The Common Core Schools Experimenting With Program That Focuses On Body Of Knowledge

If the material is properly presented, there’s no limit to what even young children can learn, say advocates of a culturally literate curriculum.

Under a program called Core Knowledge, kindergartners learn about warm and cool colors by looking at the paintings of Paul Gauguin and Jan Bruegel.

First-graders are taught simple fractions, classic fairy tales and how to read maps. Third-graders learn about ancient Rome and the Mexican artist Diego Rivera.

It’s being done today, here at North Hill Primary School.

The Core Knowledge program is based on the ideas of E.D. Hirsch Jr., a University of Virginia professor who first came to national attention a decade ago when he wrote the book “Cultural Literacy.”

The book bemoaned decades of decline in American public schools. His solution was to develop study that emphasized core information for all elementary school students.

Hirsch contends that the modern emphasis on teaching students to think - a popular idea in education circles - is useless unless schools give students something to think about.

To function in society, students need a common body of background knowledge, he contends.

The Core Knowledge curriculum focuses on specific content instead of abstract skills. It’s up to teachers to decide how to teach the suggested subjects.

“To understand what somebody’s saying, to understand what somebody’s written, you have to know a lot more than the meaning of the words on the page,” Hirsch told The News Tribune of Tacoma in a recent interview.

“You have to be able to fit it in and connect it with things that are not written down and not stated.”

In many other school systems, students might not encounter Plato’s “The Republic” or the T’ang Dynasty of China until middle school, high school or college - if at all. But Hirsch and Core Knowledge teachers say that if the material is presented in an age-appropriate manner, there’s no limit to what even the youngest students can learn.

North Hill teachers and Principal Judy Longstreth got interested in the Core Knowledge program after a speaker from the Virginia-based Core Knowledge Foundation visited the Highline School District. Several teachers attended a national conference on the subject. And two years ago, the North Hill faculty agreed to give Core Knowledge a try.

This year, they were joined by another Highline school, Hilltop Elementary.

Dianne Hargreaves, a former first-grade teacher who now teaches third grade at North Hill, said the hardest part about beginning the program was finding the right books and materials for students of a particular age.

“A good 70 percent of students walk into first grade without reading ability,” Hargreaves said.

So how to teach map skills and the seven continents - subjects included in the first-grade Core Knowledge curriculum?

Rather than becoming experts on everything, teachers at North Hill focused on particular topics. Some focused on ancient Egypt while others searched for ways to cover U.S. history.

Students build pyramids of sugar cubes, for example, to learn how the tombs of the pharaohs were constructed.

Teachers report that young children are fascinated by the story of Ben Franklin. They are amazed to learn that there was no electricity in the past.

“And they’ve finally realized that George Washington is no longer alive,” Hargreaves said. “For years, they wanted to know how old he was and where he lives.”

Even the school’s physical education teacher, Joan Mass, tries to tie in activities with whatever students are studying in other classes. If they’re on the pioneers, she’ll have students form wagon trains. When students cover ancient Greece, she organizes the Olympics.

Longstreth said her school is gradually phasing in Core Knowledge material. Teachers have opted to continue using the school district’s own science curriculum because it covers many of the subjects outlined in Core Knowledge. And there haven’t been big changes in the teaching of math.

“The biggest difference I see is the strong social studies program - American civilization, world civilization, geography,” Longstreth said.

She also has watched teachers introduce more poetry, biographies and traditional literature and music into their classrooms.

Carol Graf, North Hill’s PTA treasurer, was a Core Knowledge supporter even before her two children entered the school. She and her husband, Gary, found some of Hirsch’s books at Costco and had started introducing the material to their children at home.

“I think it’s a wonderful program,” she said. “I can see the benefits of introducing things at lower (grade) levels. My kids taught me things about Christopher Columbus I didn’t know. My daughter is totally intrigued with Bach.”

Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Foundation says more than 700 schools are following the curriculum. It’s most commonly found in Maryland, Florida, Texas and Colorado.

So far, there are only nine Core Knowledge schools in Washington. One of the first was Ridge View Elementary in Kennewick, which opened five years ago.