Monday, January 07, 2013

I Don't Know What Anyone is Talking About

Robert Pondiscio:

Which brings me to what’s next for your humble blogger. Effective this month, I will be continuing to make the case for content, but in a slightly different form and venue. I will be leading an effort, along with some of the leading thinkers in education and public policy, to launch a new organization to advocate for civic education, to renew and revitalize the civic purpose of education. You will find me here shortly, and for now you can also follow me on Twitter here and Facebook here. You can also email me at rpondiscio@aol.com.

To be sure, I don’t view this as a departure from the work of Core Knowledge, but as an extension of it. Another voice in the happily growing chorus of those who understand and advocate for a content-rich education, and seek to rescue our kids from the joyless, skills-happy, prep-and-test drudgery to which schools too often descend. We have a larger mission to serve in education. One that transcends the unlovely if earnest end of “college and career readiness.” The public purpose of education is citizenship first. Don’s last book was titled, The Making of Americans for a reason.

That would make a lot more sense if it wasn't preceded by praise for the Common Core, which apparently requires history teachers to spend vastly more time (40% by my calculations) teaching a version of the kind of literacy skills that drove Pondiscio up the wall in the first place. The CC does also require analysis of American historical documents in English class by English teachers, but that's bound to be an unsatisfying mess.

But what better comrades could you find to lead an attack on "joyless, skills-happy, prep-and-test drudgery" than Seth Andrew (yes, that asshat) and Rod Paige?

No comments: