cultural literacy

How Student Protesters Cheat Themselves

One common complaint of protesting students is the old multiculturalist argument that the curriculum is too white and male and Western.  The petition filed by students at Seattle University is a case in point. Once again, we have outlandish allegations of racism and harassment leveled against one of the most progressive enclaves on Planet Earth, […]

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young graduates students group

How a Generation Lost Its Common Culture

By Patrick Deneen My students are know-nothings. They are exceedingly nice, pleasant, trustworthy, mostly honest, well-intentioned, and utterly decent. But their brains are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge that might be the fruits of an education in an inheritance and a gift of a previous generation. They are the culmination of western civilization, […]

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E. D. Hirsch’s Vision of School

E. D. Hirsch, famed literary critic and educator, founder of Core Knowledge Foundation and author of Cultural Literacy, has a new book out. It’s called The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools , and the arguments there are worth repeating again and again. While the preferred academic approach to American history and society is […]

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