Educational Onslaught Scores Direct Hit On Curriculum
Alistair Owens www.keen2learn.co.uk
There must be something in the air. Almost daily there is some form of change to the educational content of the National Curriculum. Maybe it’s the time of year, the closed season in the midst of exams. Or the lets do this before the holidays kick in so everyone will forget by the time they return.Â
But this time teachers welcome the move. The white paper plans to drop the national teaching resources directives geared to English and maths. Long overdue according to many teachers who have seen the existing literacy structures fail. The opportunity to expand the horizons and make lessons more interesting to teachers and student is greatest incentive to change.
We are not alone in the UK. Earlier this year the Australian Association for the Teaching of English are seeking to downgrade the importance of literature in the national curriculum to allow the study of an expanded range of texts covering visual and multi-modal forms “as essential works in their own right”.
The professional association represents the view of Australian English teachers also calls for the national curriculum to recognise a whole-language method for teaching reading rather than exclusively emphasising phonics and the letter-sound relationships as the initial step. It also declared studying literature is “inherently a political action” in creating the type of people society values.
It calls for the end of traditional literature as a discrete element, and for other types of English texts — which would include advertising, TV shows, signage, text messages and web¬sites — to be viewed as essential rather than “add ons” to accompany the understanding of literary texts.
The world of English language and literature is highly adaptive. We need to move with the times and reflect on the input from those at the coal face rather than relying too much on remote theory or attempted propaganda. George Orwell has a lot to answer for.
