I just finished my second reading of Cultural Literacy by E. D. Hirsch, the book which caused a sensation when it was first published in 1987. Aside from some references to AI research, it hasn't aged much. The deeper points that it makes are quite valid today and I am in a much better position to understand them than I did twenty years ago.
There are a number of allegories and examples I recall from the book that have sunk into my general lexicon without attribution. The story of the high level of literacy and shared educational context of the Black Panther Party. The allegorical references to Shakespeare as useful in business communications. But there are other lessons, more deeply significant that I missed the first time around. I'm very glad to have the blogosphere in which to share these.
The most significant of these, I think, is the extent to which Hirsch understands the way that the mind works. Of all of the books we have had speaking on matters of intelligence, none has made so much sense in so little space as his description of 'chunking' of language. Th kindof prcssing f wrds tha wcando witht rel referncto thwrds at all. He explains thoroughly that it is only the shared context that makes processing of written language possible. This is the cornerstone of his thesis about the necessity of a literate nation.
I have been saying for some time that the problem 'the world' has is that nobody has come up with a way to think about what to do with a billion literate adults. This is a problem for the global society, but in fact there isn't truly a global society. We're not close to it. But we are a planet full of national societies, and Hirsch makes a strong case that the very cohesion of written language and society is a direct function of our systematic dictionaries and teaching of literature from standardized curricula. Additionally, there are shared contexts which are learned from society, controlled by no-one and quite naturally national. American society is neither tribal nor global. I buy that. And while I've always been a nationalist, some aspects of my globalism I think are moderated by the sense that Hirsch makes.
Hirsch's major assertion is that content matters. But that assertion is not so strident sounding to me as multiculturalists have made it out to be. It's hard to imagine that this book set off a culture war in retrospect. I have always respected Hirsch's work, having read it originally and then followed it up with the also famous Greywolf Annual publication of 'Multicultural Literacy'. Hirsch doesn't oppose multiple literacies in his book, but it's now easy to see in retrospect how difficult that would be to accomplish given the theories actually in force behind public elementary education.
Hirsch identifies the foes of content as Rousseau and Dewey, and he sees their influence beginning, early in the 20th century in American educational circles. Without getting into depth about the history of the development and application of the ideas of those two, their essential thrust was the idea that "skills" are transferable. The Rousseau-Dewey school would hold that content-neutral education was best and that the experience of the child in expressing their skills with whatever subject matter is more important than the subject matter itself. This is manifest most clearly in the school of thinking we now call 'self-esteem'. The third component Hirsch takes issue with is the matter of rote memorization. In probably the most interesting aspect of re-reading this book is the extent to which Hirsch exmplifies the number of other cultures which use rote memorization as core to their pedagogy.
The consequences of re-digesting Hirsch are salient and pertinent today, and I find they give me a great deal to think about and a good reference point at which to adjust my defense of Conservatism as I see it and add to my understanding of how American public education has gone wrong at any number of levels.
Clearly, the combination of a belief in 'transferable skills' and the primacy of 'self-esteem' has been used by educators to create an alternate educational universe for a burgeoning list of minorities. Alternative educational tracks are easily gotten and justified in a system that takes seriously the notion that some general form of abstract intelligence is real - that for example a student who masters the arcanities of Kemetic knowledge systems is equally intelligent to one who masters the arcanities of Greek mythology. That may actually be true but it certainly doesn't make that individual part of the national literate community. Isn't that the purpose of public education? It is reasonable to question the 'natural' affinity between any student and any curriculum. But participation in the a core set of subjects is the most democratizing power we have, and ultimately Hirsch's bottom line is that we jeopardize our national democracy by not conserving a core curriculum shared by all.
This underscores the value of knowledge instead of intelligence. Clearly no matter how intelligent one is, an unfamiliar subject will have to be explained in detail. If our national dialog must continue at the lowest common denominator because we give license to an educational eclecticism (or exclexia, my term for eclecticism in defiance or extreme), then we are begging for our nation to disintegrate.
What is remarkable about Hirsch's proposed list of the things literate American should know is that it is broad and shallow. For him, it is simply enough for one to understand quite lightly what is implied by the term 'Dien Bien Phu'; that it doesn't fall on completely deaf ears. it is not so much a requirement to have any competence in the details as it is to have the vague understanding that it is a place in Southeast Asia and it involves a battle. It's not too much to ask.
There are a large number of implications to Hirsch's work that I find relevant to American education, the failures of multiculturalism and of national identity and literacy. I think there was a time when national literacy and multiculturalism were compatible. I find that increasingly difficult today given the theories that have changed American public education and the ways in which we have interpreted the Culture Wars. I agree first and foremost with Hirsch that content matters and that a shared national cultural core is vital to the strength of our democracy.
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