And with that, I leave you with the immortal words of Dudley Field Malone who once said, "I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me." In other words, be sure to vigorously engage your colleagues in spirited and healthy debate...
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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This essay and our classroom discussion on breadth versus depth really got me thinking about how I was taught. There was definitely more breadth than depth, although I do remember a couple in depth units and projects over the years. I never had a problem learning or memorizing facts, so being taught this way worked fine for me. I do remember classmates who really struggled with this however. I was not surprised to read in this essay about research suggesting that de-emphasizing factual knowledge "disables children from looking things up effectively." This makes perfect sense to me, and I've seen it in my fieldwork. A student tries to look up some information about a topic or word, and they come to roadblock after roadblock because they cannot understand many of the words they are reading. They become overwhelmed and frustrated. If this happens over and over to a student, yhey are going to develop negative feelings about the assignment or the class or about school as a whole. Children need to be motivated to learn. If they continually have negative experiences in school, and cannot complete assignments because they do not have what Hirsch calls a "storehouse of knowledge", their self-efficacy will go down the tubes. While I do agree that a broad base of general knowledge is extremely important for learning, I also agree that hands-on, in-depth, inquiry activities are necessary. The question is how to balance these two areas. How broad is broad enough? How many in-depth activities can a teacher realistically have time for if they are also trying to teach a broad base of knowledge? As a teacher, I definitely plan to do both, although I am not sure how I will end up balancing this? I may not have a lot of choice depending on the curriculum of the school. I think some students will do very well with the factual, broad knowledge, but I would not want to deny them higher order thinking activities. I think other students will prefer and do better with the inquiry activities, but I would not want to deny them the general knowledge that will help them learn even more. Hirsch recommends teaching general knowledge by using "lively techniques", which sound great, but to truly be in-depth activities, they have to be a little more than just "lively". They tend to take a lot of time, which is why it is so difficult to teach both breadth and depth. It was very interesting to read about the John Hopkins University research finding that "core knowledge students use the library and look things up more than control students" I makes sense that if they already have some knowledge of the subject, they are first of all more likely to want to know more about it; and secondly, able to better understand words related to the topic, which they will almost certainly come across in their readings on the topic. After being taught in many of my education classes that lessons should be inquiry based and hands-on as much as possible, this essay gave me a new perspective on teaching and on learning to really think about. A lot of the evidence makes sense to me after thinking about it. I may not agree with everything in the article, but I do see the importance of teaching breadth and balancing it somehow with depth.
ReplyDeleteMelissa Christensen
When reading this article I could not stop thinking about my Educational Psychology class here at Stockton. My professor has been reiterating meeting after meeting about the importance of reading. The first time he began talking about it I thought to myself, oh my goodness, this is so obvious! Of course reading is necessary! Well I have come around to realize that, not only is he insightful, but I was definitely underestimating the broad foundation of reading. When Hirsch talks about the need for a student to understand 95% of the words in the text one is reading for it to truly make sense, I never realized that it was that the percentage was so high and that the demand for vocabulary so important. I am also starting to see that lack of vocabulary is a true disadvantage. In Ed Psych we also talked about the fact that knowledge determines to a great extent what we will pay attention to. Last week we discussed how much a student's personal interest correlates with his or her learning, but now it seems that just his or her general knowledge of the subject will win attention as well. I have definitely seen this in my fieldwork, the students will vocalize when they already know something, if it is review from last year, or if they have heard an older sibling talking about the subject, it is at this moment, that you truly have their attention.
ReplyDeleteI also really appreciate that Hirsch's Core Knowledge Foundation is "dedicated to the idea that knowledge is the great equalizer and that schools can best carry out their mission by providing all students with an explicit sequential, rigorous, knowledge-based curriculum". Isn't this what we are trying to find with the growing diversity in our school? Aren't we trying to recognize each group and learn by one another while all gaining the same positive experience in the classroom? Now, what to do next? The goal is to integrate the new information in the lesson with existing knowledge as the students construct and understand. How does a great teacher accomplish this? I like how Melissa brings up the balance between teaching a broad base of general knowledge and hands-on, in-depth, inquiry activities. It seems that the trend is to constantly use the constructivist model of teaching. Breaking into groups, moving around the classroom from station to station, hands-on activities among many others are what works best. This along with true interdisciplinary work can be very successful as long as the base knowledge is already there. This perfect harmony between the idea that it takes knowledge to gain knowledge and then creatively and interactively teach the new information seems to be ideal. We cannot dismiss the idea that students are extremely inclined to just look it up and use the Internet as a crutch. Since this is not going away, teaching proper Internet research skills is mandatory for future success of students. Smart navigation along with reputable sources can provide students with an excellent service for research. Integrating these skills with lessons will be helpful in teaching students the right way to “look it up”.
-Jess le Grange
The article You Can Always Look It Up…Or Can You by E.D. Hirsch Jr. was an insightful article that showed the depth versus breadth perspective. There are many points that Hirsch made that are controversial. One was the idea of the progressive theory. This showed that students should gain their knowledge through a small number of projects instead of the typical courses taken in various subjects. It states by this approach, the information you will learn will be more relevant and still include a mathematical, historical, and scientific way of thinking. Although I agree that big projects like this can be valuable and help learning because students are more likely to be engaged in the activities, I do think that it is also important to learn that “boring” material covered in the standard classes.
ReplyDeleteAnother topic that seems controversial is “detailed information need no longer be taught because it can easily be garnered from the computer and the internet”. If this statement was a reality, students would be hurt. The material learned in class is usually the basic material that a child of that age can handle. It is not too much to take in. Students go to school to learn, not play. It is supposed to be challenging and educational. The broad range of classes is because that is what will help them later in life. It is necessary to have knowledge as an all around student and not just relying on the computer.
One of the studies mentioned in the article by Professor George Miller and colleagues, showed a valid point. The study proved that a child who learns through this alternative and not factual curriculum struggles more when trying to looks things up either in the dictionary or internet. This is due to the fact that while reading the definitions, the definitions given are also unclear. The children then lose track of why they were looking up the definitions in the first place because it becomes a longer process. The end result to this is negative feelings because it is frustrating and annoying for the students.
Another study by Herbert Simon and Jill Larkin showed that it is harder for a novice learner to understand things while looking them up compared to a experienced learner. The study showed that “the human mind is only able to assimilate only three or four new items before further elements evaporate from memory”. This shows that it needs to be a gradual process to learn new things, not just researching what you need the minute you need it.
