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An Evaluation of the 5th grade social studies curriculum at Marymount International School , Paris
Ruth Druart
What do we mean by curriculum?
According to Ross (2000, p. 8) “A curriculum is a definition of what is to be learned.” (Ross, 2000) Sometimes it is used to refer only to the prescribed content of what is to be learned, but it is also possible to refer to the ‘hidden’ curriculum, this is not what is formally written down, but what is unintentionally passed onto the student through the school. Some argue that this is more important than the formal content itself. For example the learning of timekeeping, obedience, acceptance of orders and of roles imposed by others, and hierarchies are all important social rules which are relevant to adult working life.
Bernstein (1971) on the other hand, states that curriculum forms only one part of formal educational knowledge, and that educational knowledge is realised also through pedagogy and evaluation. Here he defines curriculum as being what counts as valid knowledge. So the total learning consists of the formal knowledge, and how it is taught and assessed as well. This leads to the question: who decides what is valid knowledge and what is not? Is it the government? The education authority? The school? Or the teacher in the classroom? This is a question that needs addressing with this definition of curriculum.
When looking at an international school context, such as Marymount this raises the question of culture; is the valid knowledge universal to all cultures? Or are certain aspects only particular to specific cultures? To take a simple example; which measures of unit should be taught? The imperial system is invalid in mainland Europe, but valid in the U.S.A and Great Britain
When evaluating the curriculum for social studies in 5th grade at Marymount, I will try to take in all aspects of the curriculum; therefore I will look at the hidden curriculum, as well as the formal written curriculum. I will also look at the boundaries between subjects, which will be discussed later. Lastly I will address the question of culture in the curriculum.
How can we classify curriculum?
Typically and historically, curriculum can be divided into three types: the academic, the utilitarian, and the progressive.
Goodson (1987) writes of the historical background of the English curriculum, and the fact that Blyth discerned three types of curriculum: the preparatory, the elementary and the developmental. The preparatory tradition was related to preparation for grammar schools and was concerned with the middle-classes; the elementary, with its emphasis on the basic skills, was aimed at the poorer classes, and the developmental was based on developing each child’s interest in learning. These three traditions can be equated in secondary education respectively with academic, utilitarian and pedagogic (progressive) traditions, which will be further examined here.
Ross (2000) The academic curriculum is subject/knowledge-centred and therefore content driven. The utilitarian is society-centred, and so objectives driven, the objectives being that the child will receive an education which will enable him or her to directly enter the job market. The contents of this type of curriculum are therefore based around the objectives. Only the developmental curriculum is child-centred, progressive, and so process-driven. This is the only one to be focused on the learner, the other two being focused on the content.
Goodson (1987) goes onto say that the academic curriculum has much higher social status than the utilitarian one. He talks of Eggleston who redefined high-status knowledge as that which was not immediately useful in vocation or occupation; it was more a training of the mind. It wasn’t so much that the classical subjects were non-vocational, but that those vocations were only suitable for the upper-classes. For this reason the term vocational education was not used, instead the subject-based curriculum was referred to as the academic curriculum, and the low-status practical knowledge as the utilitarian curriculum. Goodson (1987) cites Layton
Interestingly, the child-centred or progressive education does not view education as the preparation for a vocation. Education is seen as a way to aid the child’s own inquiries, where the child is an active participant in his learning. This approach to learning was found in the Social Studies movement of the 1930’s and 1940’s. It meant that the course was divided into a series of correlated units of study rather than conducted as a rigid sequence of lessons. It offered opportunities for active learning; for relating the lesson to contemporary events for group study. However this was (and still is) a challenge for teachers who were specialists only in their own subject.
The Interdisciplinary Enquiry (IDE) workshops run by Goldsmiths College
The Humanities Curriculum Project (HCP) began in 1967 with Lawrence Stenhouse as its director. It instructed that the mode of enquiry in controversial issues should be discussion rather than instruction. This fits in perfectly with the progressive model, however it appears that this type of curriculum came to be concentrated on those pupils not considered to be capable of doing ‘O’ and ‘A’ level exams, and so suffered the same low status as the utilitarian tradition.
Why would this be so? Could it be that people still regarded the academic curriculum as having higher social status? When an idea or theory had existed for a long time, it is indeed very hard to get people to see things differently, or to think differently. This could possibly explain why people reverted to their original way of thinking about the academic curriculum, still considering it to be the superior one. Then came the 90’s, when Vygotsky’s work on the sociocultural theory of learning was found. His work helped to validate the child-centred progressive model of education. Could this help education move on from the academic curriculum to the progressive curriculum? Or will most educators and parents still be stuck in their way of thinking about the academic curriculum?
