Core Knowledge: Who Are the Snake-Oil Salesmen?

The following was recently posted on math-teach by the always-remarkable Professor Wayne Bishop, who never saw a progressive educational idea he didn't despise:

http://www.coreknowledge.org/blog/2009/02/03/21st-century-snake-oil/


21st Century Snake Oil

Published by Robert Pondiscio on February 3, 2009 in Core Knowledge, Curriculum and Education News. Tags: 21st century skills, Alfie Kohn, content knowledge, critical thinking, Curriculum, Jay Greene, Tony Wagner.

Yesterday, Alfie Kohn; today Tony Wagner.

Jay Greene goes after the education guru on his blog and in an op-ed in the Northwest Arkansas Morning News. The Fayetteville Public School system has purchased 2,000 copies of Wagner's The Global Achievement Gap and is holding a series of public meetings, according to Greene, on how Wagner's vision for 21st century skills "might guide our schools." Be afraid, says Jay. Be very afraid.

It's hard to get people to think critically about people who push a focus on critical thinking. To be for critical thinking is like being for goodness and light. The tricky part is in how you get there. To the extent that Wagner has any concrete suggestions, he seems to be taking folks down the wrong path. He wants less emphasis on content and less testing. But he shows no evidence that higher levels of critical thinking can be found in places or at times when there was less content and less testing. In fact, the little evidence he does provide would suggest the opposite.

Joanne Jacobs weighs in as well, pointing to a Sandra Stotsky op-ed on Tony Wagner, and noting succinctly: "I don't see excess knowledge as a big problem for today's students."

Cultural Literacy Bonus: Check out the illustration atop Jay's blog post. It's Bugs Bunny dressed as a Wagnerian Valkyrie from the cartoon, What's Opera, Doc? Can you imagine a kid's cartoon using Wagner's Ring Cycle as the basis of a parody today? It's a bromide to suggest that entertainment has been dumbed-down over time, but it's hard not to notice the difference in the vocabulary of Mary Poppins, for example, or the Rex Harrison version of Doctor Doolittle compared to contemporary kids' fare. Quantifying the change in cultural references and vocabulary level in children's entertainment over the last 50 years or so would make for an interesting study, if it hasn't already been done.

Well, pardon my lack of excitement at the above from Bishop and his Core Knowledge buddies, but I felt compelled to craft a response:

Just reading the name of this blog and the first few lines had me in hysterics (the fun kind).

"The Core Knowledge Blog

Closing the Achievement Gap: Teaching Content"

Funny. And the rest of us are, of course, NOT teaching content. Sez the Hirschies.

Of course, they have a very narrow definition of what comprises "content": namely just precisely what THEY say it is, and nothing else. Beware! Fascism lurks here.

Then, the blogger quotes Jay Greene in order to attack Mr. Wagner (whose ideas are not particularly appealing to me, but clearly any enemy of my enemy deserves my consideration):

"It’s hard to get people to think critically about people who push a focus on critical thinking. To be for critical thinking is like being for goodness and light."

Yeah, and being "for content" is not a pile of equally empty baloney? Doesn't "which content" matter? Oops. See above. THEIR content, of course. Want to know which? Pay Mr. Hirsch and pals and they'll sell you all the books you don't need to find out what a narrow-minded old white guy thinks your Nth Grader "needs" to know. And just as a reminder: this is the "educational expert" whose credentials are being a literature professor at University of Virginia who suddenly decided he could make a lot more money shilling guides to K-12 educational content. And whose literary theory is that there's one right interpretation to every literary work, based on the "intention" of the author (apparently he managed to ignore the notion of the "intentional fallacy" or simply figured no one would notice that his view was outdated and for the most part irrelevant). This is the guy you want telling you what you and your kids need to know? I think you could do just as well to get advice from MEIN KAMPF, THE LITTLE RED BOOK, and THE EXECUTION ORDERS OF JOSEPH STALIN (okay, I made that last one up).

And then we have this bit of sophistry:

"Cultural Literacy Bonus: Check out the illustration atop Jay's blog post. It's Bugs Bunny dressed as a Wagnerian Valkyrie from the cartoon, What's Opera, Doc? Can you imagine a kid's cartoon using Wagner's Ring Cycle as the basis of a parody today? It's a bromide to suggest that entertainment has been dumbed-down over time, but it's hard not to notice the difference in the vocabulary of Mary Poppins, for example, or the Rex Harrison version of Doctor Doolittle compared to contemporary kids' fare. Quantifying the change in cultural references and vocabulary level in children's entertainment over the last 50 years or so would make for an interesting study, if it hasn't already been done."

I wonder if this genius actually bothers to watch today's cartoons. Of course, first he pulls a little bait and switch: cartoons and Wagner (and who does he think was supposed to 'get' that joke? Four year olds? No more than the writers of Rocky and Bullwinkle expected little kids to know that Boris Badenov was a play on Boris Gudenov. There have ALWAYS been jokes in kids' cartoon shows that are for the writers and other adults. And such things are far MORE widespread today than ever. I could cite dozens of shows and movies ostensibly pitched at kids, from SPONGEBOB SQUARE PANTS to RUGRATS to Disney's ALADDIN to BILLY AND MANDY (and on to more sophisticated fare for older kids and up, like SOUTH PARK, AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE, ROBOT CHICKEN, FAMILY GUY, etc.) in which the references are multi-layered, culturally sophisticated, and fraught with vocabulary and references my son constantly learned from and continues to learn from. As he gets older (nearly 14 now) he sees levels of things in these shows he missed when he was younger. No kidding: just as I am amazed at things in those old WB cartoons and CRUSADER RABBIT, BEANIE AND CECIL, etc., that went right by the much younger me at the time they first aired or I first saw them). And then suddenly we're talking about Mary Poppins and Doctor Doolittle. Nice. So then let's compare the vocabulary in those books (as well as the sophistication of ideas presented) with Harry Potter and Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy, to be fair and accurate? Or would that ruin the sales pitch for Core Knowledge?

Let me sum up: Wayne and his Core Knowledge pals are the snake oil salesmen. Don't buy it, it's really bad for you and expensive as well