Political Liberals and Education Conservatives

To me, this is the best thing Prof. Bauerlein has written on “Brainstorm”: thoughtful, clear, reasonable, and more or less from scratch (as opposed to synopsizing a recent poll or study).Sincere question: How is an educationally conservative core curriculum to be implemented in a small-government, de-centralized, marketplace-of-ideas environment? (No, that’s not the environment that we have, but it is–from what I gather from the overall thrust of his posts–the one that Prof. Bauerlein desires.)

As one of these educational conservatives and political liberals, I find it curious that Prof. Bauerlein omits science from his discussion of his “core body of knowledge”. This is not unique, since, for example, Columbia’s core curriculum lacked any science component until about six years ago, when its “Frontiers in Science” course began. Chicago’s core, in contrast, has always had a science component. In a world where the energy crisis, global warming, nuclear power and even evolution are debated, the educated citizen needs a better understanding of science.To broaden the discussion, as a physicist and religious reader of the Chronicle, I have found curious the fact that (non-social) science rarely appears in the Chronicle. Does this reflect the persistent gap between “the two cultures”? Has there ever been a contributing editor to the Chronicle with a background in natural science?Milton Cole, Penn State

Mark, you describe the objectives but not the goals. My understanding of the core difference between education conservatives and educ liberals is that educ conservatives believe that the underlying goal is to produce a particular kind of society, e.g. one indoctrinated into a patriotic, hegemony-supporting, economically efficient worldview. Thus, and very ironic for a group labeled “conservative”, the needs of the individuals are utterly subordinated to the needs of society. By contrast, the educ liberal believes that education is about facilitating the actualization of each individual’s potential and to help that individual best meet their personal aspirations. You pointed out the down side of this being a “fragmented” society, but liberals would argue that what you label fragmentation is “diversity”, not a bad thing. This is a fundamental dispute at the heart of the liberal-conservative divide. There is enormous lack of efficiency and probably of traditional economic productivity in the chaotic kind of society the liberal seeks to create via the tool of education compared to what conservatives want, no doubt, but it’s a price liberals think worth paying for a perceived quality of life value.To avoid facing that divide, by dismissing the value choices of the other side as casually as you did with your “fragmented society” comment as if there were universal agreement with you on the philosophical issue, is to miss (or perhaps inadvertently illustrate) the whole point of why there is a divide that seems so unresolvable.

I join goxewu (1) in commending the Prime Poster for his clarity and considered presentation. I share Restlessmind (4)’s appraisal of where the real threat to Higher Education is coming these days, and, while not necessarily adopting his “utter subordination” view, agree with Mbelvadi (5) that there is a fundamental difference underlying and serving as steering winds for these education strategy assumptions and disputes. I suggest that cause and effect may have been mistaken each for the other. Mr. Bauerlein says that ” To education conservatives, a fragmented curriculum leads to a fragmented society.” I suggest that we have, to the extent we do, a fragmented curriculum because we have a fragmented society. I am reminded of an essay once published by the anthropologist Leslie A White entitled “Education: America’s Magic”.

Good question about the absence of natural science. Science has a central place in core curricula, but because of the progressive nature of scientific inquiry, the liberal/conservative divide works somewhat different there. It’s more an epistemological dispute wherein conservatives are realists (they believe that some knowledge is independent of individual knowers) while liberals are constructivists (knowledge is not independent of individual knowers). This difference doesn’t much play out in primary and secondary science classrooms, though.And about education conservatives fostering “patriotism” and “hegemony,” you’re right–sort of. They do want to inspire patriotism, but a critical patriotism, not a jingoistic one. That is, they want to inspire loyalty to the principles and ideals of American democracy (that’s the root of the hegemony they espouse) and vigilant criticism when the nation fails them. To do the latter well, they say, requires a good bit of familiarity with the Founding, the Bill of Rights, the Progressive Era, . . .And you could be right, jfoster: our fragmented curriculum is a consequence, not a cause, of a fragmented society. Finally, nice words like “diversity” can’t cover up the fact that if knowledge of a civilization’s roots and developments is scattered and meager among the citizenry, it’s in trouble.

