, Claims, and Judicial Philosophy at the Federal Circuit,” by Andrew T. Langford
http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=ipt
This is lovely, and spot-on. Dickens links Gradgrind to utilitarian capitalism, and to hostility to the free imagination and the sense of wonder: “You are not to wonder.” Hard TImes indeed.
common core aims to remove thinking and feeling. what it calls “critical thinking” is really little more than prompt and accurate responding. stories like “The Lottery” are meant to be discussed for how it moves you morally, and how it impresses you with the literary devices that set up the story as it progresses. like another Jackson story (“Charles”), the power is not in nibbling at the words and sentences, it’s discerning the flavors of the dish and where they come from. this is no shortsighted mistake or misstep. children of duncans, kings, cuomos, obamas….they will still get served on the left and cleared from the right with a cloth napkin carefully draped over an arm. they will delve into historic themes in order to protect their position. children of the poor may be tempted to challenge theirs if they are taught to think too critically.
Sweet commentary Dan
. . . But there is a lot of hyperbole in this post. When you are reading in history or law or philosophy or religion or science it is critically important to be able to reference specific words, phrases, passages, and/or the development of an argument in a text. This is important too even when reading and, I might add, ENJOYING literature! Just finished a wonderful novel The Sleeping Dictionary (Sujata Massey). If I were to talk about what made the protagonist so appealing to me I would reference her bravey, her intellectual curiosity, her commitment to survival, her ingenuity, her loyalty . . . the author made these characteristics come alive in the novel in specific scenes and dialogue that I would love to discuss in any book club or class or conversation. As a historian and social studies teacher I have grave concerns about teaching an important primary source like The Gettysburg Address entirely out of context, but situated in context a close reading of this and other documents contributes significantly to the development of our students as learners, scholars and citizens.
“I have grave concerns about teaching an important primary source like The Gettysburg Address entirely out of context, but situated in context a close reading of this and other documents contributes significantly to the development of our students as learners, scholars and citizens.”
Yes, and closely reading texts that are carefully bolstered with context is what teachers have been doing all along. This pretense that CC is somehow innovative is risible.
Come on Alan, get with the program. When I look out at a beautiful forest, my main concern is why God’s evolutionary forces selected the cordate, heart-shaped pattern for the cotton wood leaf. No?
Why did God’s evolutionary forces make that selection?
Why, it’s so the tree has an advantage in the nasty, brutish, short, zero-sum struggle for existence in which “winners” take all, and “losers” get what they deserve.
Michael
Suppressing all knowledge and background information will probably take me a about six days of heavy drinking. Then at a one-word-per-day pace, that’s 8 additional days. I’ll get back to you in two weeks or so. Great question though.
When I read about context-free close reading of texts, I am reminded of an old Gary Larson Far Side cartoon.
In the cartoon, there is a man on a deserted island who has inscribed the word “HELP” in the sand, but the P has been smudged. The pilot of the search plane above is speaking into a radio mic saying “wait- never mind, it just says “HELF.”
Context . . .
That’s perfect! And the kicker is that these same people babble on about critical thinking, higher order questioning, and connecting the dots. Proof positive that they are really just modern day snake oil salesmen, using smoke and mirrors as their best sell.
I confess I haven’t actually read through all of the ELA standards. (I don’t think my nervous system could withstand it.) Does anyone know if anywhere in the ELA standards students are guided to recognize propaganda when it is bombarding them? The author’s point of view should not be taught as a sterile exercise, but as a means of assessing the validity of the author’s premises and theories. While I admit that as a literacy teacher I agree with Coleman to a point (a very small point) that students need to read carefully to answer questions about texts and not rely exclusively on background knowledge or experience to do so, I totally disagree with the lengths he takes this tenet of Common Core “teaching.” What is the point of having students analyzing texts if they are not making connections to their own lives and experience? What is the value of an education if students are not encouraged to express themselves?
Here’s one standard that “suggests” logical fallacies, but those of us who have worked with the standards know that Coleman and his acolytes often mean something different in their interpretation of the standards, er, testing bullet points:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.8
Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.
