subjectdiscipline2.0 – my contribution

Posted on | December 19, 2006 | 7 Comments

Since I started the discussion, with Greg Whitby’s agreement, it is only fair that I add my own thoughts to the debate on how the notion of a subject discipline might need to develop in the near future.

The connection I want to make is with something that Ivan Illich wrote in Deschooling Society. I am not a deschooler as such, but he wrote:

“A good education system should have three purposes:

It should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives;

It should empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them;

It should furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known.

Chris and others are, of course, absolutely right that the expert knowledge held by individuals, and the ability of those individuals to help others to acquire that knowledge, will always be a critical component of any educational provision. The difference, however, will be in the nature of the relationship between the teacher and the learner. While the first two points made by Illich above are important here, given that they are two sides of the one coin, it is the second one on particular that best indicates the possible changes in that relationship between learner and learned.

According to Illich, it is just as important that those with knowledge can find those who seek their knowledge as it is for those who seek knowledge to find those who might teach them. The paradigm here is closer to the marketplace than the compulsory state education system; nonetheless, the education system in the future, I believe, will have to be able to facilitate the process by which each side of the relationship finds the other. At the moment, and for some time now, it has been the role of the school to do that, but the school has really only facilitated the first of Illich’s points – secondary schooling in particular, I feel, will have to find ways of facilitating his second point too. It is in this question that the developing nature of the secondary school will be asserted over the next few years.

The other change that I feel is likely to happen is that the subject discipline will no longer be defined by an external agency of some kind, whether a school or an education agency/body at local or national level. If the concept of the big top-down centrally-determined curriculum has had its day (and I believe it has) then the definition of what comprises a subject discipline will be down to those with knowledge to offer and those seeking knowledge. Traditional “subjects” will continue to be important, but there will also be a flowering of subject disciplines defined by that “marketplace” mechanism – areas of knowledge and skill determined by the interconnected needs of learners and learned.

Greg Whitby is right to place this debate in the context of the future of secondary education, because I think that there will still have to be a distinction between primary/elementary education and secondary education, although we will undoubtedly debate the point at which one becomes the other. We will also debate the utility of age as a continuing differentiator here. Society will continue to require an elementary education in, at least, literacy, numeracy, science and citizenship. But the nature of the digital world means that, as learners get older (and throughout their lives thereafter) they should, more and more, be able to choose for themselves what they need to learn, how they wish to learn, and who they want to learn from.

Technorati Tags: subjectdiscipline2.0 , gregwhitby, ivanillich, deschoolingsociety

Category: curriculum, education, personal

Comments

7 Responses to “subjectdiscipline2.0 – my contribution”

chris
December 22nd, 2006 @ 12:32 am

“If the concept of the big top-down centrally-determined curriculum has had its day (and I believe it has) then the definition of what comprises a subject discipline will be down to those with knowledge to offer and those seeking knowledge.”
That would be *so* much better than the straitjacket into which someone tried to confine me in the declining years of my career. Happily, they failed.
John Connell
December 22nd, 2006 @ 12:53 am

I’m sure your use of ‘declining’ can’t be right, Chris

There must be a better word!
chris
December 22nd, 2006 @ 8:17 pm

Hmm. A wee challenge. How about …. terminal? demob-happy? wild? surfing? stratospheric? However you describe them , I didn’t do what I was told and nobody liked to challenge me seriously. Great!
Kim Pericles
December 24th, 2006 @ 8:07 am

I know that this comment is late – but I’m on hols now and have time to “catch up” – hope you don’t mind!
Anyway – a comment on the last sentence: I would put it to you that students at quite an early age already know what they need to learn and already know how they wish to learn. They really don’t need to wait “as they get older” because they are able and willing to choose for themselves. I guess its our role as teachers to negotiate and demonstrate how the digital world can inform our students and help them in their learning.
John Connell
December 24th, 2006 @ 11:19 am

As a former primary school teacher, I agree with you, Kim. I guess the only point I’m trying to make is that there will probably continue to be a need to decree a minimum ‘curriculum’ of literacy and numeracy, and maybe one or two other societal requirements that will, to some extent, prescribe at least some of the education of our youngest learners. However, beyond that absolute minimum, I agree with you that very young children want to, and are able to, direct their own learning. The negotiating role of the teacher is the key to it all, as you say.
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