Who is responsible for curriculum change? One in, all in!

Dr Gary Simpson Woodleigh School Baxter, Victoria, Australia

Introduction

I believe that curriculum change is the responsibility of all participants in the process of education. It is not enough to rely on teachers acting with local communities to drive change, just as it is not wise to allow politicians to mandate change from a centralised, and often distant, capital city. However, it is important that both perspectives are included in the long, continuous conversation that must surround the ever-changing evolving needs of education to match the ever-changing evolving demands of our society. This conversation should also include the perspectives of the education bureaucrats employed by state and federal governments, the parents and, most importantly, the students.

In this paper, I describe what I believe is the role of each of the groups who I believe are responsible for curriculum change and I conclude with a reflection informed by the philosopher, Pierre Bourdieu, and the Canadian Science educator David Blades.

Governments (federal and state)

We have read a great deal recently about the Federal Government’s (and the Federal Opposition’s) desire to centralise control over the production of curriculum standards, as apparently the state governments and their large, professionally trained and experienced bureaucracies can’t be expected to do this job appropriately. The state governments are, predictably, concerned with further federalism on the part of Federal Government and probably question who, in the federal bureaucracy, has the training and experience to make decisions about primary and secondary education. Many community groups have also voiced concern with a federally mandated curriculum, due to the effect this may have on marginalised local community voices. Clearly, many of us who work in the sector full-time are concerned about the impact of change related to party political ideology, given that governments tend to change. However, clearly, as the elected representatives of the society, governments have a role to play in deciding the direction that curriculum change should take. It is important that what happens in schools assists the preparation of students for roles in the society of their future. If we take, as I do, the Galtungian view, that society exists to meet the material and immaterial needs, which the need to be educated is one, then the role of government is to ensure that it act for its electors to ensure society meets those needs (Galtung, 1980).

Education bureaucrats

In each State, many experienced and talented people are employed to manage the business of teaching and learning. Many of these have been highly trained via graduate and postgraduate study and are highly experienced, having been successful classroom practitioners and administrators. This group has a significant role to play in ensuring that what takes place in schools is for the best of our students, as they are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the wishes of the government of the day, and therefore the wishes of the people, are met.

Parents

Parents may not have the training for, or the experience of, teaching young people. However, they do have the best interests of their children at heart, and experience of raising their children as parents. They have aspirations for their children and expectations about what the school system will do for them. They are particularly concerned that their children will have a happy time at school, free from bullying, and that they will be academically successful, so that they can lead meaningful lives as members of our community, making a contribution to the society, being gainfully employed and raising happy well-adjusted children of their own.

Local community

The local school community also desires to see the children educated in such a way that they can make a contribution to it; as future community leaders (and participants), employers of, or employees in, local businesses, and residents with families of their own. Each local community strives to maintain a character of its own and many local communities have particular industries that reflect their geographic location. This is more true of communities as we move further from the centre to the periphery of society; that is, our rural and urban/rural fringe communities. Galtung (1980) noted how these communities were often the most marginalised in society. These communities require an opportunity to take part in the discussion about what takes place in their local schools and are possibly the most fearful of centrally mandated curriculum for the whole of Australia.

Teachers

Teachers are minimum four year trained (with many now completing postgraduate study) who then become seasoned professionals with an enormous wealth of knowledge and experience that they can bring to any discussion about what should be taught, and how it should be taught. Teachers clearly belong at the conference table when conversations about curriculum change take place. They can be represented by their union bodies or subject associations. They are also usually local residents with an understanding of what the local community requires of its students and how the community can best use the students’ skills and abilities.

Students

Then, there are the students: the young people at the heart of our discussions. They, too, have a view about what they should learn, how they should learn it and how they should be treated within their school and local community. They have aspirations for their future lives and expectations for their schooling. They deserve a voice. Yet, they are too young to vote and so cannot influence governments. Young people are usually ignored by educational bureaucracies and forgotten by communities, parents and teachers when we argue about what is best for them.

Reflection

I believe that for a school to be a successful learning community it must share a vision of what it wishes to achieve for its students with the whole school community. That is, the aspirations and expectations of our students, their parents, the school community (teachers and administration) and the local community must be in harmony and must meet the expectations and direction set by the educational bureaucrats who work to put the ideology of our political leaders into practice. To be in harmony, school charters or vision statements must be developed and reviewed regularly in a collaborative manner with all stakeholders. When the aspirations of one group are not in line with the others, then disengaged behaviours can lead to negative teaching and learning environments and disenchantment in local communities. Having established what it is that the whole school community wants for its students, teams of teachers then need to work together to prepare curriculum materials and pedagogical approaches that are consistent with the school’s vision, and with each other. This view is informed by Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, in which he argues that the lived experience of a social setting (such as a school or family) influences the success of an individual’s participation in that social setting. It is, therefore, important for the social settings of family, school and community to be in harmony for students to participate successfully in those three settings.

David Blades (1997), in his brilliant work on the impact of Foucauldian procedures of power in the educational setting, describes how he experienced dysfunctional curriculum change in Canada in the 1980s. He describes how curriculum materials, which were prepared by many committed and highly experienced teachers seconded by the educational bureaucracy, became derailed as the powerful university and industry factions in society applied their power within the social matrix to ensure that the status quo was maintained. Blades then used the situation, and his personal experience of it, as one of the seconded teachers, as the basis of his doctoral research, producing a wonderful allegory of the outcomes of his work in his 1997 text. His final outcome is to recognise that the one group usually marginalised in these curriculum conversations is the students, who feel blocked from participation, left to listen to the talk about them.

So, I believe that all these groups need to be present when discussions of curriculum change take place. No one group has sole responsibility. No one group is better placed to make these decisions. All groups need to take part in an ongoing dialogue about how curriculum can be used to assist students to transform their society, so that it is always evolving toward the ideal dreamed of by our leaders.

References

Blades, DW (1997). Procedures of Power and Curriculum Change: Foucault and the Quest for Possibilities in Science Education, New York, Peter Lang.
Bourdieu, P (1972). An outline of theory in practice. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P (1979). Distinction. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Bourdieu, P (1984). Homo academicus, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P (1989). La noblesse d’etat: les grandes ecoles et spirit de corp. Paris.
Galtung, J (1980). The true worlds: a transnational perspective. New York, The Free Press.