Education Needs More Consistency

Education needs more consistency

When we talk about the impression of America, its innovation and substantial elites are often mentioned. The two points are treasures of a country, and are widely recognized as the important motive force of America’s strong national strength. Since education is the main system to foster inventive spirit and elites, is American education the best in the world? Are there any diseases of American education? What should the trend of American education be?

To answer these questions, we can read two articles for reference: We Should Cherish Our Children's Freedom to Think by Kie Ho and Teach knowledge, Not “Mental Skills” by Eric Donald Hirsch. Kie Ho is a Southern California business executive grown up in Indonesia. In his article, Ho argues that the educational system in the United States is the best in the world because its diversity and freedom. He criticizes foreign educational systems that rely solely on memorization and rote learning, and praises American education for it teaches students to think and to experiment with ideas. Eric Donald Hirsch is a professor of English at the university of Virginia who has identified 5000 names, dates, facts, and concepts that he claimed every educated person should know in order to function effectively in society. In his article, Hirsch criticizes skill-oriented curriculums of American education and calls for more attention to core knowledge. Ho and Hirsch hold contrast views of American educational system, especially the trend of education. Ho advocates freedom of education while Hirsch prefer consistency of education.

Creativity and academic knowledge are both main aims of education, but what should the sequential order and proportion be?         Ho believes creativity should be developed together with or earlier than knowledge, but Hirsch argues that academic knowledge should be the basis of training of thinking creatively. Ho is not disgruntled at the gap of his son’s knowledge compared to himself at the same age, but pleased with his son’s creativity and novel imagination. His son “got a good laugh—and an A—from his teacher for concocting ‘the man was as nervous as Richard Pryor at a Ku Klux Klan convention.’”, which could not be accepted in the education where students are “models of dedication and obedience”. Ho thinks this kind of creativity owes a good deal to American education, for it allows and supports children to experiment freely with ideas. Childhood is the main stage of forming one’s character, if a child is encouraged to think freely and creatively, he/she would be accustomed to apply creative thinking to later studying and working. But what an excellent student need is not simple creative thinking but well-founded creative thinking, just as Hirsch says, thinking skills “depend on a wealth of relevant knowledge”. Taking street-smart children as an example, Hirsch points out that “they already possess higher-order thinking skills” and “what these students lack is not critical thinking but academic knowledge”. This conclusion comes from the students at Public school 67 in the South Bronx. By developing a “core knowledge” curriculum, the students’ reading scores were up 13.5 percent in a year. The curriculum is primarily a core of knowledge that students could learn on the same material. This example reflects the effect of fact and academic knowledge. As the saying goes, “One can't make bricks without straw.” To fully release creativity needs relevant knowledge, or we may create something monotonous, or even nothing. Fang Zhongyong, a prodigy with talented creativity in composing poetry, finally became a mediocre person because of a lack of knowledge learning. So to the quality of education, academic knowledge should be in a preeminent position.