Here's enough questions on Hirsch to choke a cow. Respond to one, think about the rest...
According to Hirsch why are American students doing poorly on the verbal sections of the SATs? What is wrong with the way we teach literacy according to Hirsch? What does he mean by educational formalism? How did English classes operate in the past? What does Hirsch think about that tradition? What is pluralism as it relates to course content in, say, English classes? The bulk of Hirsch’s article concerns studies that convinced him that “educational formalism” doesn’t work. What are the implications of the study concerning American and Indian audiences reading comprehension based on the two different marriage essays fit? Is he arguing that it is the job of literacy educators to produce American readers that are capable of comprehending the Indian marriage essay as well as the Indian readers? What is “cultural literacy” as Hirsch is talking about it in this essay? How is his focus relevant to the early part of the essay in which he cites SAT scores…what was his original argument? How is the idea of “cultural literacy” political? Will learning and evaluation be equal among American students under Hirsch’s system? Which students stand to gain more with less effort under Hirsch’s system? Which students will have to struggle more with less payoff? Does that matter? Are there bigger stakes connected to “cultural literacy” as Hirsch sees it? Does it affect our comprehension of “history,” our national heritage and traditions, our national principles, a national identity, our individual relations to all these topics? Do you agree that standardized testing amounts to “a hidden national curriculum”? What are the problems of this? Hirsch mentions “a lexicon of cultural literacy.” What words does he include? Would you include words like iPod, cell phone, and the verb “to Google”? Do you think someone like Hirsch would agree? What other words or concepts would you include in order to update the list?
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Do you agree that standardized testing amounts to “a hidden national curriculum”? What are the problems of this?
I do agree that the standardized testing amounts to a "hidden national curriculum." Many of my teachers in high school structured their lessons plans to prepare us for the different formalized tests that we were required to take through the government. This plays a huge part in the "hidden" curriculum. By wanting to cover these topics, the teachers may be neglecting others which they deem to be more important. Also, as mentioned in the article, the use of vocabulary focused on is meant to apply to the SAT, rather than helping the student use their writing to appeal to various audiences. For example, slang and other types of language that may be used more by minority groups are not covered in the formalized vocabulary lessons, yet they would improve the quality of reading if one was writing to a minority audience. So while this provides an education basis for teachers to follow, it does not account for the diversity in our nation and thus provides minority groups with a setback that they must overcome.
Hirsch mentions “a lexicon of cultural literacy.” What words does he include? Would you include words like iPod, cell phone, and the verb “to Google”?
Hirsh would like not only the use of ordinary dictionary word to be taught but names, phrases, and conventions. I do highly agree with this. Including this terms can only help cultures achieve a better understanding. If you ever had to study abroad or communicate with someone outside you culture these terms would be needed. Other cultures would have a better understanding of American culture. Culturization makes student much more well rounded. This expanion of literacy also may refer to the friere was saying about expansion. Not just being set to a certain curriculum.
When Hirsch begins to talk about "cutural literacy" and associating it with politcs i found it very interesting because i didn't think about that when first reading the article. When he said " the big political question that has to be decided first of all is whether we want a broadly literate culture that unites our cultural fragments enough to allow us to write to one anohter and read what our fellow citizens have written". I was quiet intrigued when i came across this statement that he made because it questions whether or not we want all parts of our society to have the same kind of education and whether or not that would be an good idea. I think that it has both its positive and negative effects. I think that it would be a good thing to make everyone literate and on the same level so we can all understand each other to some extent. But at the same time if we make the teachings all the same how diverse or how extensive can we get in our teachings for everyone to understand. Also if we do this how much harder would it be for people to get jobs? Because if everyone has the same education then everyone is going to want the higher paying jobs than accepting the average fast food or clothing store jobs that pay less. So you have to take in consideration in what you choose to educate people with because not everyone learns the same nor has the same capacity to learn the same things.
What is “cultural literacy” as Hirsch is talking about it in this essay? How is his focus relevant to the early part of the essay in which he cites SAT scores…what was his original argument?
Hirsch talked about needing a common background knowledge in order to understand literature (may it be newspapers, letters or any other for of writing). He called this "shared, canonical knowledge" cultural literacy.
