 Hello everyone, this is Ross at Teacher Talk at the most influential blog on education in the UK. Today I am honoured to be joined by Edie Hirsch, Don Hirsch, an American educator and academic literary critic, and particularly famous, probably here for teachers here in the UK who are familiar with the terms cultural literacy, and I know a couple of the books that I have read from Don include The Schools, We Need Them, Why We Don't Have Them, and one of my most recent favourites, Why Knowledge Matters, and Don's got a new book out which we're going to talk about called How to Educate a Citizen. Don, I know you're a very wise and experienced man, could you introduce yourselves to our listeners and give us a brief synopsis of your new piece of work? Well, my life is so long and ancient now that I won't go through all the stages, but I was an English literature, I was an English professor of English literature, and I got interested in language and the technical side of language, and there was just about the time I was doing this, I found out from psychological research that it turns out that the unsaid is very important to understanding what is written down or what is said openly, and this whole range of background knowledge is needed to understand what people are saying. Well, fast forward to the classroom, and so those kids in the classroom, some of them are understanding what you the teacher are saying, and some of them are not understanding it, and the distinction between those two is whether they have the relevant background knowledge to understand the language. Pauli put the kettle on, we'll all have tea, put the kettle on what? And what's in the kettle? And that, some kids know, some kids don't, so the kids that don't are mystified and they're left behind. So it was about making that implicit, more explicit, and give a level in the playing field that I guess is where you're turning. That's right. That was the real motivation of all my work in pedagogy and in education, early education, my focus on early education because the focus is on equity. Well, excellence as well as equity, both are actually go together, because everybody in the class needs to be brought along so they understand the language of the classroom. I think everybody can understand that, and even at the college level, you find these distinctions between people who understand what's going on, people who don't. But the trick for making the classroom into what the technical people call a speech community is that the classroom, the kids in the classroom, the children need to have the relevant background knowledge for the language of the classroom itself. So they understand the next step in learning. And that seems to me so fundamental now. I mean, that everybody should understand the language of the classroom is a pretty simple idea. Yeah. And of course, a lot of people throw up their hands and say, well, some kids have very favorable backgrounds and some kids have very unfavorable background. But everybody, how do you, especially for kids with with disadvantaged backgrounds, how do, how does, how do you get them to understand what's going on. And I think the answer is not very complicated. If you base what you're saying on on what you have already dealt with in the class, if you're gradually building up the classroom into a speech community so that one topic builds on the prior topic and so on. Then everybody's on an even playing field and actually the work that we've done in the United States indication, yes, that is true. And in fact, if you combine language instruction with knowledge instruction, so to speak, yeah, then kids catch up. Yeah, I'm keen to ask the psychological aspects. Can I just unpick your own personal motivations for your, for your work, you know, you're born in Memphis, which I have been to by the way, and I wasn't there in 1928, like your good self but and I just learned what you what motivated you was at your own childhood your own education itself. I, my parents happened to be a little bit independent of the culture of the south and the intense racism of the south mind you being born in 1928 in Memphis, Tennessee. Racism was totally endemic. I mean, it was part of the southern culture. On the other hand, my parents were a bit of an exception to that and I think that's what started me off on my as it were egalitarian motivations and anti racism. And when I was doing the fast forward couple of few decades and when I was doing the research on language, I wrote a book called theory of interpretation, and that got me into deeply into linguistic science. And so, being motivated by this kind of social egalitarian idea, I, I was chairman of the English department at UVA at the University of Virginia and I, when I stepped down, I decided to become the head of the writing program the creative teaching kids how to write and and there, what I discovered you have the same problem in in writing as you do in reading and comprehending speech, you have to know the background knowledge of the audience you have to know the language itself. And, and so I was doing some actual experimentation. And that took me into some black colleges in in the state of Virginia. And there I found out I couldn't even conduct my research, because the students in that class did not understand the question that this emerged into your cultural literacy types. That's, that's right. Yeah, that's right. So, well, yes, it evolved into a book into everyone's surprise became a best seller. And it was called cultural literacy and I just sort of made a compendium. I did some research with teachers all over the country and so, and into, well, what is it that the literate people know that