Reformation After Receiving Education - Case Study Example

Educational Development and Curriculum In its broadest sense, according to R.S. Peters (1966), “Education… implies that something worthwhile is being or has been intentionally transmitted in a morally acceptable manner.” So, whether you get educated in school, at home or when you travel, there is education taking place. He further opines that no specific type of activity is required because education is like reform. If one has to be reformed, then the end objectives of such reformation dictate the kind of activities and processes that must be conducted to effect the reformation. J.Bruner (1996) attempts to define such reformation after receiving education, such that a person is enabled to operate at his/her fullest potential, equipped with the necessary tools and a sense of opportunity to use “wits, skills and passions to the fullest.” It is therefore worth examining why some people who have undergone education are not able to operate at full potential, lack skills and do not seem to know how to use supposedly attained wits with a passion. This leads us to believe that there can only be inadequacies in the educational process that prevents the very purpose of education from being achieved. Taking a look at education policy documents of different governments, one sees both similarities and disparities. In Queensland, Australia, the aim is to “create a safe, tolerant and disciplined environment within which young people prepare to be active and reflective Australian citizens with a disposition to lifelong learning. They will be able to participate in and shape community, economic and political life in Queensland and the nation. They will be able to engage confidently with other cultures at home and abroad…” (Queenslamd DE 2000) The aim is focused on nurturing the child to produce responsible Australians who will take care of Australia and effectively interact with other peoples outside Australia. According to Wee Heng Tin, Director General of Education in Singapore (1998), “Education must nurture the whole child. Apart from skills and knowledge, children need to cultivate sound morals, strength of character, healthy habits, team spirit and an aesthetic appreciation of the world around them. We want to help our children develop as individuals, according to their talents and abilities, and to grow into responsible and committed citizens.” This pronouncement is very similar to that of Queensland. South Africa’s curriculum aims are also along the same lines except for the lack of statement regarding international interaction. According to their Department of Education (2000) “curriculum should be clearly steered by principles that promote personal and social development and transformation for the 21st Century. . . the role of schools should be both to assist the achievement of wider goals of social justice, equity and development and also to develop the intellectual abilities of students. . .” In 1996, G. Shepherd, as UK Secretary of State for Education made a statement regarding reforms in the educational system with the end view of developing citizens to achieve the vision of a prosperous Britain in the 21st century. This is in the same line as the South African and Australian objectives of developing individuals to contribute eventually to the progress of their respective nations. Hong Kong (2000) and Japan (1997) follow a similar tone although they include clauses similar to Singapore regarding development of an individual according to his or her own attributes, “a way… appropriate to themselves… respecting each person’s individuality” (Japan 1997) implying that the process of education need not be uniform for all. There is also ongoing debate regarding gender and educational achievement. “In the United Kingdom, the increasing availability of national performance data has focused the debate on the ‘gender gap’ between the level of boys’ and girls’ performance, whether at the age of 7 in reading and writing or at the age of 16, in virtually all GCSE subjects.” (Younger & Warrington 2005). It has become a subject for research and discussion, whether gender should also be an issue for consideration of education aims and curriculum design. “Schools must now address the fact that boys are at higher risk for school failure.” (Weiman 2002) Finally, in the inspection of government education policies, for the Kingdom of Brunei (2004), educational aims incorporate all the other government’s aims as well as some very specific ones pertaining to the country’s culture and religion, “to ensure each individual is fluent in Malay and devoted to the interests of the Malay language as the official language… to inculcate the teaching of Islam… to cultivate… loyalty to the Monarch, the Country and the Law… to cultivate… values and cultural norms of Brunei society, centred on the principles of a Malay Islamic Monarchy.” Bruner (1996) notes that “the antinomic counterpart to… the function of education is to reproduce the culture that supports it – not only reproduce it, but further its economic, political and cultural ends.” This observation by Bruner hints on a possible reason for the failure of education to achieve its purpose. Could it be because of conflicts between the student and the culture which is supporting the student’s education? Dr. Nicholas Tate, in a lecture presented during the Peterson lectures at the International Baccalaureate Organization in 2004 said that the “answer to the question ‘What is education for?’ is always an answer about the kind of human beings, and the kind of society, they would like to