Both Hirsch and Sizer have different views on what the best pedagogy is. While Hirsch focus more on elementary school, Sizer focuses more on high school. Hirsch argues that basic information is an important part of a child’s education; and that the facts and skills that children should be taught in school must be continually measured by "objective" tests, and that those who fail should receive remedial work and, if necessary, repeat the grade. Sizer on the other hand argues that “the ability to think deeply about the subjects that matter -- such as literacy, numeracy and civic understanding -- and connect that knowledge to students' lives.”(http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/24/local/me-ted-sizer24). This strategy is the considered “The Habits of Mind”. Although these views both stand individually, I believe of educational system is already a combination of both (at least if you look at School of the Future). School of the future in generally based on the habits of mind. Although this may have been enforced more before I started to attend this school, I feel that walking into Ms. DeRothschild’s class in 9th grade led us to follow Sizer’s theories in many ways. Our school is also into generalizing and proving the work that we have learned. We may not test as much as other schools or as much as Hirsch believes we should, but we do complete exhibitions each year that we attend high school. With our exhibitions, we are gathering information (mainly based on topics we learned about throughout the curriculum) and are expected to present a paper generalizing what we learn and an alternative visual presentation further explaining the paper. Our school in itself proves that both Sizer, and Hirsch’s theories can be adapted to work together.
I feel like my experience has been a combination of both theories. We have been programmed to use the habits of mind in almost everything, although it may not always make sense. For example; our “chemistry class's focus on molarity and ions and the periodic table of elements” (Andy) Recently we had to use the connection theory, meanwhile in real life we will not need to connect how molecular bonding resonates our prom…? This does not mean that knowing this information does not benefit us later in life but does include Hirsch’s theory of maintaining and memorizing basic information, and later being quizzed on it.
Looking at both of these views caused me to believe that possibly neither of these theories are correct. I believe this because I don’t think that either one of these theories can stand alone. As we saw in all of the super teacher films, without connecting the curriculum to the student’s life, the teacher will not be able to hold the classes attention as easily due to a lack of interest or understanding. As for Sizer’s theory, the habits of mind only cover a certain part of of a “good” education. Without somewhat of a test of knowledge, classes would mostly be based on opinion, and self connections.
