Corrupting the Curriculum?

David Lambert

John Morgan

Origins

Whelan R (ed) 2007, The corruption of the curriculum, London: Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society

(ISBN 978-1-903386-59-0)

Preliminaries

• We are addressing the geography curriculum

• Both elements (geography, curriculum) are– human creations– change according to a range of competing

priorities

• It is therefore difficult to imagine an ‘uncorrupted’ curriculum

Preliminaries (2)

Therefore, we need to keep under constant review the nature and purpose of school geography

In the current climate, geography is schools is under severe pressure.

We need to be clear that geography ‘deserves’ its curriculum space

The Civitas case

The problem?

‘Over the past two decades the school curriculum has become estranged from the challenge of educating children’ (p 1)

The curriculum?

‘… impart a body of academic knowledge to their students.’

Corrupted subjects

• Science is no longer about scientific knowledge (‘truth’) but ‘scientific literacy’

• Foreign languages are no longer concerned with opening up other cultures and literatures, but limited to functional skills

• History is no longer concerned with narrative and the big sweep of chronology, but with inauthentic comprehension exercises based on ‘sources a-f’.

• Geography is ‘no longer about maps’ but indoctrinating young people with ‘environmentalism’ in the name of ‘global citizenship’.

Geography

Geography has been so corrupted that it no longer provides the :

‘essential intellectual and social tools that will enable (young people) to assume political responsibility as adults’ (p56).

The geography curriculum should, according to Civitas,

‘offer pupils not only knowledge about the world but a theoretical and conceptual framework through which they can situate ideas. This framework is sorely lacking in many geography textbooks today’ (p55)

Instead,

The geography curriculum has been corrupted by ‘global ethics’ which

– Emphasise personal skills such as empathy– Emphasise values over knowledge– Promote personal responsibility over critical analysis

of economic, social, environmental and political processes.

Who is doing the corrupting?

It is systemic:

• Government (ECM; ‘pupil voice’)

• QCA (KS3 Aims)

• Subject Associations (‘new agenda’)

And the Geographical Association?

To what extent is it ‘corrupting’ for the APG to focus on:

– Young people’s geography– Sustainable development– Global citizenship

Ways to respond

• Reject the argument– as old fashioned and out of step– elitist

• Accept the argument– and promote geography as a ‘pure’ academic

pursuit for a privileged minority

• Look for aspects of the argument that have some purchase– Compare, for example, ‘moral carelessness’

Teaching geography ‘carelessly’

• As if education were an ‘answer culture’ As if education were an ‘answer culture’ ((notnot a culture of argument) a culture of argument)

• As if there were no overarching As if there were no overarching disciplinary ‘architecture’disciplinary ‘architecture’– There are “no right or wrong answers” There are “no right or wrong answers” – ““it’s your opinion that matters”it’s your opinion that matters”

• As if the ‘pedagogic adventure’ were itself As if the ‘pedagogic adventure’ were itself a worthwhile education outcomea worthwhile education outcome

Student Experiences

Geography: the subjectTeacher Choices

Underpinned by Key Concepts Thinking

Geographically

Learning Activity

How does this take the learner beyond what they already know?

Curriculum MakingCurriculum Making

‘Corruption’ or ‘balance’?

Things outside our control:– Whole curriculum structures (eg option

blocks)– Impact of targets, league tables and

inspections– Policy shifts (eg 14-19 curriculum)– Orthodoxies and ideology (skills and

competences)

Corruption or ‘balance’?

Things to keep in balance:

– The particular aims we want the geography curriculum to serve

• educational• vocational

– The learning we wish to emphasise• Skills, knowledge and understanding• Progression and continuity

Key questions

• What theoretical and conceptual frameworks does geography, or learning geography, impart?

• How does geography help us think about, or make sense of the world?

• What intellectual tools does geography provide?

Key questions

• What theoretical and conceptual frameworks does geography, or learning geography, impart?

• How does geography help us think about, or make sense of the world?

• What intellectual tools does geography provide?

• And in what ways are these educational?

Back to Civitas…

Frank Furedi and the ‘diminished self’

Three ‘destructive influences’:

• loss of faith in knowledge

• ‘enthronement of philistinism’

• contemporary views of childhood

Matters arising for school geography

• Values education in geography

• The diminished self in geographical study

• Politics and the geography curriculum

Values education in geography

• Dates from 1970s

• Responds to arguments about school knowledge

• Values are personal and individualised rather than products of material world

• Danger of ‘therapeutic education’

The diminished self in geographical study

• demoralization

• Regards human activity as a source of ‘problems’

• Low expectations

• Precautionary principle

Politics and the geography curriculum

• 1986 Social Affairs Unit ‘The wayward curriculum’

• Link with ‘Institute of Ideas’ – George Monbiot’s charge of ‘entryism’

• Geography education and modernity