see… what men and women are here on earth to do and in distinguishing between lives that have been well led and those that fall short of what should be expected of human beings.” He goes on to stress what his own answers are to what education is for. First, education must transmit a set of moral and ethical values. Through this, schools can help “mould ideas and feelings and attitudes, to develop empathy and to shape character”. Second, a study of the past must be given prominence in the curriculum. It is with the stock knowledge of the past that people will be able to make sense of the modern world. Third, is that education should teach students how to read the mass media critically at an early age. To be truly educated, one must know how to read and question the values and attitudes presented by various media, the politics and particular interest groups which influence media as well as the exclusion from media of minority viewpoints. Fourth is the inclusion of the study of religion. It should not be ignored because religion has had continuing impact on how history and culture are shaped in every part of the world. Fifth is education for citizenship. Young people’s identities should be developed – local, English, British, European, Commonwealth and global. People can have multiple identities which are compatible with each other. Sixth and seventh are “learning how to learn” and interdisciplinary studies. Tate says achieving the balance between these two should bring educators close to developing educational practices that will produce a larger number of educated persons. According to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (2008), the aims of the national curriculum are to enable all young people to become: 1) successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve; 2) confident individuals who are able to lead safe, healthy and fulfilling lives and 3) responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society. The QCA prescribes overarching themes for the national curriculum that have a significance for individuals and society and provide relevant learning contexts – identity and cultural diversity, healthy lifestyles, community participation, enterprise, global dimension and sustainable development, technology and the media, creativity and critical thinking. My educational development and experiences in the past more than fifteen years are a testimony to both successes and failures of achieving the educational aims of the national curriculum. According to the QCA (National Curriculum 2008), curriculum for key stages 1 and 2 should include art & design; geography; music; citizenship; history; physical education; design & technology; ICT; science; English; mathematics; personal, social and health education; modern foreign languages; and religious education. Similar to the findings of the QCA Monitoring Curriculum and Assessment Primary Report 2005-6, to my recollection, learning subjects does not necessarily result in a pupil’s progress. As a pupil in primary education, I did not feel that I was developing as a successful learner or a confident individual or as a responsible citizen. The QCA MCA report said that “majority of head teachers were concerned that the curriculum was failing to help children manage risk, develop autonomy or equip them for leadership.” In Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development which he developed in 1956 (Child Dev 2003), key stages 1 and 2 occur during the fourth stage or the school age where the psychosocial crisis is industry versus inferiority. During this stage, a child masters the more formal skills of life - relating with peers according to rules, play that is structured by rules and formal teamwork, and mastering social studies, reading, arithmetic. The child who had successfully resolved the crises in the earlier stages are ready for this stage and shall learn to be industrious. However, those that have not will doubt the future or will experience defeat and inferiority. My personal educational development at this stage had to include subjects beyond social studies, reading and arithmetic. The additional subject areas which I had to be taught may have contributed to the feeling of not being a successful learner or that the nature of delivery of the subject matter may have been disjointed from the objectives of making the pupil a confident individual and a responsible citizen. The aims of curriculum for key stages 3 and 4 further support the national curriculum goals. The QCA (National Curriculum 2008) prescribes an additional subject aside from those already started in key stages 1 and 2, which is economic education. Particularly, the secondary curriculum should “raise attainment, particularly in English, mathematics, science and ICT; ensure entitlement for all learners to a broad, balanced and relevant curriculum that offers continuity and coherence and secures high standards; induct learners into the essential knowledge, skills and discourse of subject disciplines and to develop specialisms appropriate to aptitude; prepare young people for the world of employment and further and higher education; make learners more aware of, and engaged with, their local, national and international communities; encourage learners to take responsibility for their own health and safety, and appreciate the benefits and risks of the choices they make; contribute to community cohesion; and acknowledge, promote and pass on the core knowledge and skills valued by society to the next generation.” According to Erikson (Child Dev 2003), secondary curriculum learners are in the fifth stage of development