Don Ledingham’s Learning Log

Professor Lindsay Paterson recently contributed an article to the Times Education Supplement Scotland (TESS) entitled “Potholes on the Road to Excellence”

“After decades of controversial reform, the warmth with which A Curriculum for Excellence has been received is remarkable. The reasons are readily apparent - romantic child-centredness, glances towards recent research on the brain, respect for teacher autonomy. But in much more serious ways this reform, as its documents proliferate and its development work mounts, is vague to the point of confusion on too many matters to be a proper basis for new educational practice.”

Lindsay’s perspective should never be ignored - and his piece stimulated a response from Brian Boyd entitled “New Paradigm or Emperor’s New Clothes” - a title which in itself suggests some the potential tension which exists around the “The Curriculum for Excellence”

What struck me about this issue is the lack of debate which is taking place over The Curriculum for Excellence - so much so I invited Lindsay out to East Lothian to meet with myself and some colleagues. 

As I listened to Lindsay I was taken back to The Moral Maze a programme on Radio 4  I’d listened to the night before on Radio 4  on the Impartiality of the BBC in the 21st Century.

The report is entitled “From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel”

Impartiality in broadcasting has long been assumed to apply mainly to party politics and industrial disputes. It involved keeping a balance to ensure the seesaw did not tip too far to one side or the other.

Those days are over. In today’s multi-polar Britain, with its range of cultures, beliefs and identities, impartiality involves many more than two sides to an argument. Party politics is in decline, and industrial disputes are only rarely central to national debate. The seesaw has been replaced by the wagon wheel – the modern version used in the television coverage of cricket, where the wheel is not circular and has a shifting centre with spokes that go in all directions.

The report describes a “comfort zone” or “shared space” which employees of the BBC inhabit which establishes a “groupthink” about issues which characterise the predominant view of the world and where certain views go unchallenged - I’ll leave you to read the report if you want find out more.

I think the point that Lindsay is driving  at in relation to A Curriculum for Excellence is that we just might be being faced with a similar type of predominant thinking about which there can be no debate.

I’d like to think we could engage in a rational dialogue about the development without anyone who puts their head above the parapet being castigated as a reactionary or trditionalist who is afraid of progress.

In my next few posts I’ll explore some of the issues we discussed with Lindsay - my only concern with Lindsay’s  appeal for the importance of “disciplinary” learning is that there are some in the profession who will take great solace from such an argument and take it as a licence to continue teaching and organising learning in the same way as they have always done.