I have not seen any materials that suggest the teaching of logical fallacies. But it doesn’t mean teachers shouldn’t teach them if not required to follow a script. “Fidelity” to the standards makes for some fairly dull lessons.
Fidelity to standards makes for some dullards, both teacher and pupil.
Have you all read this article from The Daily Beast about doctor job satisfaction and how to improve it: http://thebea.st/1m2o3vd
To bad the advice is in the r(he)eform agenda for education.
Isn’t*
Wow. Deja vu.
Exactly. I read the entire thing through the first time expecting it to suddenly change tone and exclaim “j/k folks, we’re really talking about teachers here”, but it never did.
With two 3rd year US medical school students in the family, I can only hope medicine doesn’t go the way of education. Those kids between them have nearly half a million dollars invested in education alone. And you all would be privileged to have them as your docs.
There’s too much money in medicine to be ignored by the Reformers. The doctors are next after the Reformers finish with teachers. Substitute “physician” with “teacher” in that article and you would describe the state of education – complete with the negative blog comments – though on a lower pay scale.. A half million to one person is just as big as $60,000 to another family with less means who sacrifice just as much.
Doctors may just now be coming to the realization that their skills to patients just does not matter the wealthy Reformers. The Reformers are building a second, privileged America with a separate health care system, private security, exclusive education, non-public transportation, favored legal system, even a dedicated food supply. The rest will simply lose the good doctors and be herded into a less personal, mass produced health care system that barely functions. Yes, patients want great doctors as they want great teachers, but most will not have that option.
Ah..concierge health care.
Even beyond that. In the same way teachers are replaced with temps in large classrooms, doctors for most of us will be replaced by technicians with large patient rosters. The wealthy who enable the Reformers can build private ICUs in their houses with personal doctors. Who needs community hospitals? They can fly private jets. Why bother with commercial airline safety? Education is through private exclusive schools into groomed jobs. Get rid of public schools! And live in gated communities with private security, so defund local police and fire. Why bother buying feed lot food with pesticides and hormones? Order special high quality food organic and healthy. So the goal becomes eliminating government and the important social programs.
While the rich have always been around, now the inequality has grown so vast and the amount of money siphoned out of the economy so great, that we see a definite divide into two Americas that rarely interact. It is what economists like Reich and Krugman keep warning about. I think the Wall Street bailout had a much, much greater impact than we realize. The transfer of power was so great, it has neutralized our democratic process. Yet voters seem oblivious.
Hi, Diane
Thought you might enjoy these two attachments–the first a CCSS description of close reading, the second a “translation” of same that makes SURE there is no context (other than the text!) for reading. I got the idea for the exercise at a special ed workshop, where the presenter was making the point that many reading-challenged high school students can in fact get “adequate” scores on tests like these. I believe that, despite the fact that no one not privy to the CCSS original could say what these seven paragraphs actually mean, adult “close readers” will have no real trouble answering the questions and citing appropriate text in support. Younger readers, I would guess, will find themselves lost at sea with no anchoring nouns or verbs to guide them.
So-called “close reading” (it was called hermeneutics when I was an undergraduate) is a viable technique for interpretation–for some texts, the only technique, where the original context is lost or hard to reconstruct. But it is an adult technique, built on years of learning to read in a wide variety of contexts first. Foisting it on elementary readers is–well, you know the sort of adjectives the anglo-saxons gave us for these things.
Jeff Taylor Retired Teacher & Current PhD candidate Ohio University Patton College of Education
Can you link to those passages so we can all see?
Just prior to the April Fools day ELA exam I was at a workshop where the presenter was teaching us how to teach students to “grapple” with difficult out of context, informational texts. Close reading was the primary method. I asked how she thought that close reading would translate to Pearson test items. She simply shrugged, “We’ll have to wait and see.” Two weeks later we learned just how poorly testing this “skill” translates to timed, overly-long, MC tests. What a disaster, ask any grade 3 to 8 teacher who overheard their students discussing the gory details. I wouldn’t dare look at the tests for fear of immediate spanking. To make sure I wore my Prime Effects, patent pending sleep mask (see below if interested.)
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In my perfect dream world, every Pearson math test administrator shows up wearing a prime Effects sleep mask. By the way, they are very comfortable and are completely photon proof!
