A conceptual framework for curriculum deliberations in senior secondary school history
Date
1988
Authors
FitzGibbon, John
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Abstract
This study presents a conceptual framework for curriculum deliberations in senior secondary school history. In order to prepare for curriculum deliberations, the curricularist establishes a personal 'platform' of fundamental assumptions about truth, reality, education, and curriculum. This 'platform' also articulates assumptions about the content, understandings, and methods of history.
The method of deliberation allows the curricularist to draw from curriculum theory, the philosophy of history, and the philosophy of language in an eclectic fashion in order to construct alternatives to the dominant model of curriculum theorizing and development. The method of deliberation is used to see the present method by which the Ministry of Education in British Columbia develops curriculum as being only one alternative to curriculum development. The current provincial method, as an example of the dominant curriculum development model, does not meet the needs of students, teachers, or the discipline. Deliberation is a form of problem solving which allows problems in curriculum to emerge from practice. The problem this study addresses is grounded in my experience as teacher, curriculum developer, and curriculum theorist. Experience in these areas allows me to present a critical analysis of a provincial curriculum project currently underway to develop senior history curriculum.
A conceptual framework is suggested as a defensible way of approaching the task of curriculum development. This framework is used to generate an alternative process of curriculum development to the one used by Curriculum Development Branch. Conceptual bases for developing skills in language and history are also suggested. The conceptual bases for skills, the curriculum development alternative, the conceptual framework for curriculum development, and the personal platform are unified by a consistent view of history, curriculum, language, truth and reality.