For those on the 'knowledge' side of the (false) dichotomy
in education, Hirsch's idea - of identifying the knowledge needed to understand
the 'cultural capital' of an educated person - is just what is required.
For those on the 'skills' side, specifying the knowledge
that kids should know, and in what year it might be a good idea to teach is, is
a very bad thing and will lead to children sitting in rows, practicing recall
of unrelated facts.
However, as Laura McInerney points out in a recent blog, specifying content does
not specify the way in which it can be taught, and that in itself, Hirsch's
core knowledge curriculum does not limit what a teacher does, or how children
learn this information.
I thought that it would be an interesting exercise to read a
paper with the aim of identifying what knowledge was required to make sense the
stories contained in it. So on Friday morning, I picked up the Metro, and
on my train journey, read each story to try and identify any underlying
concepts, ideas, facts that might be helpful in understanding what was
happening in the world. Although this is a snapshot only there were a lot
of topics and ideas included. I also stopped making notes before I got to
the entertainment, finance and sports pages, so what follows is just from the
'news' section of the paper.
Topics and ideas.
Perhaps unsurprisingly in a newspaper there was a lot of
underlying information about the law and judicial system required. Some
of the things mentioned were: Crown court,
Magistrates court, Judge, Solicitor, Jury, parole, perjury and (a blast from the past) Borstal.
There were also law related ideas such as: Fraud , Shoplifting, Coroner, Court martial, MI5, SAS,
house-arrest, Information commissioner, Data protection act and political concepts such as: Unions and their links with Labour, the Commons, shadow
cabinet, Democracy, anti-apartheid, German Chancellor, The Whitehouse
Science and medicine also found their place into the paper: Vegetative state, Life support machine, Dorsal region of
brain, Radio waves from space, Crosswinds, Post-natal depression, Spinal damage
(prolapsed disc, cauda equina syndrome), Down syndrome, Galaxies, Airspace,
Satellite images, Earthquakes and the richter scale, Mirage, Kidney
failure, Negative feedback, Breast cancer, Evolutionary psychologists,
Professor of health psychology, US Food and Drug Administration,
Traditional chinese medicine (and use of animal parts). Notably, some of these terms (especially those related to
medicine) were explained in slightly more detail - perhaps because it isn't
assumed to be general knowledge. There were also units of measurements included
in some stories, including for area square inch and square centimetre
There were also a number of
animals mentioned, but interestingly, no plants that I spotted. Starfish,
Pubic lice, Zebra-snouted seahorse, Mites (in cheese)
Political geography also
appears, as well as news from around the world. I haven't included all
the countries that were mentioned in the 'news in brief' stories here, but the
reader would have needed to know about the current and historical situations of
South Africa, Afghanistan (Helmand Province) and Egypt to
understand the context of some of the other stories in the paper.
A variety of people were mentioned, historical and
contemporary, real and fictional: Boudica (with
very brief summary of her story), Genghis Khan (and Mongol empire), Louis XIV,
Mahatma Ghandi, Bhudda, Osama bin Laden, German chancellor, Bolshoi Ballet, Lex
Luther, Hamlet, Homer.
The reader would also need to
understand the historical dating system that we use: BC, AD and century
There were also words and
phrases which were used that I think required some general knowledge, or that
were quotes. 'Letting the cat out of the bag', 'Went off the rails',
Uber-cool, 'Cathartic', Old testament 'eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for
hand, foot for foot', Media tycoon, Customer backlash, Sexist, Standing
ovation, Toupee, Brothel, Parallel parking, Fromage, Spin bowling
And...
Well, I don't think I could make
a coherent curriculum out of one day's news, but there was a lot of information
that was assumed and implicit in the stories.
How are our children going to
find out that information? Can it (should it) be taught?