Sorry for the unprofessional detour, sometimes mocking these fools and there even foolishier policies help me cope.
Was the word “grapple” really used? If so, that’s great! I will add it to my super-motivating words like “rigor”, “grit”, and “persevere” (which is different than perverse but ends up feeling about the same).
Multiple times! I swear to David Coleman.
Grapple? That’s new to the lexicon unless one has wrestlers in the family.
Thank you Joanne Yatvin for exposing readers to Coleman’s absurd
Gettysburg lesson. I had the misfortune of having to sit through a professional development on this very topic.
This notion of a level playing field is ludicrous. Good readers access prior knowledge! They are making connections to what they already know to the words on the page and making predictions about what will come next. A child that has been exposed to Civil War movies and literature and raised on stories of Lincoln might be able to make some sense of the Gettysburg Address even if the syntax and/or vocabulary is beyond her. But a child who does not speak English as a native language and has only been in the country for less than 2 or 3 years will never be able to make sense of it no matter how “close” they read.
It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that Coleman knows nothing about teaching reading – he doesn’t even understand what reading is.
Close reading has become “allegiance to the text.”
Who will oversee which texts deserve such faith?
Educated beyond their intelligence, are they.
Gotta get that ol time religion, eh!!
Reblogged this on jonathan lovell's blog and commented:
An engaging article by NCTE stalwart Joanne Yatvin, posted on Diane Ravitch’s blog earlier today.
Yatvin’s analysis seems sloppy to me. Gradgrind is satire on teaching facts in a stultifying way. American education has swung to the opposite, anti-fact extreme –fueled by unfair portrayals of all fact-oriented teaching as Gradgrindism. Facts are long gone in elementary schools, thanks to long-standing trends in American education and abetted by NCLB’s narrowing of curriculum to math and literacy skills (not facts). Common Core simply extends this trend away from facts toward skills (e.g. close reading). And what do we find? The skill-based classroom is as stultifying as Gradgrind’s classroom, if not more so. The answer to bad teaching of facts is not no teaching of facts; it’s better teaching of facts. Facts (also known as knowledge) are the basis of all critical thinking and creativity.
Pnderosa,
In what way(s ) is my analysis sloppy? Did you read it closely? Did I not support every allegation with evidence from texts? Can you show me any place where I used my emotions or prior experience to make a decision? Even in referring to the inadequate teaching of “The Lottery,” I referred to my knowledge about ancient fertility rites and the clues to meaning that Shirley Jackson gave in her story (although I did not name them because of space limitations). When You accuse me of being “sloppy,” you should be able to give examples from the text of my essay.
Joanne, I apologize for using the word “sloppy”, which implies carelessness. I should have said “somewhat flawed”. Gradgrind pushes facts, and CCSS does not push facts at all. CCSS is all about skills, not facts. The two are similar only insofar as they are both stultifying. In the Common Core classroom, students don’t “spout facts”; they perform mental operations on random texts. Acquiring and demonstrating knowledge of facts is not the point of CCSS. The point is to acquire and demonstrate skills like finding the main idea (or at least to TRY to; I don’t think such a skill exists). CCSS is very flawed, but it’s not because it fixates on facts. In fact, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard CCSS described by trainers and fellow teachers as a refreshing departure from NCLB’s fixation on rote learning (I don’t quite know what they’re talking about: under NCLB the ELA classroom seemed pretty content-free to me). But that’s the way it is in America today: if you want to denigrate any mode of teaching, you call it “rote learning” because everyone knows that means “bad”. Sadly, rote learning may be the royal road to a rich mind. Our kids’ minds are starving for facts about their world: they need to know about labor history so they think it worthwhile to fight for the last shreds of unions; they need to know about the destruction of the environment, not just in China, but in South America, Africa, Russia, to grasp the full scope; they need to know about feudalism and the other subpar political arrangements that we’re at risk of reverting to; etc. There’s so much to know and so little time, and we’re fiddling with useless skills practice and testing while Rome burns.