As a result, it takes years to learn material thoroughly. It is not going to stick in someone’s mind unless some previous knowledge was formed. Although the concept of big projects can help students get engaged and involved in activities and help with some learning, there needs to be a balance. The classes that children take while in school are there for a reason, and changing too much of it will only hinder the future generation.
samantha schanck
The idea of a progressive approach to learning where students are taught through a small number of in-depth projects really shocked me. Even before I read the article in its entirety I knew that only focusing on a small number of subject areas to learn in-depth would deprive students of a whole world of information and knowledge. Of course there are some areas in every subject that should be focused on in-depth, such as basic mathematics, grammar rules, etc. but to only focus on these areas and completely leave out smaller but fundamental areas of schooling is cruel to students. If parents applied this concept to teaching their children skills they need for the real world their children would move out of their house only knowing how to drive, pay bills, and go to the doctors. Their children would have a very good understanding of a couple skills and concepts, but there are so many other smaller things that they must have an understanding of to function in society and with this learning perspective they would be deprived of those things. In the same way, students will graduate or move on from a progressive style classroom and will simply be lost in their next class because they would only have a small but deep span of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteHirsh does an excellent job at showing the psychological and educational research that does not support the progressive approach. He clearly throws the idea that students can always look things up on the Internet that they have not learned in class by the cognitive concept of assimilation. Hirsch states, “The human mind is able to assimilate only three or four new items before further elements evaporate from memory”. Therefore those students who have a shallow understanding of a planet can research it and add new information to his already existing schema of what a planet is. The student who has never studied a planet before will only be able to grasp a very small amount of information because he needs to first develop a schema of what a planet is before he can build on this knowledge.
The example given of vocabulary also shows a students need to be exposed to many different subjects, concepts, and ideas in order to learn and grow. “Specialists in vocabulary estimate that in order to understand something that is read of heard or looked up, the percentage of already-known words necessary to comprehension is around 95%”. This makes complete sense because if a student looks up a word in the dictionary and they do not understand any of the words in the definition they will still not know what their original word means. I can remember when I was young I was using a dictionary way beyond my level of vocabulary to look words up and in the end I became very frustrated because I had spent a great deal of time looking these words up yet I had learned nothing. Fortunately I was not turned off of learning by this experience, but if this happens enough to a child they may feel as though they are dumb, looking things up is useless, and will be discouraged from learning overall.
In the end, as with everything in the classroom, there needs to be a balance between in-depth activities and general knowledge/factual instruction. As Melissa points out each child learns differently and benefits from different styles of teaching. A teacher should not deprive the “hands-on” students the opportunity to learn in that fashion, but she also should not rely solely on that method and exclude the children who learn factually.
-Stephanie Pyle
The Progressive theory drives a hard argument with the theory that students should be taught through a limited number of projects that allows them to learn in depth about their topic. However, I am on the fence between the standard way of teaching where students go through school learning all the subjects or focus on a more limited number of subjects. Personally I feel that all the subjects are critical and that students should learn them in the traditional way that we’ve all been taught and instead of in high school where they chose what electives they want, students should be put into these groups to learn hands on about the critical subjects. I agree that this traditional way backfires because students only get fragments of information. When students progress to college it is easier for them to grasp some of the information because of these fragments of information that they learn through out school.
ReplyDeleteOur generation has grown up in a beneficial era where computers hold all the knowledge to be desired. All anyone has to do is Google what interests him or her. It has placed a wealth of information at our fingertips but in order to absorb it and add it to our storage house of knowledge we must already obtain a storehouse. In other words If our students don’t learn at least those fragments of information through out their years of school then they have no basis for the information they are attempting to retain. You need to know something about the subject you are looking up to search it effectively.
I like the author’s viewpoint on teachers and their techniques of having to be consistent and lively and introduce and array of topics that aren’t too broad or selective. This way the students will be more open to learning and in some cases allow them to drawl their own conclusion. By allowing the teachers to introduce such a large array of topics it benefits the students in the real world so they aren’t oblivious or ignorant to topics like photosynthesis. Isn’t the purpose of school to make our children well rounded individuals who are familiar in all or a majority of the key topics in subject areas? Some knowledge on all things is better than no knowledge in most. I feel their energy shouldn’t all be focused on limited areas because to be well rounded is to know a little of everything. For example I am going to school to be a special education teacher and I am taking this course to learn about wikispaces, and Blogging when I am already aware of my students capabilities. I realize already even as I take this course that as far as my students’ capabilities they won’t accelerate to this level because we are more focused with teaching them to control their actions and learn to create sentences to communicate with others.
If we want our children to accelerate in life give them the knowledge to pursue that dream. Those little fragments of information set them up better for success than if we focus them on restricted knowledge. At least with those fragments they are capable to look information up on the Internet with a basis for what they are looking for.
This article was intriguing. I am not an advocate to read. I will not read unless I have to. I feel that reading is boring. After reading this article maybe my dislike towards reading is because I do not have that 95% base knowledge of what I am reading. After seeing this article it made me realize that I need to read more than just what I am assigned in school to read. As a future teacher I know it is necessary to have the students read on a variety of topics. These readings will help to broaden their base knowledge of a variety of topics. As a future parent it has also showed me that reading is the best way to make sure that my child may have a brighter future in a school system.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting when Hirsch said, “We learn and refine word meanings that we have experienced in the past even when we are not experiencing those words in the present. The mind unconsciously assigns a word that it encounters to a domain of related words, and each occurrence of the word, the mind not only refines the meaning of the word being encountered but also the meanings of other, previously experienced words that belong near its domain.” It made me think about just about everything we learn. We make associations of past knowledge with our current knowledge we are trying to learn. By doing this it makes the learning process easier for us. This phrase tells me that the better the experiences we give our children and students the better their knowledge base will be for their future learning. A parent we could help our child achieve a broader knowledge base by taking them to a museum, zoo, or aquarium. Even reading to them when they are younger and then when they get older have you child read to you. As teachers to get their knowledge base broadened we could include activities at recess that include learning as well as fun. I do not think that there is anything that says we cannot use recess to also teach our students. As we all know class room time is not enough to teach everything that is needed to be known. As Jess and Melissa both say it would be good to balance out the depth and breadth of subject matter. The problem is finding what the right amount of each is. Every subject could be different and every student will be different in what is the right amount.
I saw that Hirsch made a point that incremental knowledge is the most effective to learners. I feel this is true. I being a MATH major realize this is especially true in math. My Calculus 2 professor this semester had made learning the subject difficult. He would go from the simplest of a problem then the next he would say I wouldn’t expect you to know how to do this one completely. He was teaching us in the wrong size of increments. The first exam showed that a majority of the class did not do well. But if we look at math from the first day we learn it we realize we are taught in increments. First we learn to count, then to add and subtract, then to multiply and divide, then to use these operations in a form of algebra, and so on right up through college where it becomes a combination of everything we have learned our entire lives.
Hirsch also makes a good point with technology. I know there are programs out there to give under privileged children laptops. My question, after seeing one of Hirsch’s last comments, is well are we giving these children the knowledge base to use these laptops? Like the article says how can a child successively research a topic if they don’t know how to use a computer, or worse don’t know a ,majority of what they are reading?
Doug Fisher
I thought this was a great article, and very courageous! It is one thing to defend a traditional way of teaching, where students early on get basic lessons in a variety of subjects, to give them foundations to build on later. But if you talk to traditional teachers about that approach, and challenge them, usually the response you will get is, "Well I've always done it this way." The Hirsch article takes the time to point out the strengths of this approach, and why it should not be totally abandoned.
