[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-590424-105":59,"doc-detail-590424-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","minding-the-knowledge-gap-the-importance-of-content-in-student-learning","Minding the Knowledge Gap - The Importance of Content in Student Learning","","An article by Daisy Christodoulou describes how teacher observations and research show students often have significant knowledge gaps, even among bright and hardworking learners. It argues that education systems in the U.K. and U.S. undervalue factual knowledge while emphasizing abstract skills, despite evidence that learners need foundational content to analyze and evaluate effectively. The piece links gaps to social background differences and highlights how American Educator helped her discover supporting scholarship.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/minding-the-knowledge-gap-the-importance-of-content-in-student-learning/590424/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/minding-the-knowledge-gap-the-importance-of-content-in-student-learning/590424.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Pentious","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":19},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What prompted Daisy Christodoulou to research students’ knowledge gaps?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"While teaching English in secondary school, she repeatedly saw pupils lacking basic knowledge, and similar experiences were reported by colleagues and supported by studies in the U.K. and U.S.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"Why does the article say students need knowledge to develop analytical skills?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"It argues that analysis and evaluation depend on having something concrete to analyze, such as understanding key facts and concepts before debating or writing informed essays.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does social background contribute to knowledge deficits?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The article links gaps to differences in what children gain from home resources; working-class students and children of immigrants may not receive the same early exposure as middle-class peers.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},590424,1792750935,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":19,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":34,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144,"preview_page_count":4},1374404730887,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_6f874abed73319feea01a86fa6f0fab8","Minding the Knowledge Gap  \ne Importance of Content in Student Learning  \nBy Daisy Christodoulou  \nI  \nn 2007, I trained as a teacher and started teaching English ina secondary school in Southeast London that enrolls students between the ages of 11 and 18. One of the 􀀞rst things that struck me when I was teaching was that my pupils  \nseemed to know so little. Even the bright and hard-working pupils seemed to me to have big gapsin their knowledge.  \nBefore I became a teacher, I’d read newspaper articles about pupils lacking knowledge, butI had always assumed these reports had been exaggerated by the media. I wondered if my experiences were unusual, but the experiences of colleagues at other schools seemed similar to mine. Pupils who didn’t know where milk came from, who didn’t know the name of the British primeminister, who could barely name any foreign countries, and who had no idea of when important world-changing technologies had been invented. I started researching the issue, and I found that my experiences weren’t atypical. I also found that many American teachers had the same experiences. For example, there’s a study showing that two-thirds of Americans can’t name the three branches of the United States government.1 In the United Kingdom, there’s a study showing that a third of pupils think the House of Lords is elected.2  \nDaisy Christodoulou is the research and development manager at ARK (Absolute Return for Kids) Schools in the United Kingdom. Previously, she taught English to secondary school students in London. This article is adapted with permission from her book Seven Myths about Education (London: Routledge, 2014).  \nIt isn’t—I know this tends to surprise alot of Americans and others from more democratic countries, but it shouldn’t really come asa shock to U.K. citizens!  \nIn a lot of the training material I read, these knowledge gaps were given very little attention. Generally, the word “knowledge”was used in a very pejorative way. e idea was that you were supposed to focus on skills like analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and so forth. Knowledge was the poor relation of these skills. Of course, I wanted my pupils to be able to analyze and evaluate, but it seemed to me that a pupil needed to know something to be able to analyze it. Ifa pupil doesn’t know thatthe House of Lords isn’t elected, how can you get him to have a debate or write an essay analyzing proposals for its reform? Likewise, if a pupil doesn’t know what the three branches of government are in the United States, how can she understand debates in the papers about the Supreme Court striking down one of Congress’s laws?  \nI was also in􀀜uenced here by my own background. I was born in East London to a working-class family. My father’s parents were immigrants from Italy and Cyprus. My father said that when he was in school as a child in England, he very often felt as though he was on the outside of a conversation. He didn’t know what the conversations were about, and he couldn’t go home and ask his parents because they didn’t know either. He was very determined that I wouldn’t have that experience, and I didn’t want my pupils to have that experience. Middle-class children pick up a lot of knowledge from home, from books, from programs on the radio, and so forth. Working-class children and the children of immi-  \nILLUSTRAT IONS BY PAUL ZWOLAK  \nAMERICAN EDUCATOR | SPRING 2014 27  \ngrants don’t always get those advantages. A lot of the pupils I taught were just as bright and hard-working as the pupils at private schools, but they lacked crucial knowledge, and this de􀀞cit held them back in their studies.  \nAsI researched these issues, I stumbled across this publication, American Educator, the quarterly journal of the American Federation of Teachers. Two articles in particular resonated with me at this point—one by Gilbert Sewall and one by Vincent Ruggiero.* Sewall’s article detailed lots of examples of lessons that focused on trivial activities. I had seen l","cbCaioHQ5Oeorwyt","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaioHQ5Oeorwyt","pdf",255292,"English","# Minding the Knowledge Gap\n## Classroom observations and research evidence\n## Why knowledge matters for higher-order skills\n## Social background and access to knowledge\n## Education system similarities and reform failures","[{\"question\":\"What prompted Daisy Christodoulou to research students’ knowledge gaps?\",\"answer\":\"While teaching English in secondary school, she repeatedly saw pupils lacking basic knowledge, and similar experiences were reported by colleagues and supported by studies in the U.K. and U.S.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the article say students need knowledge to develop analytical skills?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that analysis and evaluation depend on having something concrete to analyze, such as understanding key facts and concepts before debating or writing informed essays.\"},{\"question\":\"How does social background contribute to knowledge deficits?\",\"answer\":\"The article links gaps to differences in what children gain from home resources; working-class students and children of immigrants may not receive the same early exposure as middle-class peers.\"}]","Minding the Knowledge Gap - The Importance of Content in Student Learning | PDF",1792069607,18]