ED Hirsch and John Dewey present two defined approaches to curriculum and pedagogy. In this essay, I will critically compare these two educational approaches by examining the strengths and weaknesses of Dewey's applied learning program and Hirsh's basic knowledge program. I will also evaluate Hirsh's more traditional, teacher-centered pedagogy against Dewey's more practical approach to education. Dewey's ideas will be shown to have more educational and social value because they aim to enable collaboration, community inquiry, and coordination of interests. I will begin by explaining and critically evaluating Hirsch's ideas, before explaining and defending Dewey's alternative ideas. According to ED Hirsch, special attention is needed on literacy and culture as means of confronting the knowledge crisis presented in America. the belief that education is a natural progression that must be associated with natural, real-world approaches and contexts has contributed to the vagueness of the curriculum (Buras, 1999). As a result, naturalism has led to process-oriented and child-centered pedagogies throughout the school system. Hirsch believes that such pedagogy is an insecure way of learning and is therefore responsible for the indistinct state of the program (Buras, 1999). He also believed that postmodernism and constructivism as well as multiculturalism were all factors that contributed to this crisis of knowledge (lecture notes). For Hirsch, learning involves the use of what he would call core content which encompasses relevant background knowledge, intellectual capital, traditional subject matter, book knowledge, shared national culture, vocabulary and soil...... middle of paper... ...ition and standardized tests. Despite their differences, ED Hirsch's and John Dewey's ideas on curriculum and pedagogy continue to be thought about, and both have contributed greatly to our educational agenda today. Although both views have strengths and weaknesses, I believe Dewey's applied learning approach would prove more beneficial in the long run. Being tailored to students’ needs and learning, it creates intrinsic motivation – the need to know. Additionally, Dewey's research now has a major influence on modern education in this collaborative learning; authentic learning tasks and inquiry-based learning are all integrated into our classrooms today. Although Hirsch presented us with many valuable ideas in his basic program, I believe that an approach more combined with Dewey's would be far more valuable..