Core Knowledge Curriculum

The well known Core Knowledge Curriculum, developed by Dr. E.D. Hirsch (1987, 1996), complements the IBO Primary and Middle Years Programmes.  Like those Programmes, the Core Knowledge Curriculum incorporates a global focus to expose and develop students who are not only well-balanced, civically engaged citizens, but who possess the knowledge, skill sets and experiences to be effective citizens and global leaders of the 21st century.  This will be achieved using the Core Knowledge Curriculum and an instructional model that includes both traditional academic instruction and innovative studio/ practicum/enhancement co-curricular experiences. 

The Core Knowledge movement is an educational reform based on the premise that a grade-by-grade core of common learning is necessary to ensure a sound and fair elementary education. The movement was started by Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (Professor Emeritus of Education and Humanities, University of Virginia and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution 1999-2006), author of Cultural Literacy and The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them, and is based on a large body of research in cognitive psychology, as well as a careful examination of several of the world's fairest and most effective school systems. Professor Hirsch has argued that, for the sake of academic excellence, greater fairness, and higher literacy, early schooling should provide a solid, specific, shared core curriculum in order to help children establish strong foundations of knowledge. Currently, hundreds of schools and thousands of dedicated educators are participating in this school reform movement throughout the United States.

The Core Knowledge Curriculum is solid.  Many people say that knowledge is changing so fast that what students learn today will soon be outdated. While current events and technology are constantly changing, there is nevertheless a body of lasting knowledge that should form the core of a Preschool-Grade 8 curriculum. Such solid knowledge includes, for example, the basic principles of constitutional government, important events of world history, essential elements of mathematics and of oral and written expression, widely acknowledged masterpieces of art and music, and stories and poems passed down from generation to generation.

The Core Knowledge Curriculum is sequenced.  Knowledge builds on knowledge. Children learn new knowledge by building on what they already know. Only a school that clearly defines the knowledge and skills required to participate in each successive grade can be excellent and fair for all students. For this reason, the Core Knowledge Sequence provides a clear outline of content to be learned grade by grade. This sequential building of knowledge not only helps ensure that children enter each new grade ready to learn, but also helps prevent the many repetitions and gaps that characterize much current schooling (repeated units, for example, on pioneer days or the rain forest, but little or no attention to the Bill of Rights, or to adding fractions with unlike denominators).

The Core Knowledge Curriculum is specific.  A typical state or district curriculum says, "Students will demonstrate knowledge of people, events, ideas, and movements that contributed to the development of the United States." But which people and events? What ideas and movements? In contrast, the Core Knowledge Sequence is distinguished by its specificity. By clearly specifying important knowledge in language arts, history and geography, mathematics, science, and the fine arts, the Core Knowledge Sequence presents a practical answer to the question, "What do our children need to know?"  The Core Knowledge Curriculum is shared.  Literacy depends on shared knowledge.  For one to be literate means, in part, to be familiar with a broad range of knowledge taken for granted by speakers and writers. For example, when sportscasters refer to an upset victory as "David knocking off Goliath," or when reporters refer to a "threatened presidential veto," they are assuming that their audience shares certain knowledge.  One goal of the Core Knowledge Curriculum is to provide all children, regardless of background, with the shared knowledge they need to be included in our national literate culture.