In my book Athena vs the Machine, I explored how some schools fall into managerialist thinking and impose systems that are ‘knowledge limiting’ rather than knowledge rich. These schools might describe their curriculum as knowledge rich but in practice they mean, some or all of, – don’t teach skills, focus on the list written down on a ‘knowledge organiser’, memorise it and recall it for the exam.
Rather than knowledge-rich this is the curriculum as knowledge full stop. A pre described amount of knowledge, listed, factual, recallable, making the exam passable. This finite amount of knowledge, represented by the knowledge organiser, booklet, or exam spec and marking scheme becomes the bounded amount of permissible knowing with no hint of anything more.
Knowledge followed by a full stop is knowledge limiting rather than rich.
Knowledge Rich…
An ellipsis hints at more.
In his book, ‘The Infinity of Lists’, Umberto Eco suggests there are two ways of cataloguing or knowing our world, the closed way, where all our knowledge is bounded together, sealed in a list that stops. The other way of knowing has an open ‘boundless’ nature in which knowledge is infinite and full of possibility – knowledge unlimited… (I represent this open nature with the ellipsis) A knowledge rich curriculum should not limit the pupils to knowing, recalling and retaining a finite amount of knowledge but should open their horizons to so much more.
Liberal Arts – The Conversation of (Hu)mankind.
The conservative philosopher and writer about the joys of a liberal education, Michael Oakeshott, thought schools should prepare pupils to join in with the ongoing ‘conversation of mankind’, an ‘unrehearsed intellectual adventure’ in which a plurality of voices are joined together. To do this well, then of course ‘knowledge’ is vital, we need to teach stuff, but for a truly knowledge rich experience it can’t end there…
Knowing…
The act of knowing something is quite an odd one. We can congratulate ourselves when we recall something before the person answers the question on a television quiz. We ‘know’ that. But how much do we know around that bit of knowledge, how long can we converse eloquently about that topic? We might reach the limits of our knowledge and realise there is a lot we don’t know, or that elements of the knowledge we thought we knew has been forgotten or has changed or has been added to. Rather than knowledge as fixed and finite, we can see knowing stuff as something more fluid and continuing, it really doesn’t end here. The best guess for us all is we know a hell of a lot less than we don’t know. The list of things we don’t know, including the unknown unknowns goes on for ever, more than our lifetime’s engagement with trying to know can ever muster… Oh goodness, why bother then?
Not Mastery…
Knowing as a continual conversation, an open-ended relationship, is different to the finite idea of ‘mastery’ in which ‘enough already’ might be the underlying message: I know this, I own this.
Knowing, creating, conversing…
Schools have to deal with objective knowledge, of helping pupils learn, retain and recall an amount of knowledge. This is essential. But if we are to prepare children for living and flourishing in the adult world we mustn’t let it finish there. A school could fail a child by leaving them to believe that either they know enough or, worse, “Is this in the exam?” they know enough for the exam grade. To be truly knowledge rich… a child must know how to uncover new knowledge to them, be fascinated by the possibility of new knowledge, new to humankind, and, importantly, how to add to the infinite knowledge-pool by creating new knowledge. A continual quest, where we don’t know where we are going necessarily, but are ok with that.
There have been a number of people arguing over the last few years that knowledge comes before creating things and, therefore, instead of ‘creativity’ the focus should be on knowledge and creativity will take care of itself. This isn’t true. Knowing the notes on a keyboard doesn’t make you a composer, knowing the colours of the rainbow doesn’t make you an artist. In a knowledge rich environment one of the foci needs to be ‘knowing how to create’…
Imagination and Intuition
Knowledge can be absorbed in different ways, the work of our imagination in making connections, unearthing new ideas and thoughts, creating new knowledge or rethinking the old is essential. Imagination is an intrinsic part of how we access our minds and our worlds and should be honed in our schooling.
Intuition – how do you feel about this? How do you know whether this piece of music is better than that? How do you know if you’ve written the right sentence to follow that one? Yes, imagination and intuition can be wrong, as can, of course, memory… but all the more reason to explore…
Perspectivism
In order to make knowledge rich it is essential to examine different perspectives, to see the world not all as X sees it but also Y and Z – different viewpoints, traditions, genres, histories…
So What?
The knowledge limiting school might point to its, say, GCSE results and argue that all is well and I do not doubt the importance of good grades as currency in the ‘futures’ market. However, for a child to truly flourish, now and in the future, there should be so much more.
How?
Conversation becomes an important part of the curriculum, debate and argument too. Creating things is vital, the arts are no longer an added ‘option’ but an essential component of the school day. Knowledge and how it is known – a range of perspectives are taught, and as they clash against each other pupils are encouraged to explore what they think about something. Importantly, pupils are taught about the terrains of knowledge, the domains and how they operate, not just learning things in depth, they need a good breadth – to be able to understand how different areas of knowledge are formed and how they have worked in the past. They are given the opportunity to add to this, where possible, both through how they understand it and how they can create something within it or, indeed, extra to it.
Trivium 21c ltd. 
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