How do these goals relate to the three types of curriculum first described? Clearly, the goal of social efficiency relates to the utilitarian curriculum. The goal of democratic equality seems to relate to the progressive curriculum, where all children have equal rights, and the goal is to educate the child as a whole person, thus rendering this goal more child-centred, as is the progressive curriculum. This leaves the goal of social mobility to be related to the academic curriculum; this does seem to fit, in that children can be selected and streamed in order to receive a contents driven curriculum adapted to their level of learning. This will then position them in society, as does an academic curriculum. For example ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels position students socially.
How can the curriculum for 5th grade social studies at Marymount fit be classified?
First of all, it is interesting to identify the goal of education for Marymount. Given that the curriculum in 5th grade doesn’t have any formal programme for citizenship, and it isn’t focused on training workers, it would appear at first glance that it is mainly focused on the goal of social mobility. Indeed in 5th grade students are streamed for both maths and English, also students who need E.S.L. or resource help are removed from the class to be taught separately. This method of teaching is in line with a strong academic curriculum, being very much contents driven, and also supports the goal of social mobility, where students are competing to have the best positions, i.e. to be in the top groups, and to get out of E.S.L. and resource. Indeed, some parents refuse to have their children in resource or E.S.L. even though the specialists at the school have told them that it is in the best interests of the child. Is this because of the lower social position this implies?
Here, it is important to remember the hidden curriculum. Although there is no official programme for citizenship, is it possible that it is being taught through other subjects? This question will be examined later on.
Boundaries between subjects
Although the curriculum appears to be subject-based at Marymount, it is important to look into the boundaries between the subjects.
Ross (2000) uses gardens metaphors when he writes about the boundaries between subjects. He talks of four different kinds of garden: baroque, naturally-landscaped, dig-for-victory and the cottage garden.
The baroque garden is a walled and private place, clearly defining what is inside and what is not. Balance, regularity and symmetry are all very important, and each area has its own speciality, with its own form of cultivation. This is the curriculum of clearly defined subject areas, where the discourse is specific to each discipline. This type of garden relates to the academic curriculum.
Later the baroque garden was rejected as unnatural, and the landscape garden was favoured. This type of garden was made possible by the invention of the ha-ha, which is a sunken wall. It allowed the boundaries between different parts of the garden to be hidden, so creating the illusion that the garden and surrounding countryside are one. This is the curriculum which is not contents or objectives driven, but is learner driven, where the learner is not constrained by explicit, tight boundaries, but has an open vision, allowing his nature to unfold. The boundaries are still there, but don’t get in the way of the learner’s development. “The apparent freedom of the learner is conditioned by the constant surveillance of the teacher.” (Ross, p.4) The teacher finds the right contexts for meaningful learning through everyday situations. This landscape garden clearly relates to the progressive curriculum.
Both the baroque and landscape gardens are large, and were owned and designed for the rich. But most gardens today are in fact small, and are owned by individual families, who may cultivate food or flowers. Ross refers to these as the dig-for-victory gardens, and these relate to the curriculum which is useful in some way, and should prepare children for their future role in society and work. In this curriculum “the structure and content of education should be directly relevant to the needs of society and the future employer.” (Ross, p. 7) This garden clearly relates to the utilitarian curriculum.
Lastly, the cottage garden is a garden which is a bit of a mix, with herb beds intermingled with vegetables, flowers and fruit, and a semi-formalised lawn. This form of curriculum is socially constructed, based on common sense and appears to have evolved naturally. However, Ross says this is misleading, and the cottage garden curriculum should not be left to nature, but should be planned and pruned, designed and nurtured to achieve the desired effect.
Which type of garden does the curriculum at Marymount represent? The boundaries are explicit, as there is a schedule with 45 minute periods. Usually each period is a different subject, though some may be doubles. The children often even change room when they change subject, making these boundaries highly visible, like high walls in a garden. This resembles the baroque garden. However, there appear to be some gates in those high walls between different areas, to allow controlled access. This is due to the fact there is some that there is some cross-over between some subject areas. For example, there is a specific cross-over between social studies and English: the novel they study in English is a story about Captain Cook, one of the great explorers. His route is closely followed in the novel, bringing in the use of co-ordinates that are studied in social studies. It also describes the times and lives of the explorers, so making further connections between the social studies curriculum and the English curriculum. Also we talk about the astrolabe in social studies, and we make one in science class. So it would appear that the gates between different areas are opened by the teacher, and then closed again after, and the subject returns again to its tight boundaries. The question could be raised as to who has the right to open the gates between the different areas. Is it only the teacher? Or can the students open these gates themselves? This depends very much on the individual teacher; it’s as though she or he has the master key to all the gates, but then could leave one unlocked for a student to push open; also the teacher could also leave one ajar, so hinting at a possibility for connections or communication between the different areas. Thus the student still remains under the constant surveillance of the teacher, as in the landscaped garden, but has some freedom to explore.
