Over the last week I have been reading and hearing a great deal about the issue of literacy and what educators need to do to help improve it. I participated in a workshop with Mike Mattos, veteran teacher and administrator who now gives talks on RtI and Professional Learning Communities. It was eye opening to see the statistics he had, as well as some of the work that he and others have done to show how well RtI can work. The ideas from Mike Mattos then were joined by the readings from E.D. Hirsch Jr., Lisa Delpit, Laurie Olsen and Stuart Greene.
E.D. Hirsch Jr. created an extensive list in his book Cultural Literacy:What Every American needs to Know. His point being that understanding of these thousands of things allows for Americans to communicate with each other in a fundamental way. Hirsch points out that "the standard of literacy required by modern society has been rising throughout the developing world"(Hirsch, 1988). He explains that we as a society are stuck doing things as the system of education had standard for in the 1950's. However that standard no longer applies and if we continue to maintain the status qua we will not be able to compete in the economic world.
We live in a time where information is essential and advanced technology pushes this information faster and further than when Hirsch first made his statements regarding literacy. His points are still relevant though. To understand the words on the page, there needs to be a foundation of understanding that many adolescents, children and even adults don't have. Hirsch also states that nationwide communication allows for a national language, which is sustained by national literacy (Hirsch, 1988).
As I looked over Hirsch's list of What Literate Americans Know, I found myself thinking of it as "What Educated Americans Know". If I were to ask a hand full of my 9th graders what a tenth of the items on the list were they would not have an answer, that sadder part is that I could also ask adults that are in my work place and have them hesitate to respond as well.
I thought about what would be on my list. I doubt it would be as long at Hirsch's. There are specifics that I would have but not limited to the following:
*The Declaration of Independence
*The Constitution
*The Federalist Papers
*The Gettysburg Address
*Abraham Lincoln "A House Divided"
*Martin Luther King Jr. "I Have A Dream"
*Franklin D. Roosevelt "Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation"
*Franklin D. Roosevelt "The Arsenal of Democracy"
*Franklin D. Roosevelt "Fireside Chats"
*John F. Kennedy "Inaugural Address"
*Woodrow Wilson "War Message 1917"
*Woodrow Wilson "The Fourteen Points"
*Elie Wiesel "The Perils of Indifference 1999"
*Robert F. Kennedy "Remarks on Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination"
*George W. Bush "Address to Congress and the Nation on 9/11/2001"
*Rudolph Giuliani "9/11 Speech to the United Nations General Assembly"
*Bill Cosby "Address to NAACP 50th Anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education"
*Maya Angelou "Remarks at the Funeral for Coretta Scott King"
*Maya Angelou Poems including but not limited to I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and Phenomenal Woman
* Jane Austen
*Emily Dickinson
*Robert Frost
*William Shakespeare
*Langston Hughes
*Walt Whitman
*Ralph Waldo Emerson
*The Diary of Anne Frank
* Howard Zinn A People's History of the United States
*James Loewen Lies My Teacher Told Me and Teaching What Really Happened.
*Tim O'Brien The Things They Carried
*Randy Pausch The Last Lecture
*John Gatto Dumbing Us Down and Weapons of Mass Instruction
