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The Schools We Need
And Why We Don't Have Them
by E.D. Hirsch Jr.
List Price: 15.95
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Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Anchor; 1st Anchor Books ed (August 17 1999)
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Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: Continued Education Failure
For over fifty years, American schools have operated under the assumption that challenging children academically is unnatural for them, that teachers do not need to know the subjects they teach, that the learning 'process' should be emphasized



Book Description

The Schools We Need offers a powerful, compelling, and unassailable argument for reforming America's schooling methods and ideas - by one of America's most important educators, and author of the bestselling Cultural Literacy.

For over fifty years, American schools have operated under the assumption that challenging children academically is unnatural for them, that teachers do not need to know the subjects they teach, that the learning "process" should be emphasized over the facts taught. All of this is tragically wrong.

Renowned educator and author E. D. Hirsch, Jr., argues that, by disdaining content-based curricula while favoring abstract - and discredited - theories of how a child learns, the ideas uniformly taught by our schools have done terrible harm to America's students. Instead of preparing our children for the highly competitive, information-based economy in which we now live, our schools' practices have severely curtailed their ability, and desire, to learn.

With an introduction that surveys developments in education since the hardcover edition was published, The Schools We Need is a passionate and thoughtful book that will appeal to the millions of people who can't understand why America's schools aren't educating our children.

About the Author

E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., is a professor of English at the University of Virginia and the author of The Schools We Need, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, and the bestselling Cultural Literacy. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia..

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