Artybartfast

On Jack’s recommendation, I’ve been looking at this 2005 publication of John White’s selected works in order to gain an understanding of his personal philosophy. In his earlier writings (in the 50’s and 60’s, when schools had autonomy over the curriculum), White argued for ‘a compulsory curriculum’ – but it’s clear that Kenneth Baker’s National Curriculum was not exactly what he had in mind.

White is very exact in his own turn of phrase, and dislikes ambiguity and generality. He dissects bland, general and impressive-sounding statements, such as the aim of Baker’s National Curriculum, to show that they can be interpreted in a great many ways and therefore mean very little.

I found White’s discussion of Baker’s curriculum fascinating. I had never questioned before the reasoning behind the prescription of the curriculum subjects, but his suggestion that the curriculum should, at the very least, support the continuing development of a liberal and democratic society is obvious to me now. I found myself constructing a new compulsory curriculum in my head, one that ditched higher level mathematics and english literature in favour of subjects like sociology, psychology and economics.

This was very interesting, and I reflected further on it, drawing on my experiences of teaching citizenship, and enduring its predecessor, ‘personal and social education’. The ‘citizenship’ curriculum has certainly evolved since I was at secondary school. My only memory of PSE is of a video demonstration on how to use a condom. I think our tutor tried his hand at starting a debate but was thwarted by our steadfast refusal to get excited about anything, be it rascism, sexism or teenage pregnancy (apart from tutor-baiting – I remember that got us quite excited). Frankly, if we weren’t being examined in it, we didn’t see the point. I would hazard a guess that most of my old tutor group have similar political leanings and lifestyles to their parents. Students can now take a GCSE in citizenship – I don’t know if it’s a core subject (is it?) – and it would be very interesting to find out more about the effect of taking such a subject, both on individuals and on groups.

White has always held the view that it is important for the curriculum to be both centrally prescribed, and to be designed for the good of the developing child, but his views on exactly what is best for the child have evolved, and are evolving still. His philosophy centres not only around the protection of a liberal and democratic society, but also around the fostering of ‘personal well-being’, and this is leads to yet another interesting debate – what is personal well-being? What does it mean to lead a ‘flourishing life’? White provides an example with a list of factors that would probably appeal to most well-rounded Guardian readers, but acknowledges that for everyone, these factors, and their relative importance within the mix, will be different.