ReplyDeleteThis basic approach, of teaching students core knowledge in a variety of subjects early, is probably more important now than ever. Because so much information is available at our fingertips so easily, students need some skills to be able to process all that information. It’s almost like that old argument about using a dictionary. How can I look up a word if I don’t know how to spell it? Students who can use a dictionary most effectively have some idea of how the word is spelled. With the internet, a Google search will be much more productive, and give you more relevant results, if you have some idea of what you are looking for, or what you want to know.
Once you find the information that you may be looking for, understanding it is much easier if you have some knowledge base about the topic. So how do we teach students to think about thinking while still trying to give them some basic knowledge in a wide range of subject areas? Of the posts I’ve read so far, a comment from Stephanie made the most sense. Stephanie talked about a balance between in-depth activities, and general knowledge and factual instruction. Achieving balance in the classroom, as in life, is very important. My dad used to use the word well-rounded. He encouraged me to investigate a broad range of career areas in college and as I began to make my way out into the world beyond college. He told me the happiest people he’d ever met had a variety of interests.
As Hirsch points out, getting to kids early is the key, when they are young and curious. Presenting information and instruction to your kids on a wide range of topics, ensures that you have a better chance of reaching all your children. Imagine how restricted and limiting a first grade classroom would be if the kids had no exposure to creative writing, or the different kinds of genres available in literature, from historical non-fiction to biography, and beyond. And what about our artistic subjects, like music, art, dance etc?
Giving students the broadest base of knowledge possible, a little bit of everything, ensures that you as a teacher have planted all kinds of seeds in those children. Some seeds may sprout right away, but some may lay dormant until, one day, years later, a child is intrigued by an encounter or experience with a subject that you, as a first grade or kindergarten teacher, gave him some basic exposure to. He or she can water that seed of knowledge you planted, and nurture it until it grows in a full blown tree of possibilities.
I was constantly amazed, as I completed the STEP program over the past two years, at all the general knowledge that was buried deep within me, that came back to me as professors explored subjects I hadn’t thought about in years. Knowledge is power is not just a bumper sticker, it’s really true!
Throughout this article I was really feeling positive about what I was reading and kept having those moments of core comprehension and agreement UNTIL I read the paragraph on the last page! When Hirsch talks about the low correlation between academic achievement and socioeconomic status in comparison to the high correlation between academic achievement and general base knowledge; I almost had a heart attack.
ReplyDeleteHirsch writes; “General knowledge proves to be more important for learning than parents, peers, and neighborhood combined..” and in parentheses he says, “(though of course those factors influence one’s breadth of knowledge)”. Oh really Hirsch? You think those factors might tend to influence one’s breadth of general knowledge?
Well, the sociologist in me was pissed off because I think he made a bold claim without fair elaboration. I believe that one’s socioeconomic status has a HUGE impact and correlates with access one might have to general knowledge to begin with! Yes I see Hirsch’s optimistic point that children of low SES can have the same access to high levels of academic achievement if given copious amounts of general knowledge. But let’s be honest here; how can Hirsch include this paragraph in his article without elaborating on the reality that socioeconomic status acts as a huge impedance on children even having access to general knowledge; thus eliminating one’s possible academic achievement. That’s a reality in the world. Hirsch needs to read up on Delpit to see that social factors have a huge influence on access to equal education. Anton from the Little Rock documentary film would be more concerned with where to rest his head at night then on reading an encyclopedia to expand his general knowledge. I think if you’re going to make a claim like Hirsh did; it’s imperative to include more than a parenthetical shout out to the importance of socioeconomic status and how it greatly affects general knowledge which then affects academic achievement.
On a more positive note, I totally agreed with Jess when she discusses how she underestimated the complexities of reading. I too found it amazing to learn that students need to be familiar with 95% of the vocabulary of what they are reading in order for full comprehension to take place. The necessity for vocabulary understanding also tied into the Catch 22 that Hirsch describes when he says, “you already need to know something about the subject to look it up effectively”. After reading this article I see how truly unfair the No Child Left Behind act really is because we assume that all children are on a level playing field when the truth is that vocabulary can vary so much between students and thus their base knowledge will also vary greatly affecting their academic performance. How early must educators infiltrate the lives of children to intervene and establish a fair, universal vocabulary and general knowledge base to truly meet the intentions of NCLB? Is that feasible? Hirsch dwells on the importance of vocabulary and general knowledge for academic success. I wonder how we as educators see to it that every child coming into the education system of America has access to that level playing field. I don’t quite know.
The driving message I believe Hirsch wants us to see from this article is the importance of reading. I just hope that kids will turn off the video game long enough to read the book that will expand their vocabulary that will give them the knowledge to gain more knowledge to be academic achievers!
It’s funny that Jess mentioned her Educational Psychology teacher in her post because as I was reading the first page of Hirsch’s article all I could think about was Professor Williams and our Ed. Psyc. discussion we had on Thursday. A big portion of the class was spent comparing different teaching techniques and which ones would benefit which students. Naturally, a teacher would not have a math class do a written report and presentation on a chapter’s problem set. However this technique would accurately assess what a class learned after a chapter on the American Revolution. Same goes for Physics or Chemistry, along with tests, hands on activities are best to test a student’s knowledge of the subject matter. This way the students can get the visual lesson along with the textbook lesson and increase their understanding through experimenting.
ReplyDeleteThese “integrated” projects, as Hirsch calls them, are important for attaining “real world knowledge” but it should not be a matter of which teaching style is better. It should be a matter of how can we, as teachers, integrate both styles into our classrooms? For us elementary teachers our main focus should be to teach the basic content knowledge in each course before they can be expected to expand on this in the “projects.” Hirsch mentions on page three, paragraph three, a reference to vocabulary and the fluctuation in abilities of students of different socio economic statuses: “To reduce this difference requires better parenting, better pre-schooling, and more systematic teaching of school subjects in the earlier grades.” Students will learn nothing from the projects, power points, wikis, or any other hands on technology based assessments asked of them in later schooling without that base core content knowledge.
I do not think that the progressive theories are completely useless; I just do not think they are worth anything without the content knowledge. This theory should be used for expanding purposes not necessarily for learning. If a student learns in a classroom about the properties of matter and then is later asked to identify different parts to a substance, analyze the substances, and report his findings, he can increase his knowledge from finding out the answers himself. He can experiment with different tools, research techniques, measurements, etc. However, if he was just handed this assignment without the lesson preceding, he could struggle greatly. Yes, he would discover the same findings, tools, and techniques, but he will go without knowing all the factual knowledge that goes along with the properties of matter. If these two practices can be merged into one curriculum we can form well rounded students and provide assessments for many different types of learners: tests for the book learners, presentations for the expressive, projects for the visual learners and encourage students to meet their potential.
-Brittany
You guys have Prof. Williams?! I loved him! Send him good thoughts from me!