the not not very literate people don't know. And that produce a list. And of course it was the list that made that that book famous nobody paid any attention to the psychology. Okay, so that's, that's the one is right. Okay, so I'm cognitive psychology and you'll be pleased to hear that are many teachers across British schools internationally not the schools here in the UK are starting to become very interested in the cognitive science of the classroom which is great news. I'm going to just pass two terms by you and that I know you've mentioned in your new book which will come to shortly which here in the UK calls quite a bit of a fuss in terms of probably political division those two words one is knowledge rich. And the other term is child centered a child centered classroom. Can I can I start off with the term knowledge rich first done. Knowledge rich is it is central to what I'm advocating. And it's not just knowledge rich, but coherent to progressive knowledge for the reason I stated at the beginning so the classroom becomes a speech community. But in addition, it's not just to make the classroom a speech community is to develop the knowledge in the student that will enable him to communicate with other people in the society. Effectively, both, and also to understand what is written down to understand that inside you have to have that knowledge base in order to have the language base. And everybody admits you need the language base. What hasn't been understood is you can't have one without the other. You need you need the shared knowledge within the nation in order to have shared communication and that insight needs to be exploited dealt with nobody inside and cognitive science disagrees with that. Can I can I steer this towards the kind of knowledge versus skills debate and for me, the skills underpin all the knowledge you know you can't have those skills without that fundamental knowledge and how do you see this kind of progressive traditional debate that might have evolved as you know that's been redefined as knowledge versus skills, or are they the same thing. That's the that's a fascinating subject. I'm glad you brought it up because another thing that was discovered in cognitive psychology in recent years, besides the knowledge base of language is the knowledge base of skills. There is no such thing as a general skill. There was a chapter just died now a distinguished psychologist named Anders Erickson. Yes, who I'm sorry I just, there was a distinguished psychologist Anders Erickson, who simply said bluntly, there was no such thing as a general skill. Yeah, and, and the the term of art used in psychology is skills are domain specific. So, it means that the old the progressive segment of facts are unimportant general skills, critical thinking and so on, or what's important. It turns out that that's a false debate, or it's a falsely stated debate that that there's no such thing as a general skill. There's no such thing as general critical thinking skills. You have to know what you're talking about or reading about. And that is almost as fundamental as the first point that I made the discovery of the knowledge basis of language, knowledge basis of skills. So you better have a knowledge rich schooling, because since there is no such thing as critical thinking skill in the abstract, and anybody who throws that term around should be challenged, because they don't know what they don't know what they're talking about. Mind you mind you, it's really interesting because one of the progenitors of this kind of education is probably so called child centered education was the American philosopher John Dewey at least he was very influential in the United States, and Dewey admitted that if you didn't have the goal of a general critical thinking skill that progressive education was would be a bust because it was too scattered to diverse people, students studying and learning different things. And if Dewey were alive now he would have said, well, that theory was wrong, because science has shown there's no such thing as a general skill. That's terribly important in discussing this knowledge. Yeah, I mean, if I think of my own, my own cultural literature for pedagogical content knowledge specifically is my own understanding of how critical skills align with the knowledge debate, and how that they underpin pretty much anything else that you can do. And now looking at teachers across the UK system who are engaged with research and theory and cognitive science. You can see how this is starting to evolve teacher pedagogy here in the UK. I want to come to now the child centered topic again it gets a bit of a mixed reputation over here and I think I understand your intentions with it but just can I just hear for podcast listeners benefit your views on the child centered approach. Well, first of all, I think education should be child centered. And the term I like to use in the states it's called personalization or differentiation, those are the technical that the teachers are offered. And maybe in the UK as well. Yeah, for what child, what child centered education is. I like to use the term accommodation, which is taken from biblical studies actually because that's indicating that yes you pay attention to the individual child in order to teach the same content to everybody you do need to accommodate accommodation is critical. Yeah, that's a term that's taken from hermeneutics which we've got those grand biblical study, you know, the good Lord accommodated his language to the understanding of the people and that's why you have certain discrepancies in scripture, but and I like that term accommodation. The child centered education is essentially