Here’s the link
American Educator
Spring 2012 | Vol. 36, No. 1
Lead the Way: The Case for Fully Guided Instruction
Ponderosa:
“Facts are long gone in elementary schools…”
How do you know this? Are you a teacher? Or, if you don’t have any firsthand knowledge of elementary school teaching, maybe you can give me some credible sources that support your claim.
Facts and knowledge aren’t really the same thing. Knowledge implies a framework for understanding, not just a knowing of facts. And the idea that facts “are the basis of all critical thinking and creativity” is debatable. Here’s a proven fact, though–the presentation of facts to children isn’t the only way for them to gain knowledge.
Here are two quotations attributed to the great scholar Jacques Barzun that are worth considering:
“Knowledge is properly tested through carefully framed questions which, by referring to a statement of fact in a sentence or two, direct the student’s thought to the further facts that he is to provide.”
“The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.”
On the lack of facts in elementary schools:
1. A parent in a nearby district tells me her kids have not had science or history at all in K-5 so school could focus on test prep.
2. Have you heard of the term “curriculum narrowing”? Is this a myth?
3. The majority of my own middle school students come to me quite innocent of most things beyond Instagram and Justin Bieber.
So true. Less than 10% of my students had heard of Plymouth Rock.
Never let facts or knowledge get in the way of critical thinking
If you’re a teacher, even if you’re forced to follow to the letter a content-free skills-based script (which I’m betting doesn’t actually exist in the real world), then I’ll bet you’re not running a fact-free classroom. I’ll bet that very few teachers anywhere are running a fact-free classroom. Certainly no decent teachers are.
Yes, the narrowing of the curriculum is a real problem, but kids today, partly because of the Internet, know more than they ever have. They may not know all the facts you want them to, but if they have an Internet connection, they have access to them. And good schools teach them how to use that connection. As Barzun points out, teaching students how to learn is not a bad thing. It’s one of the reasons teachers teach. (And by the way, teaching science is not a matter of teaching facts–science has more to do with the scientific process of learning about the world than it does about facts that have been discovered through science, and that’s one of the problems with “fact-based” science teaching.)
In any case, a few casual anecdotes aren’t sufficient to make the case that elementary schools don’t teach facts. Just as David Coleman’s specious testimony isn’t enough to show that teachers don’t ask students to actually read the assigned material and use textual evidence to support their assertions. In my opinion these are red herrings thrown into the discussion in order to advance an ideological agenda. They misrepresent what actually happens in classrooms in order to push a deeply conservative (and wrongheaded pedagogy).
Speaking of conservatism, Coleman frequently cites E. D. Hirsch in his sales pitches for the Common Core Standards. The increased emphasis on “informational text,” according to Coleman, is supposed to be a means of building the knowledge that will help “level the playing field” for under-prepared students. The ideas that prohibiting teachers from asking students to engage their prior knowledge and from supplying any context when assigning unfamiliar reading material will somehow level the playing field really are ludicrous (as noted by Michele Hamilton above). Coleman and Hirsch both seem to be in the dark as to how children build and employ knowledge and what interventions might help them do so. Neither giving young kids an injection of facts, nor depriving them of context is going to help them learn. But both Coleman and Hirsch appear to believe that the trend toward constructivist pedagogy has gotten out of hand. The more I learn about the Common Core Standards, the more I’m convinced that they represent a reaction against progressive pedagogy, and in favor of the overall trend toward authoritarian education.
>Yes, the narrowing of the curriculum is a real problem, but kids today, partly because of the Internet, know more than they ever have.<
in my experience, they know less than ever.
>(And by the way, teaching science is not a matter of teaching facts–science has more to do with the scientific process of learning about the world than it does about facts that have been discovered through science, and that’s one of the problems with “fact-based” science teaching.)<
" . . . learning about the world" is really, really difficult with no foundation of knowledge. The discovery approach as a primary methodology, has for the most part has been debunked as an effective and efficient pedagogy. Science teachers do not teach kids to just memorize terms and facts while ignoring the context of knowledge, concepts, principles, and application. Since when did the word FACT become a four letter word?
