Some reflections on the philosophical and pedagogical challenges of transforming education

Abstract

This paper responds to the articles in the recent special edition of The Curriculum Journal (Volume 20, Number 3). The special edition discusses an ‘archaeological’ approach to student enquiry, with associated ideas of personalisation, competency development, and building learning power. We argue that the papers both raise and omit complex issues that need to be addressed if their transformative agenda is to be realized. For example, it is important to reconsider traditional assumptions about the nature of knowledge, so that teachers' practice and students' learning can become more appropriately aligned to twenty-first century conditions of knowing and being. Similarly, the wider political contexts that frame practice need to be addressed, in part by rethinking connections between pedagogy, curriculum and assessment to provide a more satisfactory theoretical rationale for competencies and personalization, and by re-theorising related ideas such as ‘equity’. We fear that lack of attention to such issues will simply mean the new pedagogies will continue to reproduce the status quo.

Keywords:

• enquiry pedagogy
• transformative education
• ontology
• competencies
• personalisation