and are bound to experience the crisis of learning identity versus identity diffusion. The child now satisfactorily knows who he or she is yet experiences “some role identity diffusion’ and exhibit minor delinquency; rebellion and self-doubts. Personally speaking, this stage of my educational development is consistent with Erikson’s views. I started to develop maturity and “self-certainty as opposed to self-consciousness and self-doubt.” I began to anticipate achievement although I occasionally get feelings of inferiority. I believe I started developing my personal ideals during this stage and continue to develop them. In terms of my educational experience with secondary curriculum, generally speaking, the particular purposes of that the curriculum has set out to address have been achieved. It sought to increase attainment in English, mathematics, science and ICT and it has. It sought to develop specialisms appropriate to aptitude and prepare the learner for higher education. In my case, it helped me formulate in my mind what discipline to pursue for higher education. It made me more aware and engaged in the local, national and international community. The fact of ethnic diversity in my secondary education has contributed to this awareness. To a significant extent, my secondary education scenario implemented strategies for handling minority ethnic students according to the underpinning principles used in a DES project, Removing the Barriers. (DES 2002) These are 1) that diversity should be valued and celebrated; 2) that teachers should have high expectations of their students and encourage their students to have high expectations of themselves; 3) that students who are encouraged to believe in themselves and take responsibility for their own learning tend to do better; and 4) that schools should work in partnership with parents and actively seek to involve them in their children’s learning. There is a long way to go for the curriculum to be perfected but it has been a good start. With my personal educational experiences from primary education till today and after going through several publications on education and curriculum development, I am of the opinion that curriculum development is an ever evolving process. Take for instance the primary curriculum. The most enjoyable subjects are ICT, PE and art and design because they allow the pupil to immediately put into practice what is being taught. I believe that much of the liveliness inherent in these subjects should as well be incorporated into the other subjects which are considered boring. As a primary school pupil another quite enjoyable activity is a field trip where learning is experienced rather than merely heard then assessed. Alternative teaching methods to lecture-based should be developed in order to improve the learning for the other subjects. In fact popular teachers are those who make learning fun. Aside from teachers’ inadequacies, what would disrupt learning would be the learning environment, mainly noisy classrooms and noisy pupils. Again, the teacher must be able to work out solutions to such disruptions. According to a study undertaken by the QCA (Futures 2005), the characteristics of a future curriculum should consist of several things. It should be aims-led, based on the needs of learners and our aspirations for society and the economy and its components should relate directly to the aims. It should contribute to social justice by providing equal opportunity for all learners to access experiences, knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes and values. It should provide personal, social and emotional education, enabling learners to be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, and achieve economic well-being. It should promote the development of skills, competences and dispositions essential for lifelong learning, develop inquisitive, self-reliant and responsible young people; develop skills for employability. It should recognise the importance of knowledge, provide access to scholarship. It should value knowledge that falls outside traditional subject boundaries, focusing on knowledge creation as well as knowledge acquisition. It should be futures-oriented and deal with the big issues in young people’s lives, allowing allow learners to take responsibility for themselves, others and the environment and should address social and cultural change, globalisation, sustainability and the survival of the planet. It should allow for innovation and customization, allowing schools and teachers to create and customise relevant, dynamic and innovative curricula suited to individual learners and local circumstances. It should use technology to extend and enhance learning. It should recognise practical and performance-based learning, as valid as more traditional methods, and more suitable for some learners. It should reach out to the world outside the school, making it a joint venture between learners, parents, employers and the community. And finally, it should have an international and global context. Instead of teaching art and design with the subject as the focus, this focus must be shifted to the learner, allowing the individual to learn through art and design, to develop visual literacy and cultural awareness. It should also be used extensively in cross-curricular work. In the area of business education, learners should be encouraged to be inquisitive and explore answers in the real world, to increase their knowledge, understanding and skills for shaping business activities for the future. Since even at a young age, learners are already exposed to business or economic activity, it