For the life you don’t yet know: getting the curriculum right

Ms Susan Tranter Fitzharrys School Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

‘For the life you don’t yet know’ is a catch cry used by those who try to sell us life insurance (1). However, we could apply this clever piece of persuasion to any aspect of our lives- and none more so than education. As educators, we help to prepare children for the life they don’t yet know. And yet, it is this same lack of certainty that is also used as an excuse for keeping things the same. In the words of Rumsfeld (2), there are ‘known knowns’. We know that children need to be able to read, write and be numerate. We also know that there are ‘knowns unknowns’ - we know that the curriculum that pervaded the last century isn’t right for the 21st century.

The difficult one is the ‘unknown unknowns’ - that impossible collection of insights and predictions that might be true in the life we don’t yet know. Against this background, we try to find our way. In this paper, I want us to consider how we organise a debate about the curriculum and whether the focus on local solutions is appropriate in a national education system for students who live in a global society. I want us to consider whether the discussion should be less about what we teach but more about how we teach, and less about content and more about a shared moral purpose for our education system.

Think about our curriculum - what we teach, when we teach and how we teach. In England there is a movement towards a year 14-19 curriculum that provides an expanded range of opportunities (3). This will ensure that every young person masters functional English and maths before they leave education, improve vocational education, stretch all young people and help universities to differentiate between the best candidates, re-motivate disengaged learners and ensure delivery. We have been encouraged, and indeed required, to establish partnerships to address the 14-19 curriculum. There is both an encouragement and a requirement for schools to form partnerships, for example, ‘we will expect every area to establish a 14-19 partnership, led by the Local Authority and local Learning and Skills Council’ (4). Two questions arise: first, what problem are we trying to solve and second, are local solutions the best way to address system wide issues.

Firstly then, what problem are we trying to solve? What is the problem with our current curriculum? For many children, the diet at key stage 3 includes English, mathematics, science, history, geography, religious studies, PE, art, music, modern languages and technology. Most children at key stage 4 will follow a core curriculum of English, mathematics, science, PE and religious studies, with some choice for the remainder of the curriculum. Looking critically at the curriculum, we might argue that this single system, where children learn a range of subjects that are eventually examined at key stage 4 in the form of General Certificate of Secondary Education subjects (GCSEs), is focused on teachers rather than learners. A linear approach to education and the business of instruction helps in the organisation of a national system. One consequence of this system is that for some young people their achievement is limited by the amount of progress they have been able to make in a particular period of time and, conversely, some children may achieve a level in their education that significantly exceeds the expected progress for their chronological age. For the rest - the majority perhaps - the system delivers some desirable outcomes. However, the movement in England towards personalised learning is an acknowledgement that further refinement of pedagogy and assessment is necessary (Department for Education and Skills, 2004.

The challenges provided by international competition for economic prosperity are considerable and the threats that appear from the various corners of our globe are immense. More locally, we read regular reports from employers in our newspapers and media describing young people who don’t fit the needs of employment. The growth of a broader range of subjects in higher education has, without doubt, offered greater opportunities for young people but this has coincided with the decline in applications for science, technology and some of the more traditional subjects. Those who work in schools know well the difficulties of teaching the disaffected and disengaged. Change in the curriculum is often cited as the panacea to so many of these issues.
Vocational education offers an attractive solution to some of these problems - not least the most immediate one of dealing with disaffected young people. The spectre of 14-year-old children working in hairdressing salons, leisure centres and retail outlets might be appealing but how much different is this than the Victorian experience of young people as they went down mines, swept chimneys and went ‘into service’. We all of us know the pleasure of learning and the all-absorbing nature of a subject that engrosses us. Children don’t come to our schools intending to be disaffected; they are a product of what we make them. Teach anything with enthusiasm and skill and children will delight in learning. The key, according to Hopkins (2007), is ‘effective classroom experiences offer(ing) our children opportunities to explore and build important areas of knowledge, develop powerful tools for learning, and live in humanizing social conditions’ (6). The broadening of the educational offer isn’t incompatible with Hopkins’s description but our debate should ensure that knowledge is not sacrificed for a definition of learning that relies mainly on what can be looked up on Google and presumes that there are no unknowns, or that the ‘known unknowns’ are problems too complicated for the majority to solve. Our complex society requires much of us; it requires the ability to discriminate fact from fiction, to judge and assess, to compare and contrast and, moreover, to find solutions to complex problems. Life patterns have shifted, with better health leading to longer life expectancy for many, but are shorter for those unable to resist the products of modern chemistry and cope with the stresses of 21st century life. The contrast between those who enjoy lives rich with opportunity with those who do not succeed is stark.