Sorry “gox” and “jff”, this piece is no more than Bauerlein at his sneakiest. He has been getting blasted recently for the obvious political agenda he has been spewing into every “Braincramp” he gets. You two are normally very perceptive, but today you allowed Bauerlein to intoxicate you with his over abundance of the subtlety and his use of even greater disguises than normal. If I counted correctly, he used the words “Conservative”, “Conservatives”, “Conservatism” seventeen times; he used the words “liberal”, “liberalism”, but four times. In each usage those deemed “conservative” were on the high end of the topic. they were the solid educators, the very best, the tried and true. But when “Liberal” was used, those poor uninitiated souls were on the tainted end of the spectrum. They were just plain out of it – virtually not worthy of even much attention. This was Bauerleins subliminal approach at its best. As you know, Bauerlein has been criticized recently for introducing political innuendos into his writings. Posters have perceptively pointed out that he did not have to do that to make his points. Bauerlein has and will continue to ignore that valid criticism for obvious reasons. Today is another stark example of that criticism. This story could have been written without any use of the words “Conservative” or “Liberal”. It could have used “Traditionalists” in place of “Conservatives” and “Moderm Approach” for “Liberal”. Then he might even have introudiced the notion of how the “modern”, such as a recently prepared faculty member, has the vast world of technology in his/her arsenal that the “traditionalists” did not.One more point which totally bemuses me. Look at the second sentence in the second paragraph. Bauerlein criticizes 18 year olds for NOT having the wisdom to select the “right” core courses. But this is the same Bauerlein who has, on numerous occasions in the past, praised the brilliance and wisdom of those 18 yr. olds who voted for his “right” wing buddies who he relentlessly works to get elected.

Re #11:Perhaps it’s partly because, at 6:30am this morning, I poured orange juice into my coffee and had to start over, but I really don’t need being patronized by willynilly. Counting the appearances of “conservative” in Bauerlein’s post, accusing the (“normally very perceptive”) jffoster and me of being “intoxicated” by Bauerlein’s alleged sneakiness and guises, dragging in that Bauerlein has been previously criticised for his politics on previous posts (haven’t we all!), and taking an irrelevant swipe at Bauerlein’s praise of some 18-year-old voters, have little if anything to do with the merits of “Political Liberals and Education Conservatives.” The post itself, whatever the byline, is, as I said, “thoughtful, clear, reasonable.”Although willynilly performs, on balance, a service by playing Michael Moore to Bauerlein’s “Roger,” he greatly undercuts his own powers of persuasion (unless he’s commenting just to make himself feel better, which is a distinct possibility) by being so constantly strident. willynilly is a bit like “The Ed Show” compared to “Hannity”: on the better side of things, but still not what you’d call profound or astute political discourse. But if willynilly aspires to be no more than the flip side of the Tea-Party-mindset commenters on “Brainstorm,” I suppose that’s his problem.Re #9:I’d really appreciate an answer from Prof. Bauerlein as to how an education conservative’s core curriculum would be implemented in colleges and/or high schools across the country without some kind of centralized power (a national school system, a mandatory national equivalent of a state regents’ exam written by a central authority, etc.) that a professed small-government libertarian such as he would seem to abhor. In #1, I forewent mentioning sarcastically that perhaps Prof. Bauerlein might help find a way to implement such a core curriculum by returning to work for the Federal Government, at another one of those small-government-adovcate favorite agencies, this time instead of the NEA, the NEH or the Department of Education. Maybe indulging in this dig will prompt him to reply.

