School Leadership 2.0
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Fighting Back With Facts
Yes, we can reverse the dark tide in American education. Easily. Teach facts.
First, fully confront the nihilism you are up against. Some people want to pull the plug so that everything substantial drains out of the classroom. All facts, all knowledge, gone. The children will spend their time discussing problems in society, preparing portfolios, working on projects. Nothing these children say or think will mean very much because they won’t know any facts,
I’m reading the excellent new book “Credentialed to Destroy” by Robin Eubanks. It explains why the schools are mediocre and will get worse. Scary. It prompted this post.
One of her best insights is that all the schemes over the last several decades (Outcome Based Education, Goals 2000, Common Core, et al) are the SAME scheme. Eliminating factual content from education is always the goal. The trivial differences are in the jargon, sophistries, pretexts, and propaganda.
So what can you do? Most private schools know what to do; follow them. Classical Academies know what to do; copy them. Core Knowledge from E. D. Hirsch tells you what to do; sign up.
The basic idea is you start in pre-K and teach kids the thousands of fundamental facts they need to know. Teach a few each day. It adds up. Knowing facts and evaluating facts trains the mind to do intellectual work. There’s no substitute.
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I’ve long been obsessed with how to jumpstart the whole educational process. Here are some pieces I have on Improve-Education.org that might be helpful to teachers and curriculum planners:
ARTICLE: “47: Teach One Fact Each Day” (makes basic case for facts and knowledge)
http://www.improve-education.org/id73.html
ARTICLE: “60: Start Early: Smart Content Makes Kids Smarter” (suggests lots of unusual categories of knowledge that kids would like to learn about)
http://www.improve-education.org/id88.html
4-MIN VIDEO: “Kids Need A Solid Foundation of Basic Facts and Knowledge” (gives examples of basic knowledge)
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