ERRR #034. Natalie Wexler on The Knowledge Gap

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In today’s episode we’re speaking with Natalie Wexler. Natalie started her career in Law, and has always had a journalistic flair and a passion for writing. In recent years she’s turned her attention to the world of education and applied her journalistic talents to exploring, in particular, the American Education system. In 2017 she co-authored ‘The Writing Revolution’, which I discussed in detail with Natalie’s co-author, Judith Hochman, in ERRR029. Natalie’s writing on education has been featured in Forbes, the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and in these episode we speak about Natalie’s Recent book ‘The Knowledge Gap: The hidden cause of America’s broken education system, and how to fix it’. In discussing Wexler’s work we also discuss what the role of knowledge is, and what it perhaps should be within the curriculum; the role that Australian consultants have had in spreading reading strategies in New York schools; E.D Hirsch and his beliefs about where achievement gaps come from; the challenge of developing a knowledge-rich curriculum at scale; resources for teachers who want to begin working with a knowledge-rich curriculum, and much more.

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Links/resources mentioned in the show

• Natalie's Book – The Knowledge Gap
• Two studies suggesting the importance of knowledge in reading comprehension:
  • The Baseball study
  • The ‘wug' study
• John Gustafson's article on ‘Tracing the origins' of reading strategies.
• Robert Pondiscio's review of Natalie's Book.
• Orgs to support teachers with knowledge-rich curricula
  • The Core Knowledge Foundation
  • Great Minds (produces the ‘Wit and Wisdom' curriculum resources)
  • The Knowledge Matters Campaign <– This group is doing good work in the knowledge-rich space
• MUST LISTEN PODCASTS: Emily Hanford's radio documentaries…
  • 1. Hard Words: Why aren't kids being taught to read?
  • 2. At a Loss for Words: What's wrong with how schools teach reading
• Natalie's article for Phi Delta Kappan: The media blind spot hiding a big problem in American classrooms – This article directed at Ed journalists and talks about the importance of covering this issue of the importance of knowledge.
• Jill Barshay, a journalist who writes for the Hechinger Report, recommended by Natalie (Writes well about developments in education research)
• The FREE ResearchEd magazine.
• Learning Scientists website
• Dan Willingham's website

Listen to all past episodes of the ERRR podcast here.