>But both Coleman and Hirsch appear to believe that the trend toward constructivist pedagogy has gotten out of hand<
If this conclusion is accurate then count me on board, It is WAY out of hand. Constructivism and discovery methods have reeked havoc on teaching and learning. Kids provide the best feedback on issues like this and I will tell you that by and large they have nor respect for discovery teaching or constructivist methodologies. These classroom approaches are slow, generally ineffective, and you can spend half the time trying to deconstruct misinformation and re-teaching correct their misunderstandings. Discovery has some limited value in very specific instances, overall it is overused to the detriment of students learning.
>In any case, a few casual anecdotes aren’t sufficient to make the case that elementary schools don’t teach facts.<
Because Ponderosa and I make this claim with "a few causal anecdotes" does not mean we don't have a many, many causal anecdotes that we could fill a book with. This may be the "Information Age" thanks to the internet, but when it comes to young adolescents, it is not translating into the "Knowledge Age".
What evidence do have to support the idea that kids are taught many facts and know more than ever. Just a hunch? Wishful thinking?
When Ponderosa speaks, everyone should listen. He has been a lone voice of reason in these discussions. Many responders who think otherwise are simply wrong. Here again, as highly educated and experienced professional educators, we can't even agree on the best practice for a subject as straight forward as science. No wonder we can't earn the respect of so many critics.
When a kid comes home from school and tells her parents that her science teacher is a “facilitator’ a “guide on the side” – not a “sage on the stage” (true teacher), we lose a lot of credibility with the people we serve.
NY teacher:
I’ve been in love with facts my whole life. Facts are wonderful things. I’ve learned millions of facts over the decades, and I’ve forgotten most of them. Really, it isn’t the facts that make an educated person, it’s the habits of mind that allow a person to gather knowledge and put it to use.
And another thing about facts: they have a funny way of turning out not to be true. That’s one of the glaring flaws of Hirsch’s approach to education. He believes in the uncritical transmission of received knowledge. I know this from having spent many hours with his The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Well, I don’t believe that the uncritical transmission of received knowledge is what education is all about.
Another big flaw in his approach is that he and people like him get to be the arbiter of what’s worth knowing. There are many subcultures and points of view out there that he appears to be ignorant of. Rather than telling other (supposedly ignorant) people what they should know, he might have done better service by seeking knowledge outside the academic bubble and sharing it with his fellows.
You say, “The discovery approach as a primary methodology, has for the most part has been debunked as an effective and efficient pedagogy.” Can you give me some references? Here’s one for you that counters that opinion: Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, by Gary Stager.
I’m sure there are plenty of science teachers who do everything you describe, but I’ve also heard scientists complain that there is precious little actual science going on in schools. I’m not in a position to judge that. I’m just saying that fact-heavy presentation isn’t the best way to make kids knowledgeable about any subject. Or make them want to learn more.
Read this article Randall.
Putting Students on the Path to Learning
The Case for Fully Guided Instruction
By Richard E. Clark, Paul A. Kirschner, and John Sweller
Discovery learning, problem-based learning, inquiry learning, constructivist learning—whatever the label, teaching that only partially guides students, and expects them to discover information on their own, is not effective or efficient. Decades of research clearly demonstrates that when teaching new information or skills, step-by-step instruction with full explanations works best.
You’ll have to Google this (link not linking)
American Educator, Spring 2012 | Vol. 36, No. 1
Lead the Way: The Case for Fully Guided Instruction
NY Teacher:
“What evidence do have to support the idea that kids are taught many facts and know more than ever.”
I didn’t say kids are taught many facts. But I am definitely arguing against trying to stuff kids’ heads with facts at the expense of encouraging their natural tendency to be curious and active learners. They come into this world with an overwhelming desire to learn that is easily stifled by an overemphasis on the acquisition of a prescribed body of information.
If you don’t give kids a chance to make some decisions about their own learning from an early age, they’ll be less likely to pursue the knowledge that naturally appeals to them. School should afford them a chance to explore topics and methods that fit their natural proclivities. The official curriculum, if it’s too packed with must-learns, will crowd out what’s most meaningful to the children.
In this and in all things related to teaching and learning, I believe in balance. Prescribed subject matter needs to be balanced with student choice, direct instruction with exploration and discovery.
