I have a love-hate relationship with the Hirsch books:
1. Much (all?) of the content covers topics that are useful to know, imho.
2. The whole idea of just spamming content is an incredibly reductionist approach to education. There is much more to learn out there.
3. Hirsch’s approaches to cultural literacy are tough for some folks to follow. On the surface, it sounds very oppressive. A slightly deeper look would say that it is a realist approach. A deep academic look would say that it misses a lot of what is probably possible in education and is focused on looking back rather than looking forward.
I do recommend folks check out his books and see if it floats your boat, but I also recommend that they don’t assume that they are complete as is in terms of what kids actually need to learn and know.
1. Much (all?) of the content covers topics that are useful to know, imho.
2. The whole idea of just spamming content is an incredibly reductionist approach to education. There is much more to learn out there.
3. Hirsch’s approaches to cultural literacy are tough for some folks to follow. On the surface, it sounds very oppressive. A slightly deeper look would say that it is a realist approach. A deep academic look would say that it misses a lot of what is probably possible in education and is focused on looking back rather than looking forward.
I do recommend folks check out his books and see if it floats your boat, but I also recommend that they don’t assume that they are complete as is in terms of what kids actually need to learn and know.