Substantive and disciplinary knowledge have become the words around which curriculum is being organised in some schools. Pro forma’s are filled in enthusiastically, or not so, to justify curriculum choices to line-managers. And whilst these terms seem to work well in some subjects I’m not so sure the distinction works so well in the arts. … More Curriculum, Assessment and the Arts
“Nothing has changed,” Theresa May was fond of saying, just as it was clear that things, in fact, had changed. The Dept. For Education in England has felt the need to release new guidance on how to tackle politically sensitive topics in an ‘impartial’ way. Teachers’ Unions are uncomfortable, saying this guidance might impinge on … More Teachers Should Not Teach Opinion as Fact
The problem with the word ‘creativity’ is that it conjures up such a wide range of possible interpretations that it ends up serving no-one except those who wish to peddle it as a pedagogical aim and charge thousands of pounds for their talks in Dubai or Davos, or a school hall near you on an … More Schools Should Ditch Creativity
From ‘It’s Your Time You’re Wasting’- A short contribution. It would be wonderful if you would ‘subscribe and like’ IF you like it, of course… ! Here is the text: How to teach the punks Punk means ‘a worthless person’ an identity John Lydon uses energetically and angrily. John Lydon voted for Trump.Saying on GMB … More Trump and Johnny Rotten
A talk and slides about: ‘Making Meaning in the World’. A look at some of the themes in ‘Athena vs the Machine’ 1.Conversation of humankind (culture) the way we do things here vs (who are you calling we?) – experience.2.Culture: Developing taste, opinions, values – finding meaning… truth, beauty, care, relationship to things, others – … More Curriculum and Culture
It’s what you do, not how you label it that matters. What is the difference between ‘disciplinary’ and ‘substantive’ knowledge and what other ways might there be of organising knowledge? In this excellent article Christine Counsell explains that: “Substantive knowledge is the content that teachers teach as established fact – whether common convention, concept or … More Ofsted and Knowledge.
Here is a video of a talk I gave in Birmingham, England, to the JUSCO (Junior School Collaboration) group on April 4th 2019. A big thank you due to the wonderful Chris McDonald for getting this sorted.
There has been a stormzy brewing for some time about curriculum content. The National curriculum says we ought to teach ‘the best’, I don’t agree, we each have our subjective tastes and sensibilities, I think it is better to teach children to enter into the conversation about what the best might be. That is not … More Stormzy or Mozart, Who Knows?
Describing our viewpoints on the world, Mary Midgley used the analogy of an aquarium with a number of murky windows through which people could peer. If we think of the aquarium as a whole as ‘reality and truth’ and each window being a perspective through which we can gaze upon that reality, we can begin … More Cultural Mobility
Curriculum Shorts (Some short musings about curriculum) We all know what we mean by a knowledge-rich curriculum but, as with all pithy phrases, we don’t. And if that isn’t a great contradiction, I don’t know what is. Knowledge-rich can mean, within certain, wide-ranging, parameters, anything you want it to mean. Lots of people can use … More Why Not A Knowledge-Rich Curriculum?
Trivium 21c 