As someone who has criticized Prof. Bauerlein in the past for introducing what I thought were irrelevant political commentaries into his posts, I wanted to say that I too thought this piece as reflective, thoughtful and even eloquent. I don’t think he fairly presented the positions of those who are not “education conservatives,” but I am willing to overlook that, since I think the purpose of the piece is to express what Prof, Bauerlein sincerely believes,and I can respect those beliefs. I would be interested to know whether Hirst really has empirical evidence for his claim concerning the “inertness and stability of the shared background knowledge students need to master reading and writing.” It’s a pretty sweeping argument, with several different components: What shared knowledge is really needed to understand all the media peole are exposed to? How inert and stable is that knowledge? It is inert and stable in the way people think it is? Would cultural knowledge of the core really lead to economic advancement and social mobility? Without answers to these questions, the position of conservative educationalists risks becoming circular (a core needs to be instituted so that students have the shared background knowledge to understand the core, and since the access to the core is what promotes social mobility, access to the core will promote social mobility). I haven’t read Hirst in a while, but I believe Labov is taking an entirely different approach to promoting literacy. http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/#Research%20on%20readingI guess in the end I believe that, in the absence of a pre-existing consensus about whether we even need to have a shared knowledge, let alone what that knowledge should be, the imposition of a core becomes more divisive than unifying. I doubt Hirsch’s Core Knowledge sequence would even be instituted, even up to the 8th grade (how much government involvement would that take?) So in the end, I think of this piece almost as an eulogy, perhaps in the same way Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy is (and I don’t mean that in a snarky way, I respect Arnold’s beliefs even I disagree with them).

I’m a liberal teacher who definitely falls on the side of educational conservative. I love the fact that I teach at a high school with a rigorous core curriculum in English: World literature classics in 9th and 10th grade (from Greek drama and poetry to Dante to some contemporary Third World lit), British lit out of the Norton Anthology in 11th and American lit in 12th. And I teach a lot of the “background information” Hirsch sees as essential.However, I still think the high-level skills are the real make-or-break aspects of my teaching. I have my juniors memorize nearly 100 Greek and Latin rhetorical terms (such as polysyndeton and meiosis and chiasmus), but the real test is how they use that knowledge when they explicate Pope’s “Essay on Man” or Swift’s “Modest Proposal.” The debaters often argue past one another. Hirsch often overemphasizes the basic knowledge and rote memorization, but only because he sees it as lacking. However, in interviews, he ackknowledges that this knowledge is only useful for real-world problem solving. And those skills are best taught, according to all available research, by inquiry, discovery, etc. learning stategies. (And before your hackles are raised by those terms, let’s remember that the research paper is an good old-fashioned inquiry learning project.)Students need a strong foundation both in bedrock knowledge and in complex skills applying that knowledge to problems. Which means that students need to be taught in a variety of ways, from lectures to modeling to indepedent learning.

No, Mark, I don’t chide Hirsch for that. I simply think that Hirsch gets accused of only favoring rote memorization, which isn’t true, at the same time that he often fails to acknowledge the overwhelming research that demonstrates that “progressive education” effectively teaches higher-level thinking skills. My point is that we need to go beyond politics and simply consider “backwards design” — what do you want children to learn and what’s the most effective way to teach that? If you want kids to learn vocabulary, drills and memorization is the most effective way. (And cultural literacy is essentially an advanced vocabulary situation.) But if you want students to apply a certain vocabulary to the solving of a problem, memorization will not teach that skill.

Mark, Hirsch cites the Good, et al study as evidence that progressive education does not teach higher level skills. If you actually consult that source, you’ll see that Hirsch willfully misrepresented the article and that Hirsch’s conclusions are the exact opposite of the research findings the authors published. The authors instead found that problem- and inquiry-based teaching does a better job than rote learning at teaching problem solving skills. They also confirmed that rote learning is more successful at teaching facts. I’ve only read *Cultural Literacy* and *The Knowledge Deficit*, but neither presents much real longitudinal research that proves the Good study wrong. Instead, Hirsch looks at high school test scores as evidence that progressive education has failed.However, as many of Hirsch’s critics have pointed out, progressive education is *not* to be found at most of our schools. Walk into an American high school, and you will see teachers talking and students listening (or not). Or students reading textbooks and answering questions and filling in worksheets. You will not see students engaged in inquiry- or problem-based learning or independent research. Look at middle school ELA classrooms: how many look anything like Nancy Atwell’s constructivist classroom, with students following independent reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar plans? Compare the types of lessons Jerome Bruner designed for math and science education with what really goes on in most math and science classrooms. Compare a real Dewey-inspired classroom with the average American classroom. Constructivist education dominates education programs, not real world teaching. However, travel to many of the nation’s top private schools, and you will see literature circles, Socratic seminars, discovery learning, student-designed experiments, etc. Look at the Exeter model, where students lead the discussions — that’s where our nation’s most powerful families send their children, who become the future leaders of the country.And then simply consider examples we are all familiar with. Spend two years in a foreign country, and you will come out speaking the new language with far more mastery than after two years in a foreign language class that emphasizes memorization. Learning by doing, by trial and error, has its successes. Or think about teaching writing: how many lectures on the qualities of a great essay make students great writers? No, students learn to write by modeling their writing on the examples of masters, by writing and writing and getting feedback on their writing and revising and writing some more. You can have students memorize *The Elements of Style* but you won’t see the writing improve. Or, you can have students write model sentences and paragraphs based on the work of masters, and you will see an improvement. Or consider all the employers you’ve ever heard complain about new employees who know all the facts about their field but who cannot apply them because they have no experience. A good lawyer has memorized all the precedents but has also learned by doing, by trying and failing and trying again. (Finally, consider the Novak research out of MIT. Testing graduating senior physics majors, Novak determined that while the students could recite the equations, they could not explain the actual relationships among the key concepts in the field. Novak’s concept mapping techniques — a form of constructivist learning that emphasizes constant reflection on the part of students — have proved effective in science education not only in diagnosing where the students are stumbling but in getting the students to see why their errors are errors.)