ReplyDeleteThe article “You can always look it up . . .” by E.D. Hirsch deals in breadth vs depth for the last half of the article but I felt that he set this argument up by, possibly unknowingly, dealing in an assimilation vs. accommodation discussion. My feeling on breadth vs. depth follows along with the class consensus. I will also explain my feeling on it but I would also like to deal with the assimilation vs. accommodation points that Hirsch brings up.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Melissa, Stephanie and Jess in that there needs to be a balance between breadth and depth. I believe that it is certainly beneficial for students to have a large framework to attach their new information to but I also feel that it is very important to teach a student how to think deeply. As Graff says, “see it through intellectual eyes.” I strongly believe that breadth is important, not only to give the schema for life learning, but also to expose students to subjects that they may have never known existed that they find interesting. I absolutely agree with the idea that the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. I have found through my own education, that digging deep into a subject not only takes explicit instruction in strategies, but also takes relatively frequent practice and motivation. I can’t say that I have an answer to the question of how deep or how wide to teach, but what I feel comfortable saying, at this point, is that breadth should be the teacher-directed portion of the class and the depth should be mostly the student-centered component. To clarify, I think that the teacher needs to teach students the topics that he/she finds to be the most important but also how to learn more about the topics that interest the students. The “teach-a-man-to-fish” idea. I think that a series of student-centered projects should be included on a topic of the student’s choice and the teacher should require that pieces of the project are done at different times before the project is due. The teacher should also dedicate, at least, some classroom time to allowing students to work on their projects. By doing those things, you are forcing students to complete their project along a timeline, so that the teacher can be used as a resource, to assist with dead-ends that the students are hitting. The student dead-ends can serve as valuable teaching tools for the strategies that can be used to navigate themselves back on track. The way that I view the projects, or depth projects, is not so much to teach the students about the topic that they are doing their project on, but rather to help them become self-sufficient and practiced in self-directed learning.
I feel like Hirsch makes the point that it is easier to assimilate new information than to accommodate to it. This was a point that even Piaget made when he first coined the idea. Piaget also found that the younger a person is, the easier it is to accommodate. He called it the “hardening of the categories.” It seems that modern science has not created new information about learning but rather added evidence to old information. This idea also backs up Hirsch’s argument that it is important to expose students to a breadth of information while they are in school, but what I find to be a glitch is how much information about a topic is needed for the mind to accommodate to it rather than assimilate it? If I were to learn that verb describes movement and nouns describe things, would my brain simply leave those things under “words,” or “language?” How many details would my brain need to make “nouns” and “verb” separate ideas, able to assimilate new information to them? I don’t know this and I don’t know if anyone can know one answer to this. It seems to me that information this specific is going to follow most trends of specific brain-based research and there will be no concise answer. I believe that it will be as different for each individual as is the learning process (multiple intelligences), and may be interconnected. I feel like this answer will be another “which spaghetti sauce is best” question.
E.D. Hirsch’s essay “’You Can Always Look It Up’ … or Can You?” gives a refreshing view on progressive education techniques and backs it with research, not just opinions. In schools today it seems like more and more progressive techniques are being pushed on teachers. The “new-school” techniques are supposed to be bragging points of the school, but most schools implement these excellent theoretical ideas without success. Hirsch concludes, “that students cannot learn or probe deeply into material that is largely new to them,” (4). This seems to be speaking directly against inquiry learning. The teacher I am currently observing says her school really pushes for her to have the students perform an inquiry laboratory where they are set off on their own to design their own experiment, collect data, and formulate there own conclusions with minimal guidance from her. While my cooperating teacher is not against this entirely, she feels that there is not enough time and the students have never been exposed to something this will not even know how to begin a project like this. She feels that a few students may be able to produce some quality work, while most might try and just give up.
ReplyDeleteI feel similarly to my cooperating teacher and Hirsch when it comes to this. If you put students in a situation they know nothing about how can they be expected to learn a lot of information? Hirsch makes the point again and again about how you need to have a basis of knowledge to build and learn more about a subject. If students are put into a situation where they must learn from no basis material, they will only learn a minimal amount. On the other hand, if students were given a basis of knowledge and then asked to complete a laboratory using that knowledge and expanding upon it, they would reinforce the original material and be able to take in so much more.
The progressive theory that Hirsch talks about being exposed to seems extreme. I do not see how completing a limited number of in depth projects throughout school is the best way to educate a student. The students may never discover something that really interests them and if they are not exposed to it slightly in school, when they get out and find something that does interest them, they will not even have a basis of knowledge to expand upon.
It seems like the progressive approach may be more effective at a college level or for specialty schools where students have declared their interest in an area. These students would be the most apt to perform research on the matter and gain the most from it. Students without a connection or interest in a progressive-style project may be lost from the beginning and not even know how to relate that information they do gain to anything that matters to them, almost making it “rote learning,” exactly what all the progressives are against.
Hirsch’s view on progressive techniques is refreshing in a teaching world that seems ready to throw the traditional style out the window for the newest piece of progressive propaganda.
On looking things up, sure…anyone can look up a word in the dictionary or encyclopedia, but you have to know how to spell first. I am actually quite fond of intergrating subjects together and attempting to make a practical purpose of subject content. But I don’t think the system that was used in Hirsch’s high school was really productive. In general school need to present knowledge to students and teach them the base for which they are used. For example in a math class, word problems are clearly more relatable to the real world issue, but you can’t figure out, “If Sally has 4 apples and Sam eats 1 and Tom eats 2, how many apples are left for Sally?” with out knowing 4-1-2=1. This is another instance when the article seems to generalize education of all ages into one group, rather than basing it on the actual skill level. In a college classroom you can do a large project because the students do have the base knowledge from high school, middle, and elementary school. At other grade levels, however, a progressive approach needs to be done with a bit of caution.
ReplyDeleteHigh school students should have acquired enough knowledge to understand that subject matter crosses the history, English, science, and math borders that are presented in earlier grades. For instance, a history should be able to discuss a scientific theory from the time period being study and discuss why the discovery is so relevant to the time and how it affected the culture at the time. Same for art and literature throughout history, because these influences are primary examples of what is going on in the world at that time. Same goes for all subjects that qualify as liberal arts, it should be easily how they all blend together. I feel math and science cross the line all the time as well.
In the lower grades, I think it is fairly obvious that this cross curriculum method is just unpractical. Young students need guidance and to be taught the basis for subject, the facts, so they can go on to apply there knowledge in practical ways. When all is said and done without the base knowledge, students will not be able to practically apply anything that needs to be learned. Plus young students are totally capable of connecting the cross curriculum dots until their brain function acquires the capacity, and that only comes with time.
-Emily Asay
As most people have already stated, this article dealt mainly with the argument of depth versus breadth. I have mixed feelings on the subject. I like the idea of students having a ground level knowledge of a variety of subjects. However, the topics I remember from school, I mean really remember, were always topics that we as a class really went in depth on. I feel our job as educators is to do both, give breadth and depth to our students. Giving the students breadth appears to be the easier task of the two, simply because that’s how the education system is basically set up through the earlier years of schooling. However, according Hirsch a novice has more difficulty learning information as opposed to an expert. This makes a lot of sense to me. This idea of novices struggling with learning new material made me think of computers. It seems some people that don’t have any background knowledge of working with computers really struggle. My dad no matter how many times I show him how to do something on a computer, he still struggles with something I would consider extremely basic. So based on personal experience I have to give this idea some credit. Furthermore, if teaching a novice new information is more difficult than teaching an expert, then perhaps teaching breadth isn’t as easy as I once considered.
