Our approach to education can at times be baffling. As adults and as parents we reflect on our education and talk about how so little of it ‘stuck’ or is relevant to what we do as adults. We quote Einstein, 'Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.’ and Mark Twain ‘I never let my schooling interfere with my education’ and see in such statements profound wisdom and insights as to the nature of real-world learning. We do this and yet want our children to share the experience of schooling that we had. We marvel at advances in technology and science. Read, occasionally, about advances in brain science and cognition and then agree with politicians and journalists that education should take a 'back to basics' approach. (Bita, N. 2015)
Perhaps the disruption of a global pandemic will prompt a rethinking of how education might be framed to best serve the needs of those who rely on it most? Perhaps now is the time to rethink the curriculum?
As Norman McCulla (2015) writes ‘In opting for narrow definitions of literacy and numeracy and the safe territory of outmoded debates we align ourselves more with a time when the main purpose of schooling was to prepare young people for the burgeoning office work of the Industrial Revolution.’. We cling to dichotomies that present oversimplified images of the options available to educators and debate endlessly direct instruction against constructivist inquiry learning as though one excludes the other and with no recognition that effective teachers pick and choose from a vast toolkit. We ignore that the world is not as it once was and that the jobs we imagine we are preparing our children for will be there when they exit school. We ban students from using the tools they have available thanks to the evolution of technology while as adults relying on these same tools, we insist on basic skills that we never use.
And in this time of a global pandemic, these tools have been forced to the front. We have had little choice but to embrace online learning. With this have come other consequences, a rethinking of how we approach content and how we understand what we want students to learn. What had been a largely private profession built on interactions between teachers and students has been moved into the homes of our clients. This new transparency is forcing many to consider carefully what they teach and how they teach it. There are new levels of uncertainty as we question what we assumed was correct. We are being asked questions about the way concepts are taught and we all have had to accept that we have new teaching partners who had previously been referenced as parents. All of this is encouraging a close looking at the curriculum and how it is taught. What parts of the curriculum matter most, what are the concepts to be mastered and how do we allow the essential dispositions to be learned when they can not be addressed when they are not a natural part of the ‘new’ learning environment?
And then there is our continuing obsession with standardised testing. The importance of achieving positive scores on these tests relies upon the test device measuring aspects of learning that are significant. The reality is that they are both too narrow in focus, measure what is easily measured and are presented in ways foreign to the ways we believe students learn. The consequence is that these tests have an excessive influence on the delivered curriculum students experience as systems place pressures on teachers and schools to perform against these criteria. Should we allow what our children gain from their years of schooling and the manner by which they are taught be shaped by international assessments?
There are alternatives. One possibility is to identify the skills, dispositions and capabilities that our children are most likely to need in their futures. This is not suggested as an abandonment of content, but a reframing of what is viewed as most important. It requires us to rethink what comes first when we plan for and assess learning.
The General Capabilities of The Australian Curriculum
One advantage of a capabilities-driven curriculum is that we can generally agree on a broad set of capabilities, but it is much harder to agree on content, and we must always select what content is covered as there is always more than we have time for. If we move towards a capabilities-driven curriculum, we can allow the content of the curriculum to be adjusted to the needs of local contexts and can be inclusive of student voice. The capabilities, such as creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking are adaptable and have utility for engagement with almost all knowledge that might be reasonable to explore in schools. If we wish to move away from a content-driven curriculum where all students engage with the same content at the same time in their learning journey, allowing capabilities to take on the central role is perhaps the best way forward.
The capabilities developed by Partnerships for 21st Centruy Learning
The possibility of a capabilities curriculum is evident within the Australian curriculum and in other frameworks around the world. The idea that content might be the vehicle through which broadly relevant capabilities that are likely to play a significant role in the lives that students are likely to live would have a transformative effect on education. As Reid identified in 2005 'the (Australian) curriculum is framed both in terms of the capabilities needed to become autonomous, responsible and productive members of democratic societies, and the procedural principles that will inform the kinds of experiences that will help them to become so.
The challenge of the future is real but now is not the time for despair. Education surely has a central role to play and learning and the dispositions of the learner have greater value now than perhaps ever before. Now is the time for new Renaissance for education not as preparation for an unknown future but as the one constant which flows through our lives and allows us to flourish amidst unceasing change.
By Nigel Coutts
Bita, N (2015) National primary curriculum shifts focus to core skills. The Australian; August 8 2015
McCulla, N. (2015). The Australian Curriculum: Who are we? Professional Educator 14(1). Melbourne. Australian College of Educators. 8-10
Reid, A. (2005) Rethinking National Curriculum Collaboration Towards an Australian Curriculum Commonwealth of Australia