Hirsch’s main aim is to contribute to providing information to not only allow disadvantaged children
Hirsch’s main aim is to contribute to providing information to not only allow disadvantaged children
Reading Across the Curriculum: Brief Edition. 4th edition. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. Boston: Longman, 2011. 150-158. Print.…
Class Reading Theme Acculturation or submission to the dominant culture has been a common theme throughout the world and it is widely prevalent in Lomawaima and McCarty’s book. In chapter 2 of Lomawaima & McCarty (2006), a young, Native American person recounted a story where he was marched off to become a student of the Carlisle Indian School; the student thought he was going to his death, but the intended victim was his language, culture, and way of life (Paragraph 1). Native American cultures were viewed as obsolete and even harmful to society, so the federal government stepped in to assert its authority. For the reasons above, Native Americans were seen child-like people, no matter the age, and because of this view few administrators of education in the early days of U.S. federal oversight seemed to encourage an assimilationist view in the sense of integrated classrooms by race; the dominant view was to prepare students for their proper roles in society (Indigenous Education Versus Native American Schooling, Para 1). Furthermore, in chapter 3 of Lomawaima & McCarty (2006), these views encouraged misguided efforts to educate Native Americans into their perceived lower class and helped to justify the relegation of the…
| |opportunities for all. This is relevant to all the child’s needs with being equal and understanding|…
E.D. Hirsch Jr‘s “Preface to Cultural Literacy” stresses the importance of facing the dilemma of cultural illiteracy of mostly underprivileged children and everyone in our society (33). He urges the educational and literate community to comprehend the natural laws that deem it necessary for society’s underprivileged youth to “remain in the same social and educational condition as their parents” (33). Hirsch asserts, “Cultural literacy constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children” (33). He calls on the educational and literate community to propose a change to the fifty year old “fragmented curriculum based on faulty educational theories” (33). Because Hirsch highlights the strengths and weaknesses in the pedagogic…
Wagner and Dintersmith’s incisive article slices via the politics to signify, without pointing fingers how the schools should refocus their attention to prepare the kids for their future jobs. The book offers a searing and urgent indictment of the current damaging priorities of the American education system and a fully grounded as well as a practical vision of how to re-imagine the system for the world in which we live now. The authors use plain language to tell it the way it is and how it ought to be if the American students, civil, and economic democracy are to survive and thrive in the 21st century.…
No child is equal and the same, everyone is different from one another. However, the aims of the practitioners are to have a part in the child’s life to support children to live in the way they value and choose, to be themselves but to be different if they wish to be. Every person in the world should have equality of opportunities.…
Woodhouse, Howard R. “Critical Reflections on Hirsch and Cultural Literacy.” Interchange 20.3 (1989): 80-89. Print…
He noted that although the outcome of a child’s formative years is never a guaranteed thing, it is one of the few things that man can control. Rousseau saw children as innocent and good, and as a clean slate. When given the opportunity to raise a child, Rousseau believed that one should treat them freely, allowing them to grow by themselves. He noted that while children should be protected from harm, physical or emotional, they should be free to discover their individual morals, and how they will treat others. Education remains a vital part of a person’s life in the modern era as well. Rousseau also valued the innocence he saw in children, saying “A child ill taught is further from virtue than a child who has learnt nothing at all…. is it nothing to be happy, nothing to run and jump all day? He will never be so busy again all his life long.” He saw the potential for children to be shaped to believe in goodness, and to not be corrupted by society as he had believed to have happened to those around him. A person’s educational growth defines the life that they will live, and the opportunities they will have as an adult. The United States supports the need for an education as part the nation’s growth, and in continuing prosperous activity into future generations. The past century of american history has solidified expectations of higher education in order for a person to…
Jeremiah Conway writes The liberal Arts and Contemporary Culture and is bothered about how liberal arts is being taken for granted. He feels that this is a problem and it needs to be addressed. He makes it known that children will lack becoming educated in the future because science and technology is hindering there learning. If this problem is not approached then liberal arts would be ignored. They will be at risk of living in this world without any regards of life. Conway used an example of a “fish” not knowing what water was. This informs readers that people take education and life for graduated (2010, 4). What children do not understand is that they have the opportunity to gain knowledge but cannot due to technology and money. It becomes hard for them understand that being educated in liberal arts is better than having a one-track mind. If they want to become a scientist they will only learn the scientific method and equations. Moreover, they may not know basic home economic skill because they do not have an understanding of other disciplines.…
