E. D. Hirsch

This article is about the professor and educator. For the American football player, see Ed Hirsch.
E. D. Hirsch
Hirsch smiling while speaking
Hirsch in 2015
Born
Eric Donald Hirsch Jr.

(1928-03-22) March 22, 1928 (age 96)
Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Known forFounding the Core Knowledge Foundation
Spouses
  • Gertrud Erna Winkelsen
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1956)​
  • Mary Montieth Pope
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1958; died 2015)​
  • Natasha Tobin
    ​
    (m. 2016)​
Academic background
Alma mater
InfluencesAntonio Gramsci
Academic work
Discipline
  • Education
  • English
Institutions
Notable works
  • Validity in Interpretation (1967)
  • Cultural Literacy (1987)
Notable ideasCultural literacy
Influenced

Eric "E. D." Donald Hirsch Jr. /hɜːrʃ/ (born March 22 1928) is an American educator, literary critic, and theorist of education.[1] He is professor emeritus of humanities at the University of Virginia.[HirschPublications 1]

Hirsch is best known for his 1987 book Cultural Literacy, which was a national best-seller and a catalyst for the standards movement in American education.[2] Cultural Literacy included a list of approximately 5,000 "names, phrases, dates, and concepts every American should know" in order to be "culturally literate."[3][4] Hirsch's arguments for cultural literacy and the contents of the list were controversial and widely debated in the late 1980s and early '90s.[5]

Hirsch is the founder and chairman of the non-profit Core Knowledge Foundation, which publishes and periodically updates the Core Knowledge Sequence, a set of unusually detailed curriculum guidelines for Pre-K through 8th grade.

In 1991, Hirsch and the Core Knowledge Foundation put out What Your First Grader Needs to Know, the first volume in what is popularly known as "the Core Knowledge Series."[HirschPublications 2] Additional volumes followed, as did revised editions. The series now begins with What Your Preschooler Needs to Know and ends with What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know. The "series" books are based on the curriculum guidelines in the Core Knowledge Sequence. The books are used in Core Knowledge schools and other elementary schools. However, they have also been popular with homeschooling parents.

Before turning to education, Hirsch wrote on English literature and theory of interpretation (hermeneutics). His book Validity in Interpretation (1967) is considered an important contribution to hermeneutics.[6] In it, Hirsch argues for intentionalism—the idea that the reader's goal should be to recover the author's meaning.[7][HirschPublications 3][HirschPublications 4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Hayward, Karen; Pannozzo, Linda; Colman, Ronald (August 2007). Literature review (PDF) (Report). Developing indicators for the educated populace domain of the Canadian index of wellbeing background information. Atkinson Charitable Foundation. Retrieved March 31, 2021.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference theatlantic_Liu_20150703 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ E.D. Hirsch Jr., Encyclopædia Britannica, March 9, 2013, retrieved February 2, 2015
  5. ^ Raymond, Wolters (2015). The Long Crusade: Profiles in Education Reform, 1967-2014. Washington, DC: Washington Summit Publishers.
  6. ^ Irvin, Sherri (11 September 2021). "Teaching and Learning Guide for: Authors, Intentions and Literary Meaning". Philosophy Compass. 4: 287–291. doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00180.x.
  7. ^ Klausen, Søren Harnow (April 2017). "Levels of Literary Meaning". Philosophy and Literature. 41 (1). ISSN 0190-0013.


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