ReplyDeleteThe only issue that comes to mind with going in depth in a subject, is how do you decide what’s important enough to go in depth on. Then as I continued to think about this dilemma I decided it’s not a problem at all. And I’m basing this off of the discussion in class that we had when we asked what’s wrong with one teacher covering different topics in the same subject. So I guess you can just go in depth on what you as a teacher feel is important. Hopefully other teachers will go in depth on a different topic and with any luck two students will actually talk to each other and learn about both topics.
Another thing that was brought up a lot by other classmates was the comment made by Hirsch about someone who doesn’t know a word and is told to look it up in the dictionary. I feel that issue falls back on the educator. The words that are being taught to the students should be vocabulary from within the context that they’re reading, so from reading the material the students should know the background from which the word relates. And if the teachers are doing that then with a little guidance the students should be able to use other clues from the text to get a general idea of the word. Then with all of this combined, if a student doesn’t understand a word that they read then they should be able to look the word up and gain a good idea of what the word means, even if the terms used in the definition are a bit confusing. Overall, I feel both depth and breadth are very important and both are needed as well as being able to decipher words on one’s own.
Now this is an article that I think all my teachers have read because all of them could not have stressed more the importance of reading. Many of my teachers told me the only way to build your vocabulary is to read and read. They didn't just mean pick up a boring school text book, but read anything. Knowledge is everywhere and it's up to us to see that we take it all in. I remember in elementary school, we had our overall curriculum but each child had to read two books a month and take a test on it. Now this wasn't included in our Language Arts class, it was something our teachers wanted to do for ourselves. As I was reading this article I was thinking to myself people actually do this? I don't see how only studying certain subjects and then filling in the blanks on your own could benefit anyone. I agree with the author when he says that "it takes knowledge to gain knowledge" and I thought the example using the definition of the planet proved his point right. I agree with Shanya's comment that by not teaching our students at least those necessary fragments of information from an early age and through out their years of school then they can't make any sense of new information coming to them. But oh wait, we can always look it up!!! That sounds terrible. The author writes "you can successfully look something up only if you already know quite a lot about the subject". We aren't going to learn everything we need in life in just one class session. Learning is "gradual and cumulative", and we can't continue learning if " we are not exposed to new knowledge". We are exposed to so many different situations thought out elementary school so this way when we do reach high, we will have no problem adapting to any situation. I don't that I could be a Literature major if I didn't have all those Language Arts classes. I wouldn't be able to form as sentence let alone write papers.
ReplyDeleteThe article mentions that "vocabulary is a reflection of knowledge" and only " when students learn subjects in a cumulative way can they build their vocabulary rapidly, and remedy their deficiencies". Why do you think Professor Hall asked us to set up our google reader account? Google reader allows us to keep on reading, learning, and expanding our vocabulary. This way we can keep up with our students and become smarter, it doesn't get any better. As future educators, we must constantly encourage our students to read, in school and on their own time. Being that I want to be an elementary school teacher I have to make my students ready to learn. The more the students knows the more they will learn and the more they can apply to their everyday lives. The article mentions, "readiness to learn means already knowing a lot of what you are trying to learn". By teaching our students the importance reading and general knowledge we are only setting them up for success.
Aphrodite Triantafillou
There is certainly quite a difference in the theories of utilizing the progressive teaching approach versus teaching the factual approach to students. Like Hirsch states on page one, I too believe students develop a better education and memory of facts when they are able to learn through an integrated, hands-on approach rather than memorizing information through several separate subjects; however, I also think incorporating hands on teaching methods would help facilitate student’s growth in retaining the information presented.
ReplyDeleteStudents should be asked to analyze and synthesize any subject they are learning so it is crucial they gain knowledge of a particular subject in order to speak intelligently of the matter. Hirsch writes, “A child’s (or adult’s) mind is a constant flurry of subterranean integration and hypothesis-making, and a person’s success rate in making sense of words and facts increases with a person’s knowledge.” (pg. 3) So then, how can students have an intellectual opinion on a topic if they haven’t comprehended the history regarding the subject matter?
Hirsch also explains how Factual knowledge could be considered as useless due to the fact that it becomes outdated with time. He refers to the internet as a teaching tool that students may utilize to discover more up to date factual content. I do agree with Hirsch regarding the internet as a learning mechanism; however, I also believe it is a teacher’s responsibility to present the information necessary for students to progress, even if this information is made up of factual knowledge. He discusses the value in nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech that students must retain in order to successfully speak and write properly. I agree with Teale: Just how many words do children need to memorize in order to comprehend correctly?
Like most of the students in FSC have explained thus far, I believe balance between breadth and depth is quite important when discussing the importance in teaching methods. As a teacher, I think knowing the audience’s interests would play a great role in determining which subject and how much information of a subject content should be delivered. Finally, like other topics we have discussed in class, incorporating creativity is key to getting through to any audience, whether the topic is about Classical Music or Spaghetti Sauce.
I found “ ‘You Can Always Look It Up’ or Can You?” by E.D. Hirsch Jr. very interesting. I think the author touched upon some very important points in this article.
ReplyDeleteI believe that there are many different ways a person can learn, everyone learns in their own way or in a multiple of different ways. I believe that it would be unfair of a teacher to restrict their lessons to one type of learning style, many of their students would be at a disadvantage.
“The progressive theory states that students should gain knowledge through a number of projects instead of taking courses in separate subjects.” I don’t believe in this fully, but I can see myself using the progressive theory partially in my classroom. I believe that a progressive teacher has a lot to offer the students. It gives them a chance to apply the knowledge that they already know and have a “hands-on” learning experience. However, I don’t believe this should be the only way a students learn. They still need the separate subject structure to receive a knowledge base. A student can’t learn on the progressive theory alone.
Also I agree with the author that teachers shouldn’t assume that a student could always look things up. It’s like we discussed in class, we live in the world of technology where we have endless useful information at our finger tips, but there is also a lot of garbage out there. Students need to learn the difference between scholarly and popular publications. Anyone could be out there with a website and put what ever they want on it, whether its fact or fiction. If a student looks something up without any direction then they might take the first sources word for it and it could be misleading. This is why the student needs a basic knowledge base of what he or she is trying to look up.
Also the author brought up the very crucial subject of the “vocabulary-gap.” If a child is left behind in vocabulary, especially at a young age, it could be devastating to the child’s academic future. If a child does not understand word he or she hears in the classroom or that they read, they might just shut down. I observed in a remedial reading room last semester, and many of the kids who were in the room, were in there because they had a low-vocabulary base. The fact that they has a low-vocabulary base affected them in all of their classes and left them struggling with their school work.
