Content and Curriculum

Question - Who is Samuel Gompers?

Answer - Who the heck cares?

As first semester comes to a close, and our students drag themselves through the gauntlet of final exams, I am once again troubled by the nature of arbitrary knowledge. The study guides with extensive lists of terms for objective tests evaluating skills of rote memorization are fodder for criticism whenever we truly wonder what students - even people - really need to know. So, as students cram names of figures from American history into their heads for a short time, I challenge the significance of a name. No one needs to know who Samuel Gompers is, or was, any more than he needs to know about the struggles of Ralph and Piggy or Elizabeth Bennett. Certainly, society will survive if the function of the dorsal lateral pre-fontal lobe or the square root of one-hundred forty four is lost on most people. So, what are we really trying to accomplish.

Arguably, it comes down to a simple reality of education - people use existing knowledge to make sense of new information. Thus, the more information a student has in his head, the more extensively he will be able to attack more complex problems. Higher level critical thinking is easier and more effective when the mind has a vast store of comparisons and contrasts and scenarios from which to draw. Clearly, as a colleague argues to me, Samuel Gompers is quite significant to my situation as an employed middle class American. His contributions to society continue to reverberate. And, familiarity with the situations of Ralph, Piggy, and Elizabeth can have significant impact on the decisions students make later in life as voters, parents, employees, and citizens. So, it all has significance in some way. But the arbitrary way in which it is presented and evaluated will always be troubling to me.

Gompers, by the way, was the founder of the American Federation of Labor.

Home Ec Returns

"We should learn how to balance our checkbooks, and things like that."

Comments such as this occasionally arise in my class, as students debate (and complain about) much of the core curriculum in high school. I don't know if there is any really "useless information" in the standard high school curriculum, but there is much to be said about addressing more practical issues as we invest in the education of young people. While I point out to my students that learning to balance a checkbook should take about fifteen minutes, I can imagine many basic competencies that I'd incorporate into a "life skills" curriculum, not the least of which is home finance and basic repair.

With that in mind, the Denver Post recently spotlighted a resurgence in home economics in local high schools, with the added emphasis of an increase in both male teachers and students. The classes are now referred to as Family and Consumer Science, and they are focused on being far more practical than the home ec classes of yore. As the economy changes, and more people are adjusting to lifestyle changes, the acquisition of basic skills that not only save money, but might open up a new career, seem like a good investment in education. I'd like to see an expansion of this sort of investment in education, as it strikes me as the sort of basic competencies we should expect of young adults after thirteen years of education. The ability to cook, budget, organize, create, and repair are never useless skills. This also might be a great way to adapt a workforce more quickly, especially for those jobs that don't need a four year degree. So, on with home ec and shop classes.

In the immortal words of Breakfast Club, regarding shop class:

Brian: "Bender, do you realize without calculus, there'd be no engineering."

Bender: "Without lamps, there'd be no light."