may be beneficial to introduce business education at an earlier stage than where it is now. The concept of citizenship must be more explicitly explained as this subject is supposed to provide learners with the understanding of their roles in the local, national and international communities. Many sectors of current society still have differing views about local, national and international aims. “Design and technology draws on, and makes use of, knowledge and skills from a wide range of other subjects.” (Futures 2005) Relationships with other subjects should be explored and integrated into the teaching of design and technology for mutually beneficial learning of D&T and the other subjects. English is the global language and in English-speaking countries, it is the medium for learning. Its importance as a subject cannot be over emphasized. However, educators must develop more innovative methods for learning the subject, more fun, more engaging and more challenging. The teaching of geography must be shifted into the “aims-led” curriculum mode, rather than just a subject with content. It should be taught in relation to issues of “environmental change and sustainable development, social and cultural diversity, population change and migration, impacts of globalisation, and economic growth and decline.” (Futures 2005) History provides the learner with stock knowledge of the past. (Tate 2004) I espouse Tate’s view that history should be taught with less emphasis on the political analysis and more time for the narrative of history, to provide learners with a thorough understanding of how things have come to be, as means of preparation for how to handle the future. ICT is a popular subject but more emphasis should be put into the uses of ICT, inculcating in learners that ICT is a tool that can enhance learning in almost all other learning areas. Like English, the importance of mathematics as a subject is beyond debate. But teaching mathematics should be improved to make learning more enjoyable. One of the most accepted outcomes of a good education is gainful employment upon completion of an educational process. In another study conducted by the QCA (Futures 2005), employers expressed their views regarding how curriculum should be enhanced to produce readily hirable graduates. The attitude of life-long learning must be inculcated. Employers want flexible and adaptable employees. So, early on in the educational process, pupils must be able to develop the insatiable desire for life-long learning. Employers prefer individuals with more than one practical skill and qualification. Currently, the educational process is already attempting to address this but it can be enhanced even more. Successfully teaching English and developing the learners’ communication skills are also beneficial to learners as this is also highly valued by employers. Problem solving, inherent in mathematics and effective application of ICT are among the expected skills by employers. In conclusion, curriculum development will remain to be an iterative process and will continually evolve through time. What is being proposed is to improve the balance between and among the learning areas so that the acquisition of knowledge allows for confident expression, fearless exploration and optimal personal development. Reference List Bruner, J. 1996. The culture of education. Harvard University Press. Central Council for Education, Japan. 1997. The model for Japanese education in the perspective of the 21st century (The 2nd report by the Central Council for Education). Child Development Institute. 2003. Stages of social-emotional development in children and teenagers [online]. Viewed 11 March 2004. http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/erickson.shtml Department for Education and Skills. 2002. Removing the barriers. Hong Kong Education Commission. 2000. Peters, R. S. 1966. Ethics and education. London: Allen & Unwin. Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. 2008. A big picture of the curriculum. Viewed 19 May 2008. http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_5856.aspx Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. 2005. Futures – meeting the challenge. Viewed 19 May 2008. http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_6143.aspx Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. 2008. National curriculum. Viewed 19 May 2008. http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/ Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. 2006. Monitoring Curriculum and Assessment Primary Report 2005-6. Viewed 19 May 2008. http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_17492.aspx Shepherd, G. U.K. Secretary of State for Education 1996 South Africa Department of Education. 2000. A South African Curriculum for The Twenty First Century: Report of the Review Committee on Curriculum 2005. Pretoria: South Africa Department of Education. Tate, N. 2004. What is education for? Peterson Lectures. International Baccalaureate Organization. Viewed 19 May 2008. http://www.ibo.org/council/peterson/tate/ The Government of Brunei Ministry of Education. 2004. The aims of education [online]. Viewed 3 February 2004. The State of Queensland, Department of Education. 2000. Queensland State Education 2010. Wee Heng Tin, Director General of Education, Singapore. August 1998. Weiman, H. 2002. Gender Differences in Cognitive Functioning. Ed Psyc Central Psychoeducational Resource Center. Viewed 2004. http://homepages.luc.edu/~hweiman/GenderDifferences.html Younger, M. & Warrington, M. 2005. Raising boys’ achievement. DES Research Report RR636. London: HMSO. Read More