From Peter Murphy, re. my comments in my last email about curriculum

From Peter Murphy, re. my comments in my last email about curriculum:

 

Thanks for running the Pondiscio stuff.

 

But I have to disagree with you on part of your response to him:

 

"My response: perhaps trite is the wrong word.  I'm certainly not dismissing the importance of teacher and curriculum quality – in fact, nothing is more important.  My point is that this is non-controversial – everyone's been saying this for decades, but nothing has changed." 

 

Wrong. Everyone has NOT been saying "this" (that rich, core content is essential) for years; or, if they say it, they don't mean it. In fact, Hirsch's curriculum ideas are not only largely unknown and misunderstood (as David Steiner wrote in Ed Next a number of years ago, Hirsch is NOT taught in schools of education) they are NOT practiced in most of our schools. This is why we are doing Common Core STANDARDS not curriculum -- people are afraid of curriculum.  Sad, but true.

 

Fair enough.  Maybe I spend a lot of time with people who understand the importance of curriculum…