The criticisms of Hirsch’s work, “Cultural Literacy: What Every Student Should Know,” are numerous and varied, however there is value in his belief that strong literacy skills are supported by an individual’s foundational and ever expanding cultural knowledge and that this foundational knowledge is intrinsic to an individuals strong performance in academics settings. Although building a foundation of “Cultural Literacy,” as Hirsch presents it, is strikingly flawed in that it excludes multi-heritage and minority perspectives, his idea that cultural literacy relies upon the building-up of cultural, historical, social and literary knowledge is well founded. Hirsch's theory lacks, however, a critical acquisition component, which is essential for the amount of concept accrural he advocates.
However, Concept Imagery could bridge the gap and be an extremely valuable componant to Hirsch's Cultural Literacy theory. Although, it would be best to first bring his theory up to date and then integrate Concept Imagery as an implementation strategy for an academic framework losely based on Hirsch's ideas. Without this visual component to learning, students will continue to struggle with retaining the information that is, as Hirsch says, “transmitted” to them. Their foundation in cultural literacy will remain shaky as long as educators rely solely on Hirsch’s concept of education as “transmission” and “reception” based, not understanding based. Concept Imagery is essential to strong understanding, especially when surveying material that is unusual or irrelevant to students' modern lives -- which easily describes much of the subject matter on Hirsch's infamous list; because, as Albert Einstein famously stated, "if I can't picture it, I can't understand it."