Christina Racanelli
ReplyDeleteBlog 3
I totally agree with this essay. I was actually very interesting in what Hirsch was saying. Hirsch made me think about how I would teach my class in the future. He made me think about the internet in a different light and he reminds me of a teacher I actually have currently at Stockton. I am in a Literature Research class with Professor Kinsella. Let me first say that Kinsella is an excellent Litt. Teacher and he is all about getting us to learn thing without the internet. He is constantly saying that he does not want us to leave this class thinking that he is one hundred percent against the internet, because he is not. He wants us to leave his class knowing that we can use other reference works to look up the information we need to find or learn about and then when we do use the internet we will already know some things about our topic. Kinsella gave each person in our class a list of ten random, obscure, questions. I would say ninety-nine percent of the questions were about things or people we knew nothing about. Many of us thought at first that this would not be too hard because we can use the internet. But to our surprise, he told us we were not allowed to use the internet to look the questions up until the very end of the project. And we could only use the internet to find out a little more information that he was sure we were going to learn from other reference works. Kinsella sent us to the library and there not only did we learn how to use the library and all it has to offer, but we were learning things about our questions that were asked. It seemed so hard, but the further you got into the project the easier things became. Funny thing is when I did use the internet at the end of the project I was able to develop a better understanding of my questions because I already knew the basics of them. So upon reading this essay all I could think about was my Litt. Class. It is completely true that the internet cannot help a student unless the student knows some things about the subject. One example Hirsch uses is the example with planets and its definition. It is so true that you cannot learn what a planet is if you do not know that the sun is a star, that planets revolve around a star and if you do not know what comets and meteoroids are. As a person who would like to be an educator in the future, this essay helped me to realize that teaching is not about filling a child’s head with useless knowledge on a topic, but that being a teacher is about getting your class interested on a topic so they can learn about it more and more without useless little facts.
This article deals with the breadth v.s. depth issue and its definitely an aspect of learning that needs to be focused on. Like we were talking in class the other day about history and what is important for people to know … people will have different opinions. I believe early on children should be taught a variety of subjects in a basic manner, as they currently are. Though things will get glossed over, some basic knowledge needs to exist and there needs to be a starting point somewhere. The whole system of memorizing information and recalling it during a test does work to a point for basic knowledge. There are facts about history and literature that will be maintained by this method. However, I believe at some point a more in-depth method needs to be used to truly entice a students interest in a subject and make them feel like there is more to it than just memorizing.
ReplyDeleteI have a more difficult time trying to figure out at what age level to begin focusing more on depth. Obviously basic knowledge needs to exist, and on this point I agree with the article. Students will more easily learn more about a subject when they have a baseline knowledge of it. I would say closer to high school, maybe a little before attention should be placed more on depth. While, breadth sometimes does just give students a little information and makes them want to look up more on their own … I feel more times it doesn’t. From personal expericnce, my favorite classes that I put the most of my own time into were classes where things were more in depth and I felt less like I was simply cramming and memorizing a bunch of content.
The Progressive way of teaching mentioned in the article is interesting to me and though its controversial, I actually agree with it. If all of the subjects were more integrated, and things were more in-depth and applicable to real life, I believe not only would students grasp the knowledge better, but they would have more enthusiasm. Again, I always go back to my personal experiences. I don’t like feeling like I’m shuffled from class to class to simply memorize a bunch of content and spew it back out. I want something I can apply and I want to go in-depth and really be able to dig into a topic. I feel like students don’t remember most of what they learn in school. And that says something. That says that having a breadth of subjects and memorizing content is not integrating it into a students mind. Sure, they will remember some methods and some interesting tidbits, but most of what they learn, factually, won’t be remembered because its never in-depth enough or means enough to the student.
Basic information needs to be learned, I’ll never argue that. In order to go more in-depth, a decent covering of various topics must take place. But I do believe in not waiting until a student is too old to go into a more focused approach
Walter Figueroa
When I took my Lit reasearch class my teacher gave us just ten questions to answer and none of them could be answered on the internet. I thought "this is a breeze" boy was I wrong. It took me the entire semester to complete just ten questions about 1000 hours in the library. What I learned was a valuable lesson. Shelf after shelf and book after book reading things and finding out information lead me to the answers I needed; much like clues. More importantly I took on my project of comparing what I found in the library and what I found on the internet and wrote my final paper on it. General knowledge is good for answering trivia at the local bar but true knowledge comes from reading and research. Again I find myself advocating hands on learning and research as the best way I can learn. I have taken classes that just ask you to memorize words or terms but they taught me very little because, without understanding the root of that definition it just became another word in my vocabulary and held really little meaning. Rote learning is just the same. The best way I feel to encourage students to learn is to answer the why, how, and when of every project. Unfortunatly, time plays a bad role in this theory. A student should have a breathe of knowledge in school but it should come from connecting the subjects together to obtain this breathe. And example might be a LA class and history class working together on a research project about The early 18th century. Perhaps while researching for this topic can lead them to early authors of literature and why they wrote what they wrote which leads into the history lesson. What ever the project, it is important to stress that not all of the learning comes from the internet and most likely the facts they find on the interent are not 100 percent true.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree in this process of education. The Progressive theory and Core Knowledge philosophy, as stated by Mr. Hirsh basically says that education should be well rounded and that children learn better when their subjects overlap. This overlapping and integration of all subjects into a few broad tasks, I agree is best for most students. The process of assimilated real world knowledge with problem solving and using analytic evaluation with a hands on task is perfect! But does this work for everyone….?
ReplyDeleteAs I stated in the last blog post – I agree with something Mr. Hirsch said in this article, it is important for teachers to develop, in their students, a life long love of learning, a wonderment about all things, that follows them into adulthood. This is what helps create a society with vast interests – these are the citizens that go on to support the arts or get involved in their communities. This helps to improve society as a whole.
Going back to the basis of the article – do students learn better when they are able to look up information on the internet or other source? I think these resources are all important , but should be used as perhaps a secondary source. One we should not ultimately be completely dependent on. It is better to learn on a slow and steady pace refining the meaning of things as they are learned. Taking words and events and working them into the next phase of learning. It seems only natural that this would be a successful mode of learning. We, as teachers need to find where our students interests overlap and where to integrate them into the curriculum and lessons. I think most progressivist educators would agree that we need some kind of concrete knowledge in order to expand student’s education. It would be perfect if all teachers had the task of relating all subject matter into the real world in turn making it more tangible. How many times have we as students and educators heard “When will I use this in real life?” Basic knowledge provides information for students to relate to and to pull information from. Hirsch refers to general knowledge “facts” as important as well, I would agree. Though some would refer to these as useless facts, I would put forth that these ‘facts’ are what keep people interested in learning more, adding to what they already know. Hirsch refers to the inequality to access of the internet and other sources to certain students. Providing access is the first and most important step. Offering access to alternative research methods as well as fostering a well rounded traditional education combine to make education most effective.
This really all comes down to exposure – we expose children to words, books, history, culture, and the sciences in order for them to culminate these lessons into applications. I totally agree with Hirsch that reading is the most important thing to do with children to accomplish this. My father read to us every night, instilling in me not only a love of reading but a special time that I will undoubtedly share with my own children.
I do disagree that any kind of formal education should begin before kindergarten. Children spend most of their young lives in school and the time between 1 and 5 before starting school is an important period for early socializing and free play. Going to Pre-school and daycare if fine, but should be less formalized no lessons and the such. Mainly, just time reading and playing with other children their age. The enormous jump during these ages should come from reading all the time. Children can easily learn to recognize words and grow their vocabulary from being read to.
