Editorial: What matters in the curriculum?
| Autor: | Andy Begg |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2006 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Curriculum Matters. 2:1-5 |
| ISSN: | 2253-2129 1177-1828 |
| DOI: | 10.18296/cm.0079 |
| Popis: | This year, New Zealand's Ministry of Education published a draft curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2006), as part of the consultative process associated with the development of the next school curriculum. Whether this document is a major perturbation to our curriculum thinking remains to be seen, but I assume that most paradigm shifts cause some unrest. The publication seems somewhat premature--as some sections had not been completed--which suggests that the political agenda may have outweighed other considerations. The proposed timeline also reinforced this; dates for the final version, and for implementation, were forecast, and I wondered whether the time frame was such that--if feedback requesting significant change was forthcoming--it could be given due consideration. However, knowing the extent and nature of feedback that has been received when draft documents have previously been published, perhaps the timelines are not unreasonable. As I looked through the draft curriculum, some features simultaneously delighted and concerned me--features such as: being less prescriptive; giving more professional autonomy to teachers and schools; and the key competencies (in particular, the emphasis on thinking). The less prescriptive aspect of the curriculum allows more freedom to experiment, and should encourage the development of alternative classroom tasks and activities that are suitable for particular students in their local environments, and that are somewhat more holistic than with tightly-defined objectives. On the other hand, when the curriculum does not provide the level of specificity that teachers are accustomed to, they may simply continue to use their old school schemes and lesson plans. Also, although the curriculum is less prescriptive, at some levels--in particular in the senior school--this freedom could well be curtailed by the assessment industry, that still seems to operate in a paradigm of easily measurable objectives. Related to the less prescriptive nature of the curriculum, is the acknowledgement of the professional autonomy of teachers and schools. "Lead" teachers of the profession have always claimed such autonomy, and it is hoped that others will follow their lead. I see an increased emphasis on the co-operative planning of school schemes--an emphasis on school curriculum documents that bridge the gap between teachers' lesson plans and the national curriculum--as a way of developing such autonomy. Such planning should involve not merely deciding what and how to teach a topic, but discussing alternative approaches, empowering individual teachers to experiment, reflecting on the experiences, and feeding this reflection back into the planning process. Again, though, my fear is that professional autonomy also allows the less adventuresome teacher to stay with their time-worn teaching methods. I anticipate that some of these teachers will ask why they have to "reinvent the wheel", and feel that more specific direction is desirable. My belief is that it is not a matter of "reinventing the wheel", but rather one of becoming more familiar with an idea or task, and making it one's own. I have always believed that the most important direction for education is provided by one's espoused aims of education. I am not sure why "aims" need to be renamed "key competencies", but regardless of labels, I see these as being not too different from previous aims--such as encouraging the urge to enquire, the desire for self-respect, and the concern for others--i.e., as I wrote in my editorial last year (Begg, 2005), linked with the cognitive, personal, and social aims of education. My concern with the competencies (thinking, making meaning, relating to others, managing self, and participating and contributing), as with the preliminary pages of past curriculum documents, is that while they are likely to be totally acceptable to teachers, they are not linked with the learning areas in the curriculum that are the part of the document teachers usually focus on, and are therefore likely to be given little attention. … |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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