After reading E.D. Hirsch Jr.'s Chapter on Literacy and Cultural Literacy, I was reminded of the arguments that I have been having lately with my own children. My Mother-in-law and I have touched upon these areas during the stressful time of night called, homework time! Very often we will discuss how come they (the grandchildren) do not know a particular subject or particular way to solve a problem. Very often we will say, "when I was in school we did ______ or we were taught this way and it worked!" These arguments with the kids or discussions with the kids, are usually followed with the kids saying, "we don't learn that anymore" or "we don't do it that way anymore." Very often I wonder "why not?!" As a parent I have a very different view of what the kids should know, and what I don't think they need to concentrate on as much. I liked that Hirsch stated "Preschool is not too early for starting earnest instruction in literate national culture. Fifth grade is almost too late. Tenth grade usually is too late." (Chapter one, Pg. 17). I like the ages he chose because I happen to have a tenth grader, a sixth grader and a second grader all living in my house. Perhaps we are so busy worrying about what the kids need to know, that we are forgetting that we should add in, by what age should they know these items? We've all seen those commercials on television where your 9 month old can be fluent in a different language and your baby can learn to read by age 4 months. Perhaps they are onto something!
E.D Hirsch Jr. then came up with a list of "What Literate Americans Know." As an educator, I can't even imagine what a difficult task it would be to decide upon what is the most important topics for kids to know. Can you imagine the faculty meeting in which you have all of the disciplines sitting together and coming up with one list of the most important things for the kids to know before they graduate? It would not be a very civil meeting! In order to make that meeting worthwhile, the administration would have to have each department come up with a list of items the kids should know by the end of their course. At that point they could combine some departments to cross reference their lists, and then eventually the lists would all be compared and edited. It would still be a difficult task, because we are only one school/school district. Imagine having to decide which words are the most important to know across the country? Region? World? This would be a daunting task that would have many heated debates. I also think that as soon as the list was close to being done, the whole list would need to be edited because new and improved items would need to be added into the list. I don't think that this list could ever be completed, or it would need to be edited every year.
Based upon this thought, I tried to come up with the words/phrases that a student would need to know in order to be literate in Family and Consumer Science by the end of taking my 7th grade class:
Anemia, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, Beverage Glass, Calorie, Carbohydrates, Calcium, Chocolate, Chocolate Powder, Decision Making, Dessert Fork, Dessert Plate, Dessert Spoon, Dinner Fork, Dinner Knife, Dinner Plate, Dry Measuring Cup, Etiquette, Fat, Flour, Fiber, Fruits, Ginger, Herbs, Ingredient, Iron, Labels, Liquid Measuring Cup, Macronutrients, Manners, Measuring, Measuring Cup, Micronutrients, Minerals, Napkin, Nutrients, Nutrition, Osteoporosis, Paprika, Protein, Rainbow of colors, Salt, Salad Fork, Sodium, Soluble Fiber, Sugar, Tablespoon, Teacup, Tea Glass, Teaspoon, Values, Vanilla, Vegetables, Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B12, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Water, Water Glass...
At this point I have decided since this is only the first two units in my curriculum, that this is going to take a lot longer to write than I thought that it would take! I am going to say to you the reader, keep watching, this list will get longer as I edit it and add to it. I have to look at all of the class material and decide, which is the most important for the students to know. As I was going through the list for my class, which is only a class for ten weeks. I started to think of what Hirsch had to go through just to do one column of his own list, and I can't even imagine what knowledge base he must have in order to narrow down the generations of topics that he did to get his list for "What Literate Americans Know". I now know why you probably can never answer the question, "what makes a person literate?" Especially if you are basing this answer upon one person's view of what items should make this list. In short, being literate, or culturally literate, must mean different things to different people.
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