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E.D. Hirsch

E.D. Hirsch
By Paul Denman

Philosophy of Education

Introduction
Hirsch founded, who the Core Knowledge Foundation in 1986, wrote Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs To Know in 1987. He also co-wrote The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy in 1988. In 1996, he published The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them.   Hirsch outlines a philosophy of education that focuses on a universal core curriculum that is structured to the point that every school teaches the same content in the same grade level.   The intent of his curriculum is to create citizens that are culturally literate who can compete in today's world.  

Hirsch's Philosophy
Hirsch's ideology is considered extremely controversial.   Although Hirsch is a liberal, he has been labeled by many an advocate for a conservative curriculum and a promoter of "drill and kill" pedagogy. He has been criticized for not observing differences in learning styles and for omitting multiculturalism from his arguments and failing to see race, class and gender's influence in the classroom.
Gradually, however, as students who attended schools that have adopted his philosophy and curriculum demonstrated superior achievement.   Thus, his ideas have become widely accepted. (www.coreknowledge.com) There are now over 1,000 of these "Core Knowledge" schools in the United States.
Hirsch favors a more Augustinian view and tells the story in his book from St. Augustine's Confessions about the young Augustine and his friends stealing pears. He believes that Augustine considered human nature perverse and corrupt from birth. "The aim of education is not to follow human nature but to correct it, to set it on a path of virtue… to give one's fallen natural instincts
free rein would beget a life of greed, selfishness and crime" (Hirsch, 1996, p.73). Hirsch writes that the aim of civilization, and of education, is to follow nature less   than to guide it toward humane and worthy ends. This is an ancient principle and the...