went to content. At least in the United States it did so that you have diverse content in in English and language study. And that was a step too far was in the state. Because for reasons that we talked about for the beginning of this namely that you have to bring all kids along so they understand the language of the classroom. That that suggests by the way the big difference I suppose technically between a knowledge base and child centered is whether you have whole class instruction. In the states you have a lot of kids in the early grades sitting around the table doing projects and doing that call centers centers and instead of having the whole class and teachers are told in the United States, don't, don't be a sage on the stage be a guide on the side and let everybody do his own thing and discuss it. And that hasn't worked very well the United States has sunk way down in its rankings in the international comparisons and we in the states I need to get hold of ourselves and and change what we're doing. So, and given, you know, I know you take influence from Gramsci, and you talk about John do as well. Are there any things that you still, and you know from Gramsci particular that still influence your thinking today that you just want to highlight for listeners. Well, actually, I put it this way, I have decided to stay away from gurus and turn to scientists. The point about gurus is that they don't necessarily keep up with what we're finding out now. Just give you one significant example, because there's a lot of debate nowadays about culture and whose culture and so on. And what's terribly important to understand is that national cultures are artificial affairs that are created by schools. I mean schools are the other culture creators themselves and and people can have more than one culture. But on the schools of a nation to to implicate a common culture for the country and what's that made of I mean what the constituents are is open for a democratic, but it's the duty of the school leaders to reach a decision about it so that everybody has everybody has a shared culture and and that basic principle. It's very important to see another bit of science, it seems to me, which is the brain studies that have been going on, which children are born with a blank slate. There's no such thing as inherently as a black culture, brown culture. There are no ethnicities that a child is born with ethnicities are made they're not human constructs you'd say. I mentioned the word they're they're human constructs so to speak the way we. And now when I talk about Bramsky influence in yourself and the I know you've worked with some shape or form with Michael Gove and Nick Gibb could you just for a list of you know here in the UK, how you have influenced their thinking that's then influenced education here in England. I'm afraid that's a subject I don't know anything about. I'm delighted to hear that. You're inspiring our politicians which is inspiring our education system. Well, all I can say is isn't it too bad that the that the Brits were smarter than the Americans and got influenced by it. I wouldn't say it was my ideas I put together things, things that I was discovering from cognitive science. I happen to read cognitive science. Yeah, well it's great you'd be pleased to know that a lot of teachers here in the UK are getting really immersed with cognitive science and actually start to write about it as well as influence their own research in the classroom. Good. I'm going to put you in a corner. Could you give me some tips that you would recommend that teachers do in their classrooms that are one one theoretical but two maybe a practical technique. Well, as as I was indicating that change from so called personalization or differentiation where kids are grouped off by themselves. I don't know how much of that kind of pedagogy goes on in Britain as compared to USA. USA is completely kids in the early grades which is what I'm concerned with. Children are all placed around big tables, a group of five or four, five or six kids around a big table and they're all facing each other. And I think there's, there's a lot to be said for the teacher being a sage on the stage instead of a guide on the side because the guide on the side is leaving some kids out. It has been and that's what, that's what the data say. You'll be familiar with the term discovery learning or that child centered approach. Well, that's, now let's talk about the science in relation to discovery learning. I, I wish that a big article by three distinguished cognitive scientists were widely known in the education community but essentially, oh well they've written a series of articles. And it is bunk discovery learning or so called constructivism. That's the bit noir of of American early education because the claim is that if the learner actually goes through the labor and of discovering something themselves and construct knowledge herself that that knowledge will be more firmly implanted and they'll have general skills and so on. Both of those assertions are incorrect. They're not consistent with it with experimentation they're not consistent with cognitive cognitive theory that we now have. In other words, discovery learning is totally incompatible with novice learners, and that's what we have in elementary school after all novice learners, they need to be guided. I'm guessing I'm trying to interpret the theory that you've got that learning shouldn't be left to chance and if we want to kind of have a more equitable society. And where I guess in the UK just like you're sorry the US here we have in UK you have very extreme wealth and very extreme levels of poverty and we're trying to, I