At the beginning of his essay, Hirsch spoke on the decline of literacy in verbal SAT scores. He implies that because students now-a-days no longer have a common academic criterion. Because there isn't a common academic criterion, a cultural literacy across the nation doesn't exist. (Cultural literacy isn't being shared from city to city.) Meanwhile, the SAT test is the same no matter where it is given. Thus, explaining why there has been a decrease in SAT scores.
Hirsch thinks that we teach literacy wrong because we don't have abroad range of knowledge taken by speaker's and writers. Also we don't learn content, we learn to pass a class and to get through a paper for class. He thinks that we are being cheapen of the knowledge of knowing about the world and American culture.
"What are the implications of the study concerning American and Indian audiences reading comprehension based on the two different marriage essays fit? Is he arguing that it is the job of literacy educators to produce American readers that are capable of comprehending the Indian marriage essay as well as the Indian readers?"
What Hirsch found from his own test, along with another test by Anderson, suggests that a reader's comprehension is heavily influenced by previous, or background knowledge of material. People who have a basic understanding of what they are reading will generally read faster and retain more! I definately can agree with this one, and think it is well supported through the studies. Hirsch then goes on to claim that a canonical knowledge is "necessary for a literate democracy". In other words... to be part of a succesive literate democracy, we need to have all learned a core, accepted, curriculum..........
Sounds like a bunch of fluffed up crap to me. I mean, say we DID all study the same accepted canonical literature in our english classes. Will studying more Shakespeare in class help me to understand the in depth knowledge of an Indian wedding? Hardly. Maybe I'm not understanding what this Hirsch guy means... and maybe I'm being a little harsh on the Hirsch-- but as it stands I think Frier is an outdated load of crap and Hirsch is just making a somewhat ridiculous claim based on things we already know.
Do you agree that standardized testing amounts to “a hidden national curriculum”? What are the problems of this?
I do agree with Hirsch. After all, both teachers and students know that if the teachers don't teach the material needed to pass, say, the new Ohio Graduation Test (OGT), that their students may not be able to pass, and thus graduate high school. The need to teach certain curriculum in order for students to pass the OGT, therefore creates a pseudo national curriculum. I remember around the time the OGT was being tested that there was a lot of controversy whether this would increase the idea of the "banking education system" that we learned about in Freire's essay. I do believe the OGT, as well as other standardized tests, could negatively affect teaching styles and material. As we decided in class, learning only by the banking system can be harmful on student's ability to problem solve and think critically. These skills are both imperative for most jobs, albeit some to a greater degree than others. From personal experience, there are also both benefits and disadvantages to not having a national curriculum. Namely, without such a system, different schools and teachers can teach from different resources and use different books, ideas, stories, and the like to communicate the same concepts. While this can make it harder to create the "ideal" freshman english class curriculum at a college, for example, it also makes classrooms more diverse. It lends itself to the idea that teachers teach students, but students also teach teachers. If everyone has a different background and has experience different resources to gain similar knowledge, then once they are with a different group of people, they can all share their past experiences to enrich the new class as a whole. Overall, I would need to to more thinking, research, and analysis to determine whether I believe there should be a concrete national curriculum. I can see both benefits and disadvantages. However, I do not think we can do away with our current "hidden national curriculums" that is composed of the various standardized tests. However, having multiple tests does help create some diversity among students at different schools or in different states.
According to Hirsch why are American students doing poorly on the verbal sections of the SATs?
Hirsch seems to be implying that the SAT is not moving at the same rate as current American culture, ultimately resulting in lower scores by students. Between four to six words are added to (American) english each day, yet the SAT is testing on vocabulary used many years ago. The vocabulary neccessary for talking to other people today is far different than vocabulary needed in the past. Being that our language is dynamic, words change, new ones evolve, and words gain or loose meanings. "Whac," currently this word means something totally different than what our parents think it means, however in order to understand current culture one must understand the new and old meaning of this word. Words learned for the SAT are ones that may be used in academia, however how many times do you really think that someone's boss is going to come up to them and say, "I love your blithe walking style," or "That last memo you sent out was banal." (Yes, these words were found on SAT vocab lists) I believe that Hirsch may be implying that the wisards in SAT land must redefine what is truly important to the current American people.
Do you agree that standardized testing amounts to "a hidden national curriculum"? What are the problems of this?
