The Paradox of Content in the Classroom

We need it but don’t want it

Should students be forced to memorize names and dates? What about highly specific scientific terminology, such as the bones of the body or taxonomic names of species? Are there specific books that EVERY student should closely read in school? Should they be able to recite, unprompted and without clues, specific poems, speeches, political tracts, or literary passages?

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’ — as it was for a relatively long time in our education history — a door opens and a potentially sinister figure emerges, tapping a kind of metaphorical club in his hand, asking ‘Who chooses and what happens to those who don’t memorize it?’

Because those are good questions, and as a result we have a serious problem with content in the classroom. And not as in ‘kids are learning the wrong things’ but as in ‘kids aren’t learning any content at all.’

The last few decades have seen a steady push in schools across America away from content and towards skills. The Standards Movement, Common Core, all those Tests. Nobody ever says students need to know more about the characters in Hamlet or learn the definitions of poetry terms or memorize the capitals and algebraic formulas. It’s all ‘Critical Thinking’ and writing skills and reading habits and math…