Students Matter

Will Fitzhugh, via a kind email:

Thanks to American Educator for E.D. Hirsch’s new article on the necessity of a coherent curriculum in the elementary grades. Everything he writes on this is sensible and of the greatest value.

But why oh why is the effort of the student always left out? I was a much
better teacher with a student who paid attention in class and did the
homework, and a much less effective teacher with a student who did
not pay attention in class and did not do the homework.

Yet, for some reason, the student has no place in our
discussions of teacher effectiveness, school reform, etc.

Imagine discussing the performance of a football team and never mentioning
what any of the players did on the field, or their degree of attention to the coach,
and their own preparedness for the part they played in games.

Yet from the way we discuss reform in education, there must be the assumption
that students have no part to play in their schooling.

This makes no sense at all. What could be the reason for it?

The Concord Review.