The hue and cry about the so-called lack of content in schools today strikes me as trumped up. It just doesn’t square with my thirty-plus years of teaching experience. As I suggested earlier, it smacks of ideology. At the same time, if a teacher makes it her mission to infuse her own classroom with facts and demand that her students master a body of knowledge, I’m not going to argue that she shouldn’t. What I do object to is the overblown rhetoric. The sky isn’t actually falling.
And I object to another teacher with a very different educational philosophy and teaching instincts telling me how I should run my classroom. I want students to learn certain basics appropriate to the course and to their grade level. But I also want students to develop their own body of knowledge, organically, with my help. I want to turn them loose on occasion to see what they can find. (Of course, I don’t have a classroom anymore, but you know what I mean.) That is another one of the main drawbacks of schemes like Hirsch’s and Coleman’s. Neither allows sufficient autonomy for the individual teacher.
How much are kids taught these days? It probably depends where they go to school, and whether or not they buy into the program. In the high school where I taught for 26 years, the amount and quality of material teachers were expected to teach and kids were expected to learn increased year in and year out, until I retired in 2005. Students who took school seriously often had way too much to learn. AP science courses meant big thick textbooks, AP humanities courses were an unending series of papers and projects. Things might have changed a bit since then. I hear that teachers are strongly discouraged from handing out failing grades. But I have no doubt that serious students are still faced with a daunting work load.
It’s common knowledge that the second grade of yesteryear is today’s first grade (going on kindergarten). Ask early childhood experts such as Nancy Carlson-Paige. The push-down of academic topics to earlier and earlier grades is well documented, and the age-inappropriateness of the Common Core Standards (and especially the tests) in the early grades is an outrage. If we keep heading in that direction, we can expect ever-increasing numbers of kids to hate school and act out as a result.
Meanwhile, there’s plenty of testimony from college professors that the students they’re seeing today are know vastly more than they students did decades ago. How do I know this? I listen to National Public Radio 24/7 (multiple stations, via live stream and podcast). When I’m not reading Diane Ravitch’s blog, that is.
Randall,
Is there scientific evidence that teaching science facts is not teaching science? In fact, there is scientific evidence that teaching science facts makes you a much better scientist (see Dan Willingham’s “Can We Teach Critical Thinking?” where he cites three studies that show this).
Coleman gives lip service to Hirsch’s ideas, but that’s it. Most of CCSS contradicts Hirsch’s ideas.
Are you saying that because some facts are inaccurate that NO facts should be taught? That’s crazy. Shall the perfect be the enemy of the good?
I agree that there’s a right-wing plot afoot, but progressives are shooting themselves in the foot if they continue to starve kids’ minds of knowledge under the banner of constructivism. There’s a word for not knowing much: ignorance. The current policy of both Left and Right, of both teachers and lay people, is to cultivate ignorance. What has happened to common sense in this country?
NY Teacher: thanks for your encouragement.
Ponderosa:
“Are you saying that because some facts are inaccurate that NO facts should be taught?”
Of course I’m not saying that. As I mentioned earlier, I’m utterly in favor of kids learning facts, but I am against the uncritical transmission of received knowledge as the foundation of pedagogy, which is what Hirsch stands for. The key words are “uncritical” and “received.” What is understood as fact is subject to revision. Stress used to be “known” to cause stomach ulcers. Then, decades after a scientist challenged that “fact,” it was determined that indeed, a certain bacterium was the culprit. The new understanding was that it was beneficial to eliminate that bacterium. Now, new research (reported in a new book called Missing Microbes, by Martin J. Blaser) indicates that the reduction of that bacterium in human stomachs might be contributing to an increased incidence of diseases of the esophagus. And so it goes. The jury is still out on this, and the facts, as always (whether we realize it or not) are in flux.
To me, it’s more important to be able to ask good questions than to be able to supply “correct” answers. If the case of Helicobacter pylori doesn’t illustrate this, then I don’t know what does. Yes, to make sense of the story, a person needs to know what a stomach, a bacterium, an ulcer, and an antibiotic is. But these facts do not have to be presented in an orderly, sequenced, step-by step fashion prescribed by a highly organized written curriculum. They can all be taught at once within the context of a story or case study, and this can be done in an experiential way, even with relatively young students.