Mark, I’m not even sure just how much progressivism is in state standards. I’ve taught in New York and Washington States, and both of those states have fairly simple ELA standards centered on reading, writing, speaking, and listening. And of course, having students imitate the masters is an age-old practice. But it’s also a critical part of progressive education, called “modeling” in ed-speak. This means that a teacher might demonstrate first how to use a bunsen burner and then have the students imitate those behaviors. Or a teacher might “lecture” by speaking outloud to the class about her thought processes while interpreting a poem. Or a teacher might give the students a sonnet and ask the class to model their own poems on the sonnet. That’s learning by watching and then doing. It’s not rote.My joke about lectures on how to write was to point out the limitations of rote learning. Composition education has been “progressive” since the ancients: watch and read and then try and try. It’s experimental, trial and error learning. And no, you cannot generalize about MIT or Exeter students. What you can do is trace those students’ education back from private high school to private middle school to private elementary school, and at each stage you’ll see far more progressive education in private schools than in public schools. Hirsch would claim that all those private school students do fine because they get their cultural literacy at home. But he hasn’t spent much time with private school students. Their parents might be far more cultured, but that doesn’t pass on in some Lamarckian fashion. My private school students have the same holes in cultural literacy as my public school students. What they do have is a better K-8 education at progressive private schools.

Luther,When you say “Spend two years in a foreign country, and you will come out speaking the new language with far more mastery than after two years in a foreign language class that emphasizes memorization. Learning by doing, by trial and error, has its successes,” I cannot help but wonder what exactly you mean by “mastery.” A person who grew up in the United States, but never spent a day in the classroom would certainly speak English after a fashion, yet I doubt that anyone would call that mastery, however. On the other hand, someone who had spent two years in a foreign language classroom where they did have to do some memorization would be immensely better off and make far faster progress than someone who’d gone into a country “cold turkey.”

I think, Luther, you make too easy a division between traditional and progressive. You align traditional with “rote” and “passivity.” But if “modeling” is just a new word for an age-old practice, indeed, an altogether traditional one, then the division breaks down. I think you would find many, many practices you consider progressivist being implemented in traditionalist, Core Knowledge schools.

No, Hirsch does not align traditional methods with “rote/drill learning.” To him, progressivist methods follow from a child-centered focus instead of a knowledge-centered focus. Those are his terms. Hirsch praises progressivism when its “sympathy for childhood and the child’s interests was put into the service of delivering a well-defined academic curriculum designed to produce good readers and writers and high-minded citizens” (Making of Americans, 35). But the curriculum deteriorated under its influence because of its “faith that the knowledge Americans need would naturally develop when the child became fully engaged in concrete experiences without the encumbrance of a defined academic curriculum.” The problem, for Hirsch, isn’t that pedagogy relies too much on “projects” and “doing” etc. It is that those activities aren’t firmly tied to “a specific, grade-by-grade subject-matter curriculum.”

More commentary on Mark Bauerlein’s piece can be found on the Core Knowledge foundation blog -http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2010/04/28/education-conservatives-and-political-liberals