guess, give kids a fairer chance by that cultural literacy. If I if I'm close enough to your work done. And I want to just talk about your book and how to educate to citizen. Could I ask you to give us 20 second overview for listeners who are be curious to purchase and read through your work. Well, in a lot of ways we've just covered what's in the book, because after all the bottom line is what do you do in the classroom and that's what we've been talking about. Yes, in addition, in addition, though, I have a plug at the end. Well, I think this, we haven't discussed fully that question of ethnicity and the constructed character of ethnicity and the fact that it's the duty of a nation schools to give everybody as one of their multiple ethnicities a common ethnicity. That's a kind of duty that's horrifying to what I would call the romantic multiculturalists and say, oh, let a thousand flowers move. No, not in the area of language and communication, you can't do that. And, and so there needs to be a commonality that needs to be a national ethnicity. That's certainly the case in the US and also in Britain. And that's one issue. What was the other question you asked about. I was asking, you know, more about, you know, the synopsis of your book and you know, oh, well, as I said, there's a bit at the end about patriotism. And what patriotism really amounts to in my way of thinking is altruism. I like that motto of the French Revolution, liberty, equality, fraternity. And I was stressing, well, trying to get a non gendered version of fraternity. And the non gendered version that I came up with was kindness, because it turns out that that word kind in the sense that we mean it could be kind to other people, that that altruistic interpretation is linguistically the basis of the word. And that is who your siblings, it's your kind as it were in biology. And, and so kindness comes from kin and that kind of idea that everybody's related and, and that kind of patriotism needs to be inculcated. And as a, as a general point, I took a clue from the social biology and ear Wilson, I don't know if you know that that work but in any case, and evolutionary psychology to, and that is that selfishness may get you ahead within a group. Across the biological spectrum of selfishness can get you ahead within the group, but altruistic groups always defeat selfish groups. And, and I think that's, that's, and you mentioned that nationalism and patriotism aren't dirty words could you I know there's a whole chapter dedicated to this but and we look at the, you know, the Donald Trump era. We've all have to deal with ethnicity, racism, migrants, all those types of things that are going to make improve life chances for some people from difficult backgrounds and to try and reduce this polarization that we see through social media and in pockets of our society and what are your hopes for at least America in the future. Well, all I can say is Biden is ahead now. He certainly is. Now, I'm done I always ask my podcast interviews, what they hope to be their legacy and I suspect this book is yours but could I just put you on the spot and from your entire life in education at what what do you hope to impart to the human race. Yes, I mean, all one has left are those books and articles and things, and that's left over, and I have great hopes that this particular line of thinking, to the extent that at least in America we can think about long range. Long range at all that that this book will will have a bit of life to it and that the elementary schools will get to be more coherent and will start creating speech communities in the classroom that that's a tremendous legacy. If it happens to work that life is life is tragic one does not. No, what I like that you've written in the kind of kind of afterward in your book is that your schools can improve overnight and from our conversation I really like that the classroom can become a speech community that really resonates with me you know my own love for culture and literacy. And so can I just pull out one one more thing that you believe that schools can do overnight to kind of achieve this core knowledge. Well, think of the confidence that gets instilled in kids who've grown up in less favorable backgrounds. Think of how they flower I mean, I've seen it and I've described in the books and schools in the South Bronx. Yes, the most private area of New York. What has happened to those kids they win debate contest city wide debate contest that's that's that's really to see these kids coming from nowhere, because their schooling happened to follow these core knowledge ideas and and their education superior to the kids in Westchester the richest county in New York. And they, they defeat those kids in debate it's it's it's I guess the premise is that this knowledge coherent curriculum that sequence with, you know, well thought through kind of schema. The interleaving practice that's emerged through cognitive science I guess, and that's something that we should all be considering quite seriously in our curriculum choices. Yes. Well that's a good, I think that's a good point to end because my dog here at the background is asking to go for a little dog walk so and don it's been a real honor. I have to say it's one of my own educational highlights to have a bit of time with you. I've got a copy of your book digitally but I'm definitely going to get a physical copy. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your influence on personally I think worldwide education never mind just here over in the UK, and all the best with your next I'm confident best selling book yet again. Thanks so much. Thank you Don all the best. Thank you. Bye.