A review by sde
The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System--And How to Fix It by Natalie Wexler
3.0
This book had be nodding in agreement to many things, changed my mind on some things, and included things I disagree with. Reading it is depressing - so much of what we are doing in k12 education has no basis in research or even runs contrary to respected research. But also hopeful - because there are ways and methods that can be used so children from all backgrounds can learn more readily.
The author highlighted very clearly why teachers are reluctant to take on new programs, even those based on extensive research. Teachers are very tired of every year or two or three being told by people not in the classroom that they need to switch to the next great thing and totally retool what they have been doing. I see this all the time in the district my kids attend, and I don't blame the teachers. I guess the reason why we are not willing to look at longitudinal studies or give programs time to show results is that we are worried that we may lose this year's cohort of students. The stakes are high. But constantly switching from program to program that have very short track records also isn't helping kids.
The author did change my mind about content rich curriculum. I have often thought, like many in the book, that if students are given skills they will be able to analyze and study whatever they want. What content they are taught in school doesn't matter that much. But she showed how so many of the skills are based on a certain critical knowledge of the world, and if we continue with skill-based teaching, we are really hurting those kids who do not come from content rich homes like those students with highly educated parents. She showed that you can have a content outline of curriculum and still allow room for inclusion of marginalized populations, local history and so forth, as connected to the topic. She also helped me understand why parents of color and low income parents often want a more classical, great books type approach to education, something I have noticed and wondered about. The parents can feel that by not including that stuff, the education establishment is trying to keep their kids outsiders.
I was surprised to read her praise of New York State's Common Core curriculum since my experience has not been positive with it. But as I read on, I realized that what the state said and what they actually did or stressed to educators were two very different things. This explains why, the first time I heard a presentation at PTA about Common Core, before it was implemented, it sounded very good to me. The presenter talked about focusing on depth, not breadth, of knowledge. Since I felt like this was what my kids were missing in school, I was all for it. But when it was implemented, it seemed to be just the opposite. Algebra classes began including things like calculus, rather than making sure the kids understood inside and out algebra concepts in that class so they would be more prepared to do advanced math in later grades. The book does a poor job at explaining what went wrong between the conceptualization of Common Core and its implementation, at least in my state. She touches on the increased focus on standardized testing, but, in my mind, this is a huge reason of why the new curriculum went sideways in a really bad way.
So, although I have problems with some of the things the author recommends in the book, she provides lots of food for thought and may get educators questioning their tightly held, but likely incorrect, beliefs. I would like to see more school boards and directors of curriculum reading it if only so they can start asking better questions when they adopt new texts or programs.
The author highlighted very clearly why teachers are reluctant to take on new programs, even those based on extensive research. Teachers are very tired of every year or two or three being told by people not in the classroom that they need to switch to the next great thing and totally retool what they have been doing. I see this all the time in the district my kids attend, and I don't blame the teachers. I guess the reason why we are not willing to look at longitudinal studies or give programs time to show results is that we are worried that we may lose this year's cohort of students. The stakes are high. But constantly switching from program to program that have very short track records also isn't helping kids.
The author did change my mind about content rich curriculum. I have often thought, like many in the book, that if students are given skills they will be able to analyze and study whatever they want. What content they are taught in school doesn't matter that much. But she showed how so many of the skills are based on a certain critical knowledge of the world, and if we continue with skill-based teaching, we are really hurting those kids who do not come from content rich homes like those students with highly educated parents. She showed that you can have a content outline of curriculum and still allow room for inclusion of marginalized populations, local history and so forth, as connected to the topic. She also helped me understand why parents of color and low income parents often want a more classical, great books type approach to education, something I have noticed and wondered about. The parents can feel that by not including that stuff, the education establishment is trying to keep their kids outsiders.
I was surprised to read her praise of New York State's Common Core curriculum since my experience has not been positive with it. But as I read on, I realized that what the state said and what they actually did or stressed to educators were two very different things. This explains why, the first time I heard a presentation at PTA about Common Core, before it was implemented, it sounded very good to me. The presenter talked about focusing on depth, not breadth, of knowledge. Since I felt like this was what my kids were missing in school, I was all for it. But when it was implemented, it seemed to be just the opposite. Algebra classes began including things like calculus, rather than making sure the kids understood inside and out algebra concepts in that class so they would be more prepared to do advanced math in later grades. The book does a poor job at explaining what went wrong between the conceptualization of Common Core and its implementation, at least in my state. She touches on the increased focus on standardized testing, but, in my mind, this is a huge reason of why the new curriculum went sideways in a really bad way.
So, although I have problems with some of the things the author recommends in the book, she provides lots of food for thought and may get educators questioning their tightly held, but likely incorrect, beliefs. I would like to see more school boards and directors of curriculum reading it if only so they can start asking better questions when they adopt new texts or programs.