Liz Egan is the education officer at the Thackray Museum, Leeds; Nick Winterbotham is the chairman of the Group for Education in Museums
Dear Liz
I’m grateful to Michael Gove for the vigorous debate he has sparked in this overly swift consultation on his revisionist national curriculum. It gives me – an ex-practitioner – the opportunity of trading ideas with you – a professional at the heart of heritage learning.
I am old enough to remember the battles we had with successive governments to convince them of good educational practice –in the museum and in the classroom.
Back in the 1980s we managed to persuade ministers that a top-down, knowledge-based curriculum would switch youngsters off history and many other subjects. Were we wrong?
Nick
Dear Nick
While I agree that a top-down approach to learning is not necessarily the most effective way of educating future generations, I see a great deal of potential in Gove’s proposal for museums.
Currently, students often suffer from a lack of chronological clarity regarding history and the new proposals seem to offer this clarity through a more structured overarching order.
Surely if teachers are now being asked to impart facts and figures in this less detailed manner, then this presents an excellent opportunity for museums and learning outside the classroom in general.
Doesn’t this move encourage more experiential learning to complement the curriculum and avoid the “turning-off” of students from history?
Liz
Dear Liz
I hope you’re right about new opportunities for museums; I fear teachers will see it otherwise and will feel forced to teach to the test. Gove was in a doctrinaire mood when he promised to “rid the curriculum of vapid happy-talk” and ensure pupils have a structured “stock of knowledge”.
His draft curriculum is to be bound by facts and chronologies, scarcely a nod to learning skills, empathy and teacher choice. I fear he will cramp and confine the opportunity to escape the surly bonds of the classroom to bring history alive or to develop expression through art and curiosity.
Nick
Dear Nick
I agree that there may be some teachers who see these proposals as forcing them to “teach to the test”. But I feel that we should be using this curriculum as a launching point and not allowing ourselves to be bound by a doctrine of facts and figures.
I see the list of topics as being a fair chronology of British history, unflinching from harsh realities.
I believe this stock knowledge is a necessary learning tool and nowhere in the proposal does it say that this must be taught in a Dickensian manner. It is up to the educators to unleash the potential for creativity in this doctrine– enter museums!
Liz
Dear Liz
I should have more faith in the resilience and inventiveness of teachers. Yet must the Age Of Austerity lead to an Age Of Top-Down Disregarding of the past 50 years of science and heritage-based learning?
In Hard Times, Dickens gave Gradgrind his Damascene moment in rejecting a fact-based world in favour of a person-centred one animated by relevance to the individual, freedom to explore and the nurturing of curiosity. Who will champion the empathetic, engaged and empowered learners we need to face the future, rather than galloping back to the Ice Age with Gove?
Nick
Dear Nick
I worry that people are jumping to associate a fact-based curriculum with a Dickensian rote style of learning. I don’t buy it. I don’t see “fact-based” as the opposite of “people-based” (people’s actions are the facts) and I don’t see why it equates to a lack of curiosity, creativity or empathy.
Were I a student of 2013, the breadth of subject matter and opportunities for engaging with such wide variety would excite me. Engagement is the key and heritage venues and schools alike can bring this initially daunting list of facts alive for our future generations.
Liz
See this month's vox pop
Dear Liz
I’m grateful to Michael Gove for the vigorous debate he has sparked in this overly swift consultation on his revisionist national curriculum. It gives me – an ex-practitioner – the opportunity of trading ideas with you – a professional at the heart of heritage learning.
I am old enough to remember the battles we had with successive governments to convince them of good educational practice –in the museum and in the classroom.
Back in the 1980s we managed to persuade ministers that a top-down, knowledge-based curriculum would switch youngsters off history and many other subjects. Were we wrong?
Nick
Dear Nick
While I agree that a top-down approach to learning is not necessarily the most effective way of educating future generations, I see a great deal of potential in Gove’s proposal for museums.
Currently, students often suffer from a lack of chronological clarity regarding history and the new proposals seem to offer this clarity through a more structured overarching order.
Surely if teachers are now being asked to impart facts and figures in this less detailed manner, then this presents an excellent opportunity for museums and learning outside the classroom in general.
Doesn’t this move encourage more experiential learning to complement the curriculum and avoid the “turning-off” of students from history?
Liz
Dear Liz
I hope you’re right about new opportunities for museums; I fear teachers will see it otherwise and will feel forced to teach to the test. Gove was in a doctrinaire mood when he promised to “rid the curriculum of vapid happy-talk” and ensure pupils have a structured “stock of knowledge”.
His draft curriculum is to be bound by facts and chronologies, scarcely a nod to learning skills, empathy and teacher choice. I fear he will cramp and confine the opportunity to escape the surly bonds of the classroom to bring history alive or to develop expression through art and curiosity.
Nick
Dear Nick
I agree that there may be some teachers who see these proposals as forcing them to “teach to the test”. But I feel that we should be using this curriculum as a launching point and not allowing ourselves to be bound by a doctrine of facts and figures.
I see the list of topics as being a fair chronology of British history, unflinching from harsh realities.
I believe this stock knowledge is a necessary learning tool and nowhere in the proposal does it say that this must be taught in a Dickensian manner. It is up to the educators to unleash the potential for creativity in this doctrine– enter museums!
Liz
Dear Liz
I should have more faith in the resilience and inventiveness of teachers. Yet must the Age Of Austerity lead to an Age Of Top-Down Disregarding of the past 50 years of science and heritage-based learning?
In Hard Times, Dickens gave Gradgrind his Damascene moment in rejecting a fact-based world in favour of a person-centred one animated by relevance to the individual, freedom to explore and the nurturing of curiosity. Who will champion the empathetic, engaged and empowered learners we need to face the future, rather than galloping back to the Ice Age with Gove?
Nick
Dear Nick
I worry that people are jumping to associate a fact-based curriculum with a Dickensian rote style of learning. I don’t buy it. I don’t see “fact-based” as the opposite of “people-based” (people’s actions are the facts) and I don’t see why it equates to a lack of curiosity, creativity or empathy.
Were I a student of 2013, the breadth of subject matter and opportunities for engaging with such wide variety would excite me. Engagement is the key and heritage venues and schools alike can bring this initially daunting list of facts alive for our future generations.
Liz
See this month's vox pop