To wrap up I feel as though a teacher with a larger bredth of education is a far more effective than one that may be an ‘expert’ in their field. With a larger expanse of knowledge teachers can bring a variety of interests to their classroom. One that asks questions and sparks true interest in their students.
I think teachers with a very broad education is more useful than someone who is an A+ in one subject and not so good in another. I think it's better to be a well experienced teacher so you can relate to the students.
ReplyDeleteAnother point i want to touch on is the internet. When kids can use the internet it can be useful but at the same time it can be absolutely devastating. Wikipedia is a website that will give you plenty of information, BUT everyone can edit it. So if you're looking up something on World War II, someone can post that it never happened, or the germans won. I agree with Becky that the internet should be a second source. Because I remember back in high school when the first link that pops up I would click, copy, and paste. I think it doesn't challenge kids to think deeper because sometimes the answers are just given to them.
Did you know if you type a math equation into google, it will spit out the answer? Yeah that doesn't help kids learn at all. I feel that everyone is being given to these kids on a silver platter. I hate that everything is so easily accessible, and I remember, when I was in school and you had to search far and wide for everything that was on the report or whatever.
I do like the websites that are coming out to research the internet for plagiarism. Because when I substitute in high school, I hear kids say, yeah I turned in my essay and it came back 96% plagiarized. I think to myself saying, how can you be that lazy? Honestly how can you be that lazy? It totally baffles my mind.
Another point is the formal education before kindergarten. I went to Pre-K when i was little and I loved it. Nap time, snack time, coloring, play time, recess. It was just basically a vacation at school. And what I don't understand is how come there can't be nap time in college. That's when we really need it. haha. Anyway back on topic. I think it's good to have it but don't be having 4 year old kids doing book reports on the lion the witch and the wardrobe.
“The internet has placed a wealth of information at our finger tips, but to be able to use that information - we must already posses a storehouse of knowledge” Knowledge is the basic concept for bloom. Anyone can find knowledge with a click of a button, however what makes the knowledge valuable is how one interprets and analyzes the knowledge. It is us as educators to educate our students on how to extend the students’ basic knowledge. I could not agree more when Hirsch states, “If we teachers convey general knowledge to our students in coherent and effective ways, and encourage them to read widely, we will give them the told they need for lifelong learning”. Reading opens up a whole new world for many children. Jess and I are in the same Educational Psychology class and every class Professor McGall says “no matter what you want to teach you will be a reading teacher”. This totally clicked with me, especially when Hirsch points out that a student needs to “understand 95% of the words in the text one is reading for it to truly make sense”. In vocabulary, depth is more important then breath. Teachers need to know what concepts are worth going into details with and what ones can just be touched on.
ReplyDeleteI am a paraprofessional for kindergarten. Even though the children are 5 or 6 years old, Mary is instilling the important concept of reading into our class. “We should encourage children to read a wide diversity of topics in order to build up their treasury of knowledge and words”. Each week, Mary goes to the library and brings in anywhere from 76-150 different books for reading into our classroom. By doing this, she opens the doors of vocabulary, knowledge, and imagination for the children. Even though many of the children cannot read yet, they are forming their base of knowledge. Reading allows them to look at the pictures, interpret them, and then tell the story to a friend. The children also point out the words that they do know. Most often the gain for knowledge from reading is more then they would learn at a center. In elementary school, children need to establish a strong foundation of basic knowledge and a strong vocabulary before true learning and depth can occur.
As students get into higher levels of schooling, I think it is important to build on their framework and go into more depth by adding new information to the subject. Going into depth doesn’t mean standing up in front of the class and lecturing for the whole 45 minutes. I think “going into depth” means challenging your students to think deeper about the subject. We, as educators, need to give students the facts then engage them to really think about the subject through projects, research, trips and group work. This will not only allow the students to learn about the subject, but to develop other skills and relate or put the concepts to practical use.
About three years ago I dropped out of nursing school because I realized that it was not for me. I worked as a nurse assistant and I realized that this was affecting my whole life because I couldn’t separate my job and my attachment to my patients. Every time I saw someone died part of me died too. I wanted to start with this introduction because part of what I read in this article made a lot of sense and I identified myself while I was reading it. The author affirmed that “The progressive theory that students should gain knowledge through a limited number of projects instead of by taking courses separate subjects is based on the following reasoning. If you learned a bunch of facts in separate, academic courses you will passively acquire a lot of inert, fragmented knowledge. You will be the victim of something called “rote learning.” But if you engage in integrated, hands on projects you will achieve integrated, real world knowledge.” I totally get what the author is saying here; in fact I went through the exact same thing while I was in nursing school. I was part of a very prestigious and hard-core nursing program. This was a hard program and most of the nurse students went through “hell” to be in it. Pre-requisites you had to meet and most students did not even make it to the program. But I did, I was one of them “the lucky ones” as many told me. I don’t think it was luck; it was just effort after effort because to be part of this program you don’t only need to be “smart” but have to be “disciplined” like someone said to me once. To be a nurse is to able to control stress to the max, because most of nurse students lived on xanax to control the high level of anxiety (Close to become psychotic) there is so much to do; I can’t explain with words. The amount of work is just insane and what made me so angry sometimes is that they had the most difficult tests in the world. I am not a good test taker but I always did okay. Every time we had a practicum in a hospital site I excelled. There was this girl I met at the program who was the best hands on (Practicum was 25% of grade) student nurse in our class. Unfortunately, she did poorly in the tests (50% of grade). At the end of the second semester her tests equal 74; she was one point short to make it to the next semester. For that, she was kicked out of the nursing program. I was so angry because she had a passion for nursing and her work in the hospital was fine and impeccable. Another girl, had the best test grades in the class, but when it came to practicum in the hospital; she was lost. She graduated with honors. The other girl who was kicked out of the program did not. I think that in some cases knowledge is not only what you learn in a classroom but what you know by doing. There are so many subjects to learn, and just because you are not good at them; it doesn’t mean that you won’t be successful. Society tends to see the person who does well in math or science as a very “intellectual” or “smart” person. If the person likes art; society in most cases considers them as “talented” but they don’t use the word “smart.” Just because this is a hands on talent it doesn’t mean that they aren’t “smart.”
