“To be truly literate, citizens must be able to grasp the meaning of any piece of writing addressed to the general reader. All citizens should be able, for instance, to read newspapers of substance… (pg 12)” E.D. Hirsch Jr’s list appears, if looked at without any prior knowledge, to be a hodge-podge of unrelated, interscholastic terms. In reality it is, a well-crafted list including literature, language, history and science terms. My concern when reading though the list is that it appears to give equal importance to unconnected concepts. I feel this removes the human perspective of the individual student and educator. As learners we each have subjects or topics that interest us. I love history, while my wife is totally disinterested. She learns from me and I from her (although, I know she often is not listening!). The educational standards are rising and students are struggling to keep up. Instructional programs such as The Wilson Reading Program promote teaching the structure of language but do not incorporate the skill of comprehension. With training we can decode anything, but understand the true meaning is the difficult part. The idea of a 'well-rounded' person is someone, who I believe has bits of knowledge of many things but does not have a deep understanding of them.
It is true that in order for us to understand each other we must not only hear what the other is saying but also we must understand the concepts. I get that but, as a history teacher, Spanish teacher, husband, and father the need for me to truly understand the concept of wave-particle duality has never surfaced.
Another author, Robert Fulghum, crafted his own list of important terms. He titled it: All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. This poem leads the learner towards a life that is simple and kind. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule, love, basic sanitation, ecology, politics, equality and sane living. Plus the idea of cookies and milk everyday at 3 o’clock is genius.
As I was initially browsing though E.D. Hirsch Jr’s remarkable list of important information I found myself humming We Didn’t Start The Fire by Billy Joel. The first line goes like this:
“Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio”
I checked and several of those topics are on Hirsch’s list. Of course, I do not know if Joel consulted the list when composing his lyrics, but it might have helped.
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