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This article discusses the use of powerful pedagogies to support powerful knowledge in geography education. It explores the concept of powerful knowledge and its relevance to subjects, as well as barriers to implementing powerful pedagogies. The article also examines the representation of geography teachers and the pressures they face, and the potential for bridging the gap between schools and universities in terms of powerful knowledge and pedagogies.
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Can powerful pedagogies be used to support powerful knowledge in geography education? Lauren Hammond L.Hammond@ioe.ac.uk 31st January 2015
Can powerful pedagogies be used to support powerful knowledge in geography education? Why ask the question?
Can powerful pedagogies be used to support powerful knowledge in geography education? Part one – contextualizing the debate *What is meant by F1, F2, and F3? *Powerful Knowledge and subjects *Powerful Pedagogies to support the teaching and learning of Powerful Knowledge? Part two– barriers to F3 *How geography teachers are represented and the pressures that they face *If and how there could be a bridging of the school-university gap in regards to both PK and PP *Whether the current curriculum can be used to support and facilitate F3
Future 1… *Has its primary origins in a ‘system which transmits elite cultural knowledge to the ‘select few’’ Young and Muller (2010, page 16) *‘Knowledge is treated as largely given, and established by tradition and by the route it offers high achievers to our leading universities’ Young (2014, page 59) *The first NC in 1988 was broadly based on F1 *Associated with a one-way transmission pedagogy *Attempts to continue the elite system. Provides ‘one or more kinds of vocational training’, for ‘the rest’ of the population Young and Muller (2014, page 17)
Future 2… *Knowledge was ‘no longer treated given’, but ‘seen as constructed in response to particular needs and interests’ Young et al (2014, page 59) *Socially inclusive and supports more students staying on in school. The ‘curriculum was progressively ‘vocationalised’ for those slower learners who stayed on in school’ Young et al (2014, page 60) *Curriculum boundaries between subjects weakened (interdisciplinary studies introduced). Everyday knowledge included in the curriculum (sports, community interests etc) *’Promotion of facilitative rather than directive teaching’ Young and Muller (2010, page 18)
Future 3... (Future 3) ‘treats subjects as the most reliable tools we have for enabling students to acquire knowledge and make sense of the world... It implies that the curriculum must stipulate the concepts associated with different subjects and how they are related... It is the systematic interrelatedness of subject-based concepts and how they take their meaning from how they relate to each other that distinguishes them from everyday concepts of experience that pupils bring to school, which always relate to specific contexts and experiences. Concepts, however, must be linked to the contents of facts that give them meaning and to the activities involved in acquiring them. It is this link between the concepts, contents and activities that distinguishes a Future 3 curriculum from Hirsh’s lists of ‘what every child should know’ Young (2014, page 67)
Subjects – reliable tools ‘Such communities have their shared rules, some more and some less agreed than others for testing and questioning the truth of whatever they claim to know in their field. The truth and the objectivity of knowledge is the truth of these communities, as the nearest to truth that we can get – that is the truth of Future 3’ Young (2014, page 66) ‘We emphasize subjects because they embody the purpose of schools in taking students beyond their everyday experience. Furthermore, subjects provide boundaries and hence a sense of identity for teachers and learners and collective resource for teachers, for example through subject associations.’ Lambert (2014, page 162)
Can powerful pedagogies support powerful knowledge? Slide taken from Roberts (2013) Debate with Michael Young
Firstly… How geography teachers are currently represented and the pressures that they face in making the geography curriculum
The accountability regime (Mitchell, 2013) Teachers focussing on their daily routine (Ferretti, 2013) The new curriculum requires teachers to make informed decisions about what and how they teach (Biddulph, 2014)
Secondly… If and how there could be a bridging of the school-university gap in regards to both powerful knowledge and powerful pedagogies
Schools and universities have different functions (Lambert 2014) -Universities are knowledge producing and ‘inducting young people into the procedures and methods of the discipline’ (page 163) -Schools ‘transfer and communicate’ knowledge. Students ‘make meaning for themselves’ (they gain new knowledge)
‘We need to think about what is happening around us, within us, each and every day. We live on familiar terms with the people in our own family, our own milieu, our own class. This constant impression of familiarity makes us think that we know them, that their outlines are defined for us, and that they see themselves as having the same outline. We define them (Peter is this, Paul is that) and we judge them’ Lefebvre (1992, page 14) ‘Men have no knowledge of the own lives’ Lefebvre (1992, page 90)
Thirdly… The role of the current curriculum, and whether it can be used to support and facilitate a Future 3 curriculum
The accountability regime: *Limits teacher choices in regards to PK and PP *Who else is making the decisions and why? Is it enough to leave exploring everyday geographies in an academic sense to the teacher? *What are the key concepts? *Who decides? *Why are they neither included or excluded from the NC? School – university links. How and when are ideas and theories about PP and PK shared?
Thank you for listening. Any questions, comments, or suggestions? Lauren Hammond L.Hammond@ioe.ac.uk 31st January 2015
Bibliography *Biddulph, M. (2014) ‘What Kind of Geography Curriculum do we Really Want?’ in Teaching Geography 39(1) pages 6-9 *Brooks, C. (2013) ‘How do we Understand Conceptual Development in School Geography?’ in Lambert, D. Jones, M. (eds) Debates in Geography Education Routledge Abingdon *De Certeau, M. (1988) The Practice of Everyday Life University of California Press: London *Ferretti, J. (2013) ‘Whatever Happened to the Enquiry Approach in Geography?’ in Lambert, D. Jones, M. (eds) Debates in Geography Education Routledge Abingdon *Firth, R. (2013) ‘What Constitutes Knowledge in Geography?’ in Lambert, D. Jones, M. (eds) Debates in Geography Education Routledge Abingdon *Harvey, D. (1994) The Urban Experience Blackwell: Oxford *Lambert, D. Morgan, J. (2010) Teaching Geography 11-18: A Conceptual Approach Open University Press: Maidenhead *Lambert, D. Biddulph, M. (2014) ‘The Dialogic Space Offered by Curriculum-Making in the Process of Learning to Teach, and the Creation of a Progressive Knowledge-led Curriculum in Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education *Lefebvre, H. (1992) Critique of Everyday Life Verso: London *Mitchell, D. (2013) ‘What Controls the ‘Real’ Curriculum; in Teaching Geography 38(2) pages60-62 *Roberts, M. (2003)Learning Through Enquiry: Making Sense of Geography in the Key Stage 3 Classroom Geographical Associatiom *Roberts, M. (2009) ‘Investigating Geography in Geography 94(3) page 181-188 *Roberts, M. Young, M. ‘Powerful Knowledge and Geography Debate’ available at :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyGwbPmim7o (accessed on 03/11/2014) *Young, M. (1971) ‘ An Approach to the Study of Curricular as Socially Organised Knowledge’ in Young, M. (eds) Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education Macmillan Publishers: London *Young, M. Muller, J. (2010) ‘Three Educational Scenarios for the Future: Lessons from the Sociology of Knowledge’ in ‘European Journal of Education 45(1) pages 11-27 *Young, M. Lambert, D. Roberts, C. Roberts, M. (2014) Knowledge and the Future School: Curriculum and Social Justice Bloomsbury Academic: London