Take that story from medicine and apply it to less “provable” fields such as history, literature, and political science. The conventional wisdom, assumptions, and standard framing of issues and selection of topics in those fields are all subject to debate. Any curriculum that presents a received body of “facts” (i.e., conventional wisdom) in those areas is going to be faulty. And it’s going to reflect the biases of those who put it together.
Partly because those selected to publish the curriculum may have their own axes to grind and may be subject to the beliefs of the people who paid them for the work, and partly because conventional wisdom tends, in time, to be brought into doubt, the “teaching” of such a curriculum becomes a form of indoctrination. And it’s the indoctrination of a set of facts that may not actually reflect reality, especially the reality of people not in power. With this transmission of preset knowledge (i.e., a canned curriculum), critical habits of mind such as curiosity, skepticism, close observation, the application of logic and imagination, and so on are made subordinate to the material being transmitted. In my view, that’s not good.
This isn’t to say that small children should subjected to heavy-handed lessons in critical thinking. I believe these positive habits of mind can be cultivated early through experiential learning centered on the immediate world of the child. At some point these same habits of mind can be transferred to the study of academic subjects and further developed through assigned and independent reading, sharing and collaborating with peers, original experiments and inventions, and artistic expression. In this way the child will develop his own personal knowledge base that is richer than and not fully dependent upon the canned curriculum. She doesn’t just learn facts, she learns the means of establishing and testing them. The emphasis isn’t primarily on the transmission of received facts, it’s on the learner’s building of knowledge that is meaningful to her.
As I suggested earlier, I believe in a balance between prescribed subject matter and student choice. Between direct instruction and exploration and discovery (and I’ll add creative expression). There’s no suggestion that facts, subject content, and knowledge aren’t important. What I don’t believe is that the transmission of a preset body of knowledge is the primary purpose of schooling. Again, my view is contrary to Hirsch’s view. Although I’m expressing a deep skepticism of his view, I’m not trying to persuade him (or anyone else) to change his view. Everyone is entitled to his own view. And I’m not rejecting Hirsch’s view out of hand. My personal learning and teaching experience, and of course my evolving philosophy of education, have led me to disagree with him.
I do know that when I finally decided that presenting material from bell to bell and striving to ensure that all my students met the behavioral objectives was counterproductive at best, my teaching got a lot better.. There turned out to be a better way for me and my students. Well, most of my students. It doesn’t matter what your approach is. It’s not going to click with every kid in the room. That’s another reason we need a) a variety of approaches and b) more autonomy for teachers.
Wow, I just read this:
“There’s a word for not knowing much: ignorance. The current policy of both Left and Right, of both teachers and lay people, is to cultivate ignorance. What has happened to common sense in this country?”
I don’t know whose opinion you’re trying to represent. Personally, I’m in favor of promoting the opposite of ignorance. Otherwise I wouldn’t be taking the time to write these comments. When I was teaching I had a lot of fun telling students things I’d learned that they weren’t likely to hear from their other teachers. Although I did want them to hear these things, the main motive wasn’t that they should remember the ideas and put them to use. The main motive was to share with them an enthusiasm for learning and to get them inspired to learn something they themselves could get excited about. To me this was potentially more important than whether they knew who Helmholtz Watson was (though I found myself asking them questions like that to check to see if they’d read 1984). Building my own knowledge has always been a big deal for me. That’s exactly what I wanted for my own students. Most understood this, some didn’t. But ignorance was never on the agenda.
NY Teacher:
“Discovery learning, problem-based learning, inquiry learning, constructivist learning—whatever the label, teaching that only partially guides students, and expects them to discover information on their own, is not effective or efficient.”
Are all of these terms interchangeable? I’m not an expert on any of them, but I think they have distinct and separate meanings. However they may be defined, their effectiveness will depend largely on the formulation and execution of the activity, assignment, or lesson. Any approach can be executed poorly. As for efficiency, I don’t think that should necessarily be a high priority when students are asked to do creative work or engage in challenging cognitive tasks.
