MacNaughton(2003) states curricula can be defined as conforming Essay

MacNaughton(2003) states curricula can be defined as conforming reforming or transforming.Critically discuss extent each of thes - Essay Example Consequently, reform in education is currently the standard rather than the exception. Nonetheless, in spite of the continuous spectacle of reforms, only a slight portion of the core changes. Institutions and individuals should evolve over time or face the possibility of extinction. Valuable changes enhance the institution or individual so that it may work more successfully in, and be more sensitive to, a relentlessly evolving environment. But efforts at educational reform usually create new problems rather than improve its foundation and processes. There are those who find fault with comprehensive reforms in education which forces several schools to give in, or conform to mainstream standards. Hence, according to MacNaughton (2003), â€Å"curricula can defined as conforming, reforming, or transforming†. This essay will explain this statement and relate it to post-16 curriculum. The discussion will also take into account the points of view of different practitioners. Curriculu m as ‘Conforming’ Before 1998 in England it was teachers, in theory, who chose the curricula and objectives of their schools. There were actual issues about this, not merely the often broadly disparate policies between schools (Ross 2000). However, there was a more deep-seated problem. Why should teachers be granted this authority? Do they have the knowledge and experience which qualify them to such choices? Are they qualified to make decisions whether to ‘conform’ or ‘reform’? According to Webster (2011), the term ‘conform’ means ‘to fit, accommodate, adapt, suit or befit’ (para 3). Following this definition, there is certainly a valid argument against granting macro-decisions to conform or not to teachers. They are just one sector of the population, but decisions about the routes education should follow involve everyone. Cuban (1993) suggests a paradigm of varied curricula for the study of curriculum. He proposes tha t we treat curricula in four groups (as cited in Joseph, Braymann, Windschitl, Mikel & Green 2000): Official curriculum can be found in curriculum guides and conform to state-mandated assessment. Taught curriculum is what individual teachers focus on and choose to emphasise—often the choices represent teachers’ knowledge, beliefs about how subjects should be taught, assumptions about their students’ needs, and interests in certain subjects. Learned curriculum encompasses all that students learn; learned curriculum may be what teachers planned or have not intended, such as modelling teachers’ behaviour or what students learn from other students. The fourth curriculum Cuban calls tested curriculum; these tests—whether derived from the teacher, the school district, state, or national testing organisations—represent only part of what is taught or learned (ibid, p. 4). Similar to MacNaughton (2003), Cuban advises us to be careful of the view that curriculum is ‘conforming’, or how the state or school embodies itself, but not essentially suggestive of what transpires in classrooms (Joseph et al. 2000). Cuban (1993 as cited in Joseph et al. 2000) argues that we have to take into account these varied perspectives of curricula if we are genuinely interested with reform in education; reforms in tested and official curricula could be pointless unless we address the learned and taught curricula. The varied curricula model of curriculum