I do think that standardized tests amount to a hidden national curriculum. However, I don't think that the problems are as large as some people would like to make them. We live in a society of compeittion, this is shown through our love of sports, our ranking of songs and movies and even our ranking of educational institutions. In order to be able to differentiate between the effectiveness of schools, the government needs to be able to quickly assign them values. Unfortunitely, leaving out certain ethnic groups cultures and native languages including slang is necessary however, this is all apart of assimilating oneself into mainstream society. Slang is to be spoken in the in a informal environment (at home, in the street, with ones peers) not the work place or in educational environments. Governments are trying to display its citizens in the most competitive light, conforming to a set practice is something that students will one day have to do once they enter the work force, the government is just getting them ready.
Do you agree that standardized testing amounts to “a hidden national curriculum”? What are the problems of this?
I would have to agree with Hirsch on this because standardized testing has become so important to young students' future. High school teachers know they have to cover certain areas they know will be on these tests which then could cause them to skip over other areas. So no matter if they believe one thing is more important than another they may discard that area if it is not going to show up on these standardized tests. There is no factual information behind this theory but if the school wants to meet the standards and have a high reputation they might lean towards this "hidden national curriculum" so their students score well. The major problem with this is obvious. We are depriving our students of knowledge that could make them better citizens in society, according to Hirsch, and drowning them with factual knowledge that they will mostly not use past these standardized tests. In my opinion they can not really get rid of standardized testing because they do help to an extent but I do believe we need to lessen the value of these tests.
Are there bigger stakes connected to “cultural literacy” as Hirsch sees it? Does it affect our comprehension of “history,” our national heritage and traditions, our national principles, a national identity, our individual relations to all these topics?
I agree with Hirsch that there should be some type of uniformity in the things that students are taught. I think in order to have a national identity, there must be cultural literacy and vice versa. As much as America is diverse and culturally accepting, I think many Americans, especially younger generations, don't really have a sense of national identity. I think a lot of Americans identify whites, blacks, Asians, etc. as different from themselves and not as fellow Americans. While it is important to learn about other cultures and countries and be accepting of other people, I think it is just important to honor one's own heritage - the American heritage in particular. If certain texts were required for all students, I think this would help to not only educate Americans about their own history, but unify them as one people that share a common belief in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
What is “cultural literacy” as Hirsch is talking about it in this essay? How is his focus relevant to the early part of the essay in which he cites SAT scores…what was his original argument?
Hirsch asserts that cultural literacy is being aware of information the "common reader" could be expected to know. This canonical knowledge helps each one of us operate on a daily basis. Hirsch pointed out that when a topic is unfamiliar, the writer/reader's skills decline because not as much attention is payed to form or words are simply not known.
This focus on cultural literacy is relevant to the decline in SAT scores cited because Hirsch argued that the methods and techniques of instruction are not things that need to be modified, but the content needs to be adjusted to suit the learner. Hirsch also late argues for a national curriculum that would unify America's culture more and end the cultural fragmentation that is causing a decline in verbal test scores.
It seems to me as if Hirsch's reason for the declining verbal SAT scores is mostly due to the curriculum that many schools are teaching their students. He says in his writing how it is an un-suprising comment that the verbal SAT test is basically just a vocabulary test and so in a sense a rich vocabulary would mean a high sense of literacy. He mentions how from the start of our national life that school curriculum has been an important element in our national culture and is the biggest contributing factor to this problem. Raising reading and writing levels would not depend on better teaching methods as that would only provide marginal improvements.
Hirsch mentions “a lexicon of cultural literacy.” What words does he include? Would you include words like iPod, cell phone, and the verb “to Google”?
In the article Hirsch includes "The First Amendment" as a lexical term. I would include terms like ipod, cell phone and "to google", because I think it is necessary for a person to be familiar with today's technology in order to be functional in today's workforce. However, I feel that history is vital to the future generations of our society and I would add terms of that nature to the list as well. Hirsch also states in his article that lexicon does not work as a national basis for cirriculum, and that at least the SAT serves as some kind of national cirriculum. I think that the lexicon idea could have a more positive outcome on American schools than standardized tests such as the SAT test. I feel that some standardized tests harm students education, and I feel that if the SAT is the closest thing we have to a standard cirriculum that's sad.
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