When you say that “Constructivism and discovery methods have reeked [sic] havoc on teaching and learning,” I guess you mean you think they stink. (Just joking–everybody makes typos.) You do appear to be set in your beliefs, so I wouldn’t try to convince you otherwise. Still, you’re making some sweeping claims against these student-centered approaches. One problem with rejecting them outright is that students would be at risk of not feeling they have a personal stake in their own learning. Without that, there’s an ongoing risk of disaffection and boredom.
I’m sure you’re aware of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of “flow.” In his book of the same name, he blasts the traditional approaches to schooling, which don’t offer many opportunities for students to reach a flow state, where motivation is intrinsic and learning is amplified. In an interview originally published in 2002, he was asked to the identify the activities most (or least) likely to promote flow:
“If you think of where kids have most flow in school, it’s mostly in extracurricular activities like band, music, athletics, newspaper. In addition, if you look at academic classes, they would report flow especially when they work on team projects. That’s the most enjoyable part of school. Next comes working on your own on a project and you can go down and the lowest one [in promoting flow] is listening to a lecture and audio/visual. Anything that involves them, that has goals where they can try to achieve, solve a problem, or do something it’s going to be much more likely to produce flow.”
http://www.edutopia.org/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-motivating-people-learn
So at least one eminent psychologist would probably disagree with your dismissal of student-centered approaches.
Obviously, that doesn’t disqualify your opinion. For me, the more diversified the opinions and practices of a school faculty, the more responsive it will be to the diverse needs of the student body. If every teacher were to believe the same way and teach the same way, then it’s a good bet that a healthy percentage of students would feel left out. Also, the greater the diversity among teachers, the greater the opportunity to learn from one other. That’s another vote against standardization.
It’s possible that the teaching subject may influence a teacher’s beliefs about what works best. For instance, as an English teacher I wasn’t qualified to teach math or physics. The spectrum of English teacher beliefs on how to do a good job might be broader than that of math or physics teachers, based on experience in their own fields. I’m not totally sure about that, but as a faculty member, I know I learned something about teaching from colleagues in social studies, science, math, art, and, yes, physical education. (There were many terrific teachers in my department, but if I wanted a stimulating intellectual conversation over lunch, I was more likely to find it sitting with wrestling and gymnastics coaches than with all but one or two of my English colleagues.)
For me, at least one thing is certain. A belief in student-centered approaches does not make a teacher any less a teacher. When the teacher, or the subject matter, or a combination of the two becomes more important than the student, that’s when shades of Gradgrind, Pumblechook, and Murdstone rear their ugly heads. If I were forced to choose a favorite pedagog from the pages of Dickens, I’d take Joe Gargery every time.
Randall
Facts, knowledge, concepts, ideas, questioning (curiosity), independent thinking, analyzing, decision making, constructing arguments. NONE of these are mutually exclusive for teachers
NT Teacher:
“Facts, knowledge, concepts, ideas, questioning (curiosity), independent thinking, analyzing, decision making, constructing arguments. NONE of these are mutually exclusive for teachers”
I honestly don’t know what you’re trying to say. There’s a chance that that it’s more or less what I’ve said before. A caring, committed teacher is more important than any given curriculum or pedagogical approach. But maybe that’s not what you meant. By the way, you could add speling to that list.
Love Barzun. Perfect example of how erudition (i.e. knowing a lot) can make one an incisive thinker and interesting writer.
In high school freshman English class in back in the early 1980s, we were shown “The Lottery” short film, were rattled, and I have no memory of it being tied into ancient fertility rites. It was jarring and we talked about scapegoating. It wasn’t until reading Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” that I realized the deeper connection.
Every time some education poseur uses “rigor” I think of Charles Dickens. When you look at the definition of “rigor”, it is an awful one to apply to education:
1. strictness, severity, or harshness, as in dealing with people.
2. the full or extreme severity of laws, rules, etc.
3. severity of living conditions; hardship; austerity: the rigor of wartime existence.
4. a severe or harsh act, circumstance, etc.
Bravo to Joanne Yatvin. Here is another literary work to spark conversation about the absurdity of Common Core.
When I Heard the Learned Astronomer
by Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
Another good description of this is from the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird when Scout describes her first day of school and the Dewey Decimal System. Read Chapters 2 and 3.
Click to access ex14.pdf