The notable scholar E. D. Hirsch is offering a radical new proposal: That schools actually teach CONTENT. Ever since Dewey, the assumption has been that schools don’t need to teach knowledge; rather, they should teach processes. (Classical education, of course, teaches both.) Here Hirsch shows how the efforts to teach reading, as in No Child Left Behind, are failing. Gaining comprehension in reading, according to the research he cites, involves building upon other KNOWLEDGE of what the reading is about. You can’t just teach comprehension as a process.
Actually teaching CONTENT
February 18th, 2008 | Education | 
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[...] Cranach: The Blog of Veith wrote an interesting post today on Actually teaching CONTENTHere’s a quick excerpt (Classical education, of course, teaches both…. [...]
Thanks for posting this article and the next one on critical thinking. I’m in my first semester at seminary and I’m struggling to understand much of what I’m reading partly because its all new to me. So these articles encourage me to keep reading and become more familiar with the material. Hopefully that will help the comprehension to go a little more quickly. This quote from the article was particulary helpful:
“Language comprehension is a slow-growing plant. Even with a coherent curriculum, the buildup of knowledge and vocabulary is a gradual, multiyear process that occurs at an almost imperceptible rate. The results show up later.”
It may be imperceptible, but it’s real, right? With diligence, the results do show up. Thanks again.
[...] writers and the proprietor of the terrific Cranach blog (and provost at Patrick Henry College), has three quick posts today on classical education. He touches briefly on teaching content rather than [...]
Prof. Veith, could you briefly define what you mean by “classical education”? I have one idea of what this term means in my head, but I’d like to make sure that this term is clearly defined for all.
(My idea is summed up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_education_movement .)
That’s a pretty good account, Robert. Another term for classical education is “liberal arts.”
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Gene Edward Veith is the Provost and Professor of Literature at Patrick Henry College, the Director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary, a columnist for World Magazine and TableTalk, and the author of 18 books on different facets of Christianity & Culture.
Lucas Cranach, self portrait c.1530.
About Lucas Cranach
Lucas Cranach was the great artist of the Reformation. He was a close friend of Martin Luther. He was a businessman, who first printed Luther's translation of the Bible; a politician, who served on the Wittenberg town council and served the city as its mayor; a chemist, who operated a pharmacy; a teacher, who trained a host of apprentice artists; a family-man, who helped arrange Luther's marriage with the two men serving as the godfathers of each other's children; and an active layman in his church, who gave his pastors important personal and material support. As a Christian who lived out his faith in his many different callings, Cranach thus embodies the Reformation doctrine of vocation, using the gifts God had given him in service to Christ and his neighbor in the church, the family, the workplace, and the culture. In the spirit of Lucas Cranach, this blog will discuss wide-ranging issues of Christianity and culture with a Lutheran twist.
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