In unit three we were able to see how certain educational leaders believed students should learn and what they should be learning while in school. For the first educational approach Freire’s problem posing method engages students to be independent thinkers while pushing them to collaborate with each other to solve problems. In Eric liu’s How to be American, she talks about the information American students should know and applying that knowledge and this is where the second educational approach can be seen. With the third education approach Hirsch explains in the article that being cultural literacy is having a certain amount of knowledge so one is able to exercise active citizenship. For educational approach four I go back to Freire because…
The long range remedy for restoring and improving American literacy must be to "institute a policy of imparting common information in our schools." In short, according to Hirsch - the answer to our problem lies within the list. Hirsch's book explains the importance of the need of a higher level of national literacy. His main argument is that cultural literacy is required for effective communication and the "cooperation of many people..." Communication is what Hirsch sees is essential for success in today's society.…
It is dumbing down our children by focusing solely on reading and mathematics. By ignoring everything but basic skills, it is not preparing students to compete with their peers in the high-performing nations of Asia and Europe, nor is it preparing them for citizenship in our complex society” (Ravitch). Some of the contributing factors to the failing education system can be described as far back to 1837 when the famous American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed the essential influences on a man’s education in his speech “The American Scholar.” In this speech, Emerson describes several aspects of how students should learn and these points can still relate to today’s education system. The American education system has many lacking aspects and Emerson addresses some of these issues in his speech. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The American Scholar” describes the problems with today’s American education system by explaining the lack of creating well-rounded students, the confinement of…
Starting from the root of education, Murray addresses the “body of core knowledge” (223) which he believes to be a necessity of elementary learning. Arguing this early installation of a broad knowledge of American culture, Murray reminds us how this nationwide knowledge of a core education “makes us American together rather than hyphenated Americans” (224). I believe this approach is only ideal, and often prevented by economic and regional limitations, it is an effective and responsible way for the early education system of American to provide this necessary learning opportunity.…
“Society constructs itself as monolingual and Anglocentric, and tries to keep children's linguistic and cultures worlds apart”(living). Many bilinguals or people that have two cultures might be hard to keep their cultures apart from each other. Deanna is Native American and I am Hispanic/American, we keep many of our traditions that are not only part of our culture but also of our identity. Those are the traditions we don't only want to pass down to our children/future children because we find them important but also it part of who we are. Yet, we still have that American culture having some part of our identity, even though we might never feel completely Americans because we are part of two different worlds. “…we should value and encourage the experience of living in simultaneous worlds”(Living). We should encourage not only our peers and family members, but our students that it is fine to live to two worlds. There shouldn't be a separation in living two worlds, being an American in the outside world (e.g. school and work) and being Native American or Hispanic with other people that share our same culture. Shouldn't we represent the culture we have a much more connection with? It all begins with showing our students to embrace different cultures around the world, exposing them that there is much more than the American…
The most important factor that contributes to the outrageous statistics of illiteracy is that of poverty. Poverty is an issue that more and more of our nation's children are coming face to face with and the price they must pay is unbelievably high. Poverty is considered a major at-risk factor (Leroy & Symes, 2001). The term at-risk refers to children who are likely to fail whether it be at school or life in general because of their life's social circumstances. Some of the factors that may place these children at-risk are: dangerous neighborhoods; young, uneducated parents; unemployment; and inadequate educational experiences. Teachers need to be aware of the circumstances that their students face and be able and ready to help these children find a balance between the cultural values that they may have and values emphasized in school. By providing emotional support, modeling, and other forms of scaffolding, teachers can help students use their strengths, skills, and knowledge to develop and learn ( Marlowe and Page, 1999).…