‽istis just begins
to ponder learning and school subjects (weekending April 23rd 2022)
Earlier
this month a British newspaper headline read: ‘Schools being ‘silenced’ by new
political impartiality guidance from Government, teachers say’ (1) following,
it seems, the publication in February of the Department for Education’s
guidance: ‘Political Impartiality in Schools’ (2) and the foreword by Nadhim Zahawi MP Secretary of State for
Education, includes:
‘Importantly, I hope this
guidance helps all parties to understand how schools should go about meeting
their legal duties, allowing issues to be resolved through constructive
dialogue and agreement…
…nothing in this guidance limits
schools’ freedom to teach about sensitive, challenging, and controversial
political issues…
Schools should also continue to
reinforce important shared principles that underpin our society, whether that
be upholding democratic rights or more generally promoting respect and
tolerance.’
And
this week, a new GCSE subject is proposed: ‘Natural History’ (3) part of the
Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change
Strategy
- which prompted ‽istis to reflect on other subjects that might be introduced,
or given a makeover - here’s a cautious first sketch of a first draft only as
mind-map images beginning to form: of a coherent and connected curriculum from
foundational core themes, topics and subjects branching outward to specialisms
through life-long education, learning and training opportunities and related
organisational arrangements (to be continued).
So,
in no particular order or hierarchy and as a starter for ten only and with
general apologies:
‽ Learning and thinking:
critical thinking and analysis: from constructs to deconstruction; from making
and presenting a case to dialogue and debate; from heuristics and rhetoric;
using assistive technology; sources and resources; ‘facts’ and ‘truth/s’ -
knowns, unknowns and unknown unknowns!
‽ Applied Social Sciences:
psychology (understanding what may lie within us/what makes us tick?), social
psychology (understanding what may lie between us/?), sociology (understanding
what may lie outside of us and may influence us?) - and related topics: emotional intelligence and relationships: personal, family, communities, social organisation; human and other rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and the law; diversity
matters; inclusion and exclusion; civics and society: institutions, power,
politics, economics, systems, organisations; peace and reconciliation; building
consensus, creating the future, etc.
‽ Health and well-being…
understanding mental health, physical health - recreation and sport; emotional
well-being of self and others; healthy people and places
‽ Language, languages (with
specific options), communication and the media
‽ Histories: many and varied
perspectives on the past - dominant and otherwise, records and sources,
archives and collections, narratives and stories
‽ Geography and the natural, altered and 'made' world: people, places, landscapes and environments - past, present and future
‽ Belief and faiths in theory
and practice: sacred and secular, religious and humanistic
‽ Everyday mathematics and then
options: on to ‘pure’ mathematics, etc.
‽ Recycle and repair, DIY and
maintenance, electrics, plumbing and building etc.
‽ Everyday science and then
options - on to specifics: physics; chemistry; biology; engineering; natural
history and sustainability
‽ The arts and cultures: understanding,
appreciating and creating - on to specific areas: literature - poetry and
lyrics; plays and prose; visual arts; sound and music-making; music production;
architecture and the built environment, etc.
And,
as ever, you might care to have a go at sketching out your vision or adapting
this very first draft - with so much more work to be done, not least to address,
‽istis is sure, the many omissions and biases (conscious or unconscious!)…
Perhaps, possibly, maybe let us at least consider that it could be important to find fresh ways to kindle the flames (4) of learning and achievement for us all; to re-think learning and curricula, assessment and qualifications and their delivery and organisation - including the role and nature of playgroups, nurseries, home-learning, schools, universities, work-based learning and opportunities for life-long learning; to consider what are the outcomes that we wish for - and to imagine how different the world could be‽
Afterwords:
a) In a spirit of dialectics and Hegelian
‘absoluter gegenstoss’ (5), if you wish to call someone ‘woke’ then perhaps you
are somehow acknowledging that there may be others who essentially ‘asleep’ or
‘unconscious’ - possibly even to their biases, howsoever and wheresoever these
may have been taught or learned: at home, in a community, in school or perhaps,
possibly, maybe within a dominating and even inherently ‘othering’
hegemony‽
b) Further to the issuing of the
DfE Guidance and in the spirit of the foreword by Secretary of State for
Education, ‽istis looks forward to renewed outbreaks of: ‘issues…
resolved through constructive dialogue and agreement’; reinforcing ‘important
shared principles’; ‘upholding democratic rights’ and ‘more generally promoting
respect and tolerance’ - on the playing fields of Eton (6), the playing fields
left across other schools (7), in the Department for Education and in
Parliament.
© Pistis
NB:
further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries
to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate
approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. ‘Follows’
and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...
- https://inews.co.uk/news/education/school-classrooms-silenced-political-impartiality-guidance-government-teachers-british-empire-1568560
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools/political-impartiality-in-schools
- References
include: http://www.curlewmedia.com/gcse-natural-history, the
website of Mary Colwell (producer and writer specialising in nature’) who
proposed such a topic several years’ ago. See also: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/61141330 & https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/apr/17/new-natural-history-gcse-to-focus-on-protecting-the-planet & https://teach.ocr.org.uk/naturalhistory
- Which
may or may not have been proposed by William Butler Yeats: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/28/mind-fire/
- References
include: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/03/worst-all-worlds-late-capitalist-materialism-and-unending-cycles-slavoj-i-ek which
includes: “the radical coincidence of opposites in which the action
appears as its own counteraction…’ & ‘…an action becomes the result
(rather than the cause) of its counteraction. To take the best-known
example in Hegel, the master discovers that the slave is not his other but
the condition of his status as master – that he is the master only by
virtue of his dependence on (or enslavement to) the
slave.’
- References
include:
https://oupacademic.tumblr.com/post/57740288322/misquotation-the-battle-of-waterloo-was-won-on#:~:text=Misquotation%3A%20%E2%80%9CThe%20battle%20of%20Waterloo,wars%20have%20been%20lost%20there.
- Is this accurate‽ :‘The Conservative government between 1979 and 1997 sold off around 10,000 playing fields. The Labour government between 1997 and 2010 sold off 226 fields.’ https://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-08-17/how-previous-governments-compare-on-selling-off-playing-fields/ & ‘236 playing field sales have been signed off under the Conservatives since 2010.’ https://schoolsweek.co.uk/school-playing-field-sales-hit-3-year-high-as-johnson-pledges-50m-football-pitch-investment/
