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ED4001: lecture 4 Curriculum

ED4001: lecture 4 Curriculum. What ought we teach in schools? What is taught in schools? Knowledge and subjects: What are the most important subjects? Are subjects the most important things?. Conclusion: The curriculum can be a reflection of a dominant culture and

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ED4001: lecture 4 Curriculum

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  1. ED4001: lecture 4Curriculum What ought we teach in schools? What is taught in schools? Knowledge and subjects: What are the most important subjects? Are subjects the most important things? Conclusion: The curriculum can be a reflection of a dominant culture and is therefore highly contested

  2. What ought we teach in schools? If education is for… Compulsory subjects • Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Potions, Astronomy, History of Magic, and Herbology. Optional subject for the start of the third year • Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, and Muggle Studies.

  3. Why ‘this’ rather than ‘that’?

  4. What ought we teach in schools? If education is for… • Getting the poor into work; • Preparing men and women for their respective roles; • Selecting bright children for bright futures; • Ensuring everyone has the opportunity to grow and flourish; • Ensuring everyone can contribute to their society.

  5. Preparing men and women for their respective roles;

  6. Suggested that too much education was bad for girls Education caused physiological damage and produced sterility Intelligent women were unable to breast feed In adolescence, girls needed their energy to establish a regular menstrual cycle Curriculum reflects cultural values:Education of Girls: 1908 conference on infant mortality Good Wives and Little Mothers: Social Anxieties and the Schoolgirl's Curriculum, 1890-1920Carol DyhouseOxford Review of Education, Vol. 3, No. 1, History and Education. Part Two (1977), pp. 21-35

  7. Rousseau: Child-centred, stage appropriate, but gendered. Dewey: Using the fourfold interests of children, namely: construction, inquiry, artistic expression, social. Wollstonecraft: For instance, botany, mechanics, and astronomy. Reading, writing, arithmetic, natural history, and some simple experiments in natural philosophy, might fill up the day; but these pursuits should never encroach on gymnastic plays in the open air. Wollstonecraft (1792) A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Philosophers and curriculum

  8. A common sense view: The subjects we learnin school A selection from, and organisation of, the available knowledge that exists at a particular time What does the word curriculum mean?

  9. The ‘hidden curriculum’ Whitson (2006) from the Wikimedia Commons

  10. Past present and future

  11. History lesson: • 1970s –progressive education child-centred primary education and topic work. • Primary curriculum almost entirely determined by individual teachers. • Secondary curriculum determined by the examination system. • No political interference in ‘curriculum knowledge’

  12. 1970s schooling blamed for economic decline and social disorder. • ‘Moral panic‘! • Curriculum as a ‘secret garden’ (Anthony Crosland). • Attack on teachers and education in Callaghan’s (Labour PM) Ruskin College speech (1976).

  13. Education and the curriculum now politically centre-stage • New right or ‘Thatcherite’ policies • 1988 Education Act introduced the statutory National Curriculum: 'entitlement curriculum'. • Traditionalist curriculum: ten subjects in a hierarchy (core and other foundation subjects).

  14. National Curriculum subjects • English • Maths • Science • Design and technology • Information and Communication Technology (ICT) • History • Geography • Art and design • Music • Physical education • Also advised: PSHE, citizenship, MFL

  15. How good is the knowledge we are given at school? • We have tended to accept school knowledge as unquestionably true • But the subjects we learn are just one way of organising the world • We forget that subjects are humanly produced • Perhaps subjects put the world into too many compartments

  16. Areas of learning: Rose (2009: 46) http://publications.education.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/Primary_curriculum_Report.pdf

  17. The Cambridge ReviewDomains ‘essential to the primary phase’: • arts and creativity • citizenship and ethics • faith and belief • language, oracy and literacy • mathematics • physical and emotional health • place and time • science and technology

  18. Thenewgovernment: Gove and Hirsch • Gove admires the ideas of American E D Hirsch, who advocates teaching core knowledge. He believes that includes: “the basic principles of constitutional government, mathematics and language skills, important events in world history, and acknowledged masterpieces of art, music and literature" General knowledge should be a goal of education because it "makes people competent regardless of race, class or ethnicity” source: Coppola (2000) http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Hirsch.html

  19. It is teaching us far more than basic facts It is teaching us who we are in relation to a particular country at a certain time It is teaching us what it means to be male, female, Welsh, Japanese... Where, or if, we belong. The curriculum reflects cultural values - is never neutral

  20. National Curriculum values • “Foremost is a belief in education, at home and at school, as a route to the spiritual, moral, social, cultural, physical and mental development, and thus the wellbeing, of the individual. Education is also a route to equality of opportunity for all, a healthy and just democracy, a productive economy, and sustainable development.” http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-1-and-2/Values-aims-and-purposes/index.aspx

  21. Transmitted through routines & rules and the behaviour of adults Discovering knowledge is not a task for pupils The voice of authority must be obeyed Competition is more important than co-operation Reading and writing are more important than talking and thinking Men are more important than women The Hidden Curriculum

  22. Throughout the ages many countries have controlled knowledge with a view to controlling people. Most states exercise this power. Knowledge as propagandaGovernments can attempt to control what children think

  23. Questions? • Governments can attempt to control what children think – true? • Who should control the curriculum – parents, children, teachers, local government or national government? • Was your school curriculum gendered? • Can you think of example of something you learned from a ‘hidden curriculum’? • Should the curriculum be organised differently for different ages? Why?

  24. Bonus Question • Can you name the ‘masterpieces of art’ children should know about in grade 1, according to Hirsch? • See page 40 of... http://www.coreknowledge.org/mimik/mimik_uploads/documents/480/CKFSequence_Rev.pdf

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