What is relevant? Is the body of knowledge reducible to ‘essential knowledge’? Of course, it isn’t. We need the courage to stand and say that it is important for children to learn Shakespeare; understand the causes of the Cold War; describe the effects of climate change and solve algebraic equations because such learning prepares us for an enriched life, with choices and understanding. We develop understanding of ourselves and of others; and we learn tolerance through understanding of the mistakes of others. We acquire the tools for lifelong learning and equip children to make a positive contribution to our society through achieving economic wellbeing. And our country needs its technologists, its manufacturers, its scientists, its artists, and its writers, as well as its hairdressers, retail personnel and service staff. So, is the solution a local one? If the opportunities locally are in the service sector, do we abandon science, history and geography in favour of hospitality skills? Do local solutions always provide the best for the life we don’t yet know? Can the ‘right’ curriculum be locally determined?

Are local solutions compatible with a national publicly funded education system? Will local solutions provide solutions to whole society challenges? There is a warning against an over-reliance on local solutions. Bracks (2005) uses the case of Australia to make this point (7). He argues that while Australia has enjoyed strong economic growth in the ‘first wave’ of it economy, deregulation and the ending of tariffs were catalysts for greater competition, creating the ‘second wave’. To prevent Australia slipping back economically, he says, there is a need for a new ‘third wave’ of reform and the key to this is human capital. Bracks describes this third stage as the ‘new economic paradigm’, characterised by the capability of individuals to manage themselves, and an increasingly flexible and rapid response of public service to meet the needs and expectations of individuals, communities and business.

Policy design is to be less located in government and more rooted in communities. This is concordant with the policy of the UK Labour Government, when Tony Blair said that:
‘We are proposing to put an entirely different dynamic in place to drive our public services: one where the service will be driven not by the manager but by the user - the patient, the parents, the pupil and law abiding citizen.’
Prime Minster, Tony Blair, on public services, St Thomas’s Hospital, 23/6/04.

Fullan (2004) argues that in order to bring about both ‘high equity and excellence’, the policy and practice have to focus on system improvement (8). The Prime Minister stated that instead of having an improvement strategy that was determined by central government, it would be driven - but not by central government nor indeed the manager but the user.

Taking the concept of Bracks, the individual who is able to ‘manage him/herself’ is a good place to start when thinking about the demands on a person who is also a member of a wide range of social groups. Looking at what some of the elements of such a principle might be gives us some pointers to what the curriculum needs to look like.

Schooling has a moral purpose. Berstein (1970) said that ‘education cannot compensate for society’ (9). That moral purpose is expressed clearly by Hopkins (2007) as ‘a resolute failure to accept context as a determinant of academic and social success’ (10). This resonates with the USA legislative No Child Left Behind program, with its stated purpose that:
‘all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessment.’ (11).

This is accomplished through programmes that include reading, writing, civic education, the history of America, enhancing education through technology, the arts and PE. Such programmes might be criticised but there is a clear outcome that has been articulated and the components are stated and underpinned by the education system as a whole.

Educational evolution is mostly iterative change - it is the result of experimentation, research, learning and debate. Deciding what we want our children to be able to do - how we equip them to manage themselves and, indeed, what our children want to be able to do are good starting points for the debate. Local solutions can grow into national policy. The demands of a publicly funded and accountable system are considerable; equipping the next generation to tackle the ‘unknown unknowns’ isn’t an impossible task.

Learning is successful and a pleasure with skilled and disciplined professional teachers who are passionate about sharing what they can do, and know, believing that all children can succeed and are committed to the moral purpose of education. This is something that school leaders and classroom teachers can ensure is a characteristic of their school and their classrooms. This isn’t a cosy environment. It is, as Hargreaves (1994)12 describes, ‘for both teachers and students, school is a demanding but very enjoyable place to be’.

The debate about the right curriculum is perhaps easier and less complex than we might think. School leaders and teachers need to look to their own practice first - and make sure it is as good as it can possibly be. Skill and professional discipline are essential components of best practice in a learning community.

Notes

1. Zurich Insurance plc had a campaign in the early part of this century entitled ‘For the Life You Don’t Yet Know’.
2. Donald Rumsfeld, at the NATO Press Conference, 6 June 2002.
3. DfES (2005) 14-19 Education and Skills. See: www.dfes.gov.uk
4. DfES (2005) 14-19 Education and Skills Implementation Plan, DfES, p. 9. London ref. DfES/2037-2005/DCL-ECN
5 DfES (2004). See: www.standards.dfes.gov.uk
6. Hopkins, D (2007). Every school a great school. Maidenhead, Open University Press.
7. Bracks S (2005). A third wave of national reform: a new national reform initiative for COAG. See: www.dpc.vic.gov.au accessed 2 June 2006.
8. Fullan M (2004). Systems thinkers in action: moving beyond the standards plateau. DfES Publications, Nottingham, England. DfeS/1060/2004.
9. Berstein, B (1970). ‘Education cannot compensate for society’. In New society. No 387(1) pp.344-7.
10. Hopkins, D (2007). Every school a great school. Maidenhead, OUP, p.18.
11. No Child Left Behind (2001). See: www.ed.gov
12. Hargreaves, A (1994). Changing teachers, changing times. London, Continuum. p.11.