ReplyDeleteI wanted to focus on this paragraph because it made think about this girl who got kicked out of nursing school just because she was one point off from the passing grade. All of her hospital practicum were outstanding (injections, patient care, assessments, etc). But yet she did not graduate as a nurse; she still works as a nurse assistant. I think that a person gains more knowledge by doing hands on work. I agree with the progressive theory because while I was in nursing, we took anatomy, microbiology, psychology (child, adult, behavioral, etc) physiology, etc, etc. However, that did not mean a lot to me until I was in the hospital doing it. We had to learn pharmacology and remember hundreds of meds and other hundred things about these meds. I memorized most of them; and it was not until I started giving meds to my patients when everything made sense. You don’t learn something by memorizing, you learn by doing it; to me sitting in a classroom means learning the theoretical part. However, the most important to me is when I am in front of students interacting and seeing their reactions and giving them the best that I can.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Hirsch's "'You can Always Look It Up'...or Can You?" the section that remained with me was the one dealing with having a 95% knowledge base of words. I have always been a big supported of reading. It is the best way to learn. It is the way people learn all the time even if they do not know it or think about it. Because reading gives people a basic amount of knowledge and understanding on a subject and once they apply it it becomes a concrete concept. Also, reading is the best way to expand your vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteI started to love reading and the dictionary when I was learning English. I never gave it much thought when speaking Spanish for two reasons. One, it is my native language and so it is easier understand the meaning of a word if you break the word down. Much like what you do with English words, you look for the root of the word and figure out its meaning. Usually, if you know the root of he word you can come up with the definition (that is the reason why I took Latin in high school and why I believe that all students need to learn more than one language. It is important to know the major dead languages, Latin and Greek, too). Its a quick way to know what a word means but in order to do this you need to know the language. Second, both of my parents were teachers, so they were my live dictionaries. As of today I still use my mom as my Spanish dictionary. It is so much easier than digging up a dictionary.
Some of my classmates in high school made fun of me because I was always reading a book. It use to bother me, except when we were in English class. They would always stumble on words when reading out loud, and I wouldn't. They would constantly ask the teacher what a word meant, and I would know the answer. My English vocabulary was expanded because of all the reading I did. I would sit down and read and I would keep a dictionary next to me. At the beginning I would have to look up every other word, and I would need to use the Spanish-English dictionary, but as time went by I had to look up words less and less, and was able to use the regular English dictionary. I still need to look up words from time to time when I read now, but it only occurs on rare occasions. I also know that because English is not my first language I still have a lot more to learn and that is why I decided to major in Literature. It is my own challenge and I want to do my best at it.
I have always been stubborn so if something is difficult I keep on going until I get or time runs out. So, in my case I have a hard time relating to the whole giving up because you cannot find an answer or you don't understand. I believe that the things that challenge you the most are the ones that you will treasure in time. I did not have internet during my last two years of high school and my first two years of college, so I was use to using books as my sources when writing a paper. I had to deal with it. The internet does make research easier but as a student, and person, you don't learn as much. Although, reading through a bunch of books is hard and tedious work it is much more rewarding. Because, you learn a great deal more than if you just type it in on Google and get an answer. I wont lie I do use the internet when looking for basic information on a subject but it is not my main go to guide for most research, unless I have no time to look for a book. I started to like research work even more after answering my ten research questions for Professor Kinsella this semester. As much as I wanted to cry because I couldn't find the answers he wanted I did not give up and I learned so much. Reading and doing research are two important things to learn. As future teachers these are things we have to learn ourselves and teach our students because it will help them grow as learners and people.
It takes knowledge to gain knowledge, we only get smarter as we progress and that is mainly because we have to build on our knowledge. If we did not have the knowledge to use a computer, how would we even begin to look something up? Everything we do we have to have some sort of background knowledge. In math it started from learning our numbers, counting and then 2 + 2. We still use those simple skills to perform complex equations. I really enjoyed Hirsch’s example of researching planets, I put my self in that position and you really would have no idea what anything was if it wasn’t for some basic knowledge of our solar system. I noticed some people have mentioned the line “the internet has placed a wealth of information at our fingertips”. This is so true, if I want to know anything I can just type it in, read and think about it and in a matter of minutes I learned something new. Some might wonder why go to school if I can learn everything I need on the computer? If it wasn’t for students going to school and learning we wouldn’t even have a computer so that should answer that question!
ReplyDeleteTeachers give us the knowledge and skills to think creatively and be able to store wide amounts of information. When talking about breadth versus depth I agree with his statement that they are not enemies. I believe it’s either one or the other whatever you think is more efficient. Depth is thinking beyond and building on the certain thing you have learned to discover more about it. I think this is a better way of learning, its interesting to really think outside the box. I really am all for getting students involved in outside activities to strengthen there knowledge on a certain subject. Hirsch talks about children visiting a museum for a class field trip. Some students benefit from it and some don’t but I believe majority of students will. As he states some might just goof off but there are children that will really take home something with them that they will carry through out life. I personally loved going on field trips, seeing what you were learning about in real life really put things into perspective and made me understand a whole lot more. I still remember going to the liberty science center when I was younger and learning about the constellations and still remember them to this day. I learn better with visuals and going on that field trip really benefitted for me. You can’t replace what we have been taught all these years, we are as smart as we are today because of things we learned years ago. Knowledge builds on knowledge and without everything we have learned over our lifetime we couldn’t just “look it up”.
Traditional core knowledge can earn you money if you ever get a shot at being a contestant on Jeopardy.
ReplyDeleteProfessor Williams is awesome. Brittany wrote that a math teacher wouldn’t have the students write a paper on a problem set. I ask you all to consider the following. My Survey of Mathematics Professor at OCC gave the class a clever writing assignment. We had to compose a curriculum vitae and a letter of recommendation for Leonhard Euler, a deceased mathematician from the 18th century. We were to pretend he was applying for a faculty position in the Mathematics department at the college. In researching this man’s life, I learned a number of interesting things about this mathematician and physicist. In addition to compiling biographical data, I was writing a persuasive piece and I was quite creative! This works on so many levels with this week’s reading. Were we not studying Euler’s Law and given this assignment, I wouldn’t have had any interest in ‘looking him up’. If I didn’t have the breadth of knowledge that I do have, I wouldn’t know what I was doing.
If anyone has ever tried to learn a foreign language, they instinctually know what Hirsch is getting at. Language has context and nuance. The word or expression “I am full” in English may not mean the same in French. Our French teacher explained that it can mean “I am pregnant.” So if you look up the word full in the French dictionary, you may not find the word you need to tell your French host that you can’t eat anymore.
I can understand why we might give students project learning experiences, but not as a substitute for rote learning. Rote is a word I will look up because it is one I always say, but have never written. Unlike Doug, I always loved to read. It was never boring, or at least most things I chose to read were interesting on some level. I am a fast reader. This helps because I either want to be done, or I can’t wait to get to the next “good part”. When I read, I apply that 95% knowledge to what I am reading and always learn something new. I had read the word “macabre” at least 6 times in 5 years. I think I knew the meaning of the word. I read it to myself as I thought it would be said “mack-a-bree”. I finally heard the word in an advertisement on TV. The word was also spelled out. Ok, this didn’t happen in a classroom, but that word was floating around in my head for years. How many other words, ideas, and concepts did I pick up from reading or from class or from an assignment that eventually found a contextual home in my core knowledge?
This article sparked a discussion with my dinner companions tonight. They asked, "What are you working on in school?"I explained the reading by Hirsch. After some basic discussion and a subject change, my friend, a VP at Ferragamo in NYC, said “This is bothering me! Teaching core knowledge gives everything context.” He made a number of other interesting points, however, my favorite was a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright “You can’t design a kitchen if you don’t know how to cook!” Along those lines, one of the things I have learned is that you don’t know what you don’t know. If I don’t have 95% core knowledge, I don’t know enough to look it up. If I don’t have enough background knowledge to work from, I might as well be looking up foreign words in the dictionary.
Lynn Rosch-Brancato