How to Educate a Citizen: The Power of Shared Knowledge to Unify a Nation

Written by E. D. Hirsch

Narrated by Rob Shapiro

“Profound, vital and correct. Hirsch highlights the essence of our American being and the radical changes in education necessary to sustain that essence. Concerned citizens, teachers, and parents take note!  We ignore this book at our peril.""— Joel Klein, former Chancellor of New York City Public Schools

In this powerful manifesto, the bestselling author of Cultural Literacy addresses the failures of America’s early education system and its impact on our current national malaise, advocating for a shared knowledge curriculum students everywhere can be taught—an educational foundation that can help improve and strengthen America’s unity, identity, and democracy.

In How to Educate a Citizen, E.D. Hirsch continues the conversation he began thirty years ago with his classic bestseller Cultural Literacy, urging America’s public schools, particularly at the elementary level, to educate our children more effectively to help heal and preserve the nation. Since the 1960s, our schools have been relying on “child-centered learning.” History, geography, science, civics, and other essential knowledge have been dumbed down by vacuous learning “techniques” and “values-based” curricula; indoctrinated by graduate schools of education, administrators and educators have believed they are teaching reading and critical thinking skills. Yet these cannot be taught in the absence of strong content, Hirsch argues.

The consequence is a loss of shared knowledge that would enable us to work together, understand one another, and make coherent, informed decisions. A broken approach to school not only leaves our children under-prepared and erodes the American dream but also loosens the spiritual bonds and unity that hold the nation together. Drawing on early schoolmasters and educational reformers such as Noah Webster and Horace Mann, Hirsch charts the rise and fall of the American early education system and provides a blueprint for closing the national gap in knowledge, communications, and allegiance. Critical and compelling, How to Educate a Citizen galvanizes our schools to equip children with the power of shared knowledge.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Sep 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9780063001954

E. D. Hirsch

E.D. Hirsch, Jr. is the Linden Kent Memorial Professor of English at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and the author of Cultural Literacy, The First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, and The Core Knowledge Series. Dr. Hirsch is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been a senior fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is president of the Core Knowledge Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to educational reform.

Reviews for How to Educate a Citizen

[katehonig · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Overall I think this book makes some really valid points (the need for phonics instruction, the need for a cohesive instructional plan within a school/district & that students are not getting equitable instruction). 

However, Hirsch bases these claims in thinking I don't agree with.  
1 - the PISA examples are a valid standard for American Students
2 - Education 30 years ago was better and more equitable than it is today
3 - the Culture of the United states is not specific to one ethnicity and therefore cannot be exclusionary (White, the culture of the US is a White culture) 

So I while I would recommend this book, I would want any teacher or other reader going in with the understanding that this is the starting point of the discussion not the end point. 

[highlander6022 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the first book written by Hirsch that I have read. It will not be the last. Hirsch's wisdom regarding our educational system's need for changes is very illuminating. Although the book starts out a bit slow, it builds later on into a clear evidential case for change, with clear and convincing data that demonstrates what has happened in the US and in foreign countries that have moved to child-centered classrooms versus knowledge centered classrooms. The empirical evidence is clear for pursing knowledge based education, but the so-called "experts" (professors in our educational institutions) refuse to accept it, but instead choose to ignore it, in my opinion, for political reasons. In their mindset, pursuing child centered education makes it easier to push the agenda that disadvantaged groups will be left behind. unfortunately, Hirsch puts forth the evidence that knowledge based education clearly leads to better outcome for all. How sad our US system has strayed so far into their failed ideology that it is questionable it can ever be changed.