Following on from the theme of boundaries Bernstein (1971) proposes that curricula can be distinguished into two types: collection and integrated. Strong insulation between contents points to a collection type, and reduced insulation points to an integrated type of curriculum. The principle is the strength of the boundaries between the contents; this idea of the boundary strength is what underlies the concepts of classification and framing.
Strong classification means the contents of the curriculum are well insulated from each other by strong boundaries. With weak classification the boundaries are weak or blurred, and so the contents are not well insulated from each other. “Classification thus refers to the degree of boundary maintenance between contents.” (Bernstein, 1971, p.49)
He uses framing to refer to the context in which knowledge is transmitted and received, it refers to the strength of the boundaries of what may and may not be taught. The selection, pacing and timing of the content knowledge form the framework, and this is dependent on the pedagogic relationship between teacher and student. “Frame refers to the range of options available to the teacher and taught in the control of what is transmitted and received in the context of the pedagogical relationship.” (Bernstein, 1971, p.50) It refers to the amount of control that the teacher and student have over the selection, organisation and pacing of what is to be taught.
There is another aspect to framing; that is the boundary between the valid educational knowledge, and the non-school everyday community knowledge of the teacher or student. The strength of this boundary determines in part the strength of the frame.
From the above, we can see that the basic structure of the curriculum is determined by variations in the strength of classification, and the basic structure of the pedagogy is determined by variations in the strength of frames. These can vary independently of each other.
Strong classification and strong framework give a collection type of curriculum, whereas weak classification and weak framework produce an integrated type of curriculum.
Not all curricula fit so neatly into this divide: Bernstein (1971) gives the example of programmed learning, where the boundary of educational contents is weak (weak classification), but there is very little control by the student over what is taught (strong framing).
At Marymount, for my class of 5th grade, the social studies curriculum provides strong classification, but I think, in my particular case, weak framework. The classification is strong due to the fact that the students physically change classroom to move to their social studies class, thus making it very clear to them that they are entering a new subject domain, and should be putting on their “social studies hats”. They need to take out specific books related to this subject, so further reinforcing the boundary. I consider the framing to be weak due to the way I chose to deliver the curriculum. I pace the learning to fit with the students, meaning that some may be advancing at a different pace to others; and some may even be introduced to material that others may not have had access to. This relates to the selection and organisation of the knowledge transmitted that Bernstein mentions. I also welcome any everyday knowledge that may be introduced by students, and may introduce some of my own. Of course, this takes some time, and can mean that it is more difficult to get through the whole curriculum. As there is no formal exam at the end of this course I try not to worry about this too much, but concentrate more on making learning enriching and meaningful for all the students. I am lucky in that I have small class size (<15), so it is relatively easy for me to follow each student individually.
As mentioned earlier The Interdisciplinary Enquiry (IDE) found that teachers were discouraged from crossing over boundaries between subjects because of lack of time due to the subject-based curriculum, especially if there were external exams to be taken. I think this is generally true at Marymount, as teachers are concerned about making it through the entirety of the written curriculum. This is possibly an issue that needs to be formally addressed in the school. What are the goals of the school? At the moment I think the written curriculum is content driven, however, the teacher has quite a lot of personal freedom as to how he or she delivers the curriculum, again reinforcing the idea of strong classification but weak framework. Looking at it like this the delivered curriculum depends very much on who is teaching it.
Framework
Marsh (2006, p.19) writes that “curriculum frameworks can provide an important springboard and focus for teachers in terms of curriculum planning. To a certain extent they are a tool of control and direction.” He builds on Bernstein’s theories of framework, and defines curriculum framework as “a group of related subjects or themes, which fit together according to a pre-determined set of criteria to appropriately cover an area of study.” In other words the strength of the boundaries between the subjects has been deliberately weakened, but only with regard to certain groupings of subjects. In this way it is limiting.
Among the advantages he gives for having curriculum frameworks he states that new content areas and skills can be easily accommodated including various multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary variations, and that there are opportunities to incorporate desirable skills in each framework, such as communication and language skills, numeracy skills, problem-solving skills.
This is something that could be more actively considered at Marymount, instead of leaving it to the whim of the individual teacher curriculum frameworks could be built which demand that certain common skills be used in all four main subject areas. For example in social studies number problems could be introduced when working on the American revolution: numbers of soldiers deployed, areas of land that were taken over could be looked into. Possibly the costs of the war could be looked into. These details are not included in the present curriculum, but could help bring home the idea of the everyday usefulness of numbers. Language skills come into social studies more naturally as there is writing involved. But this could be taken further with different activities, for example: by having the children pretend to be one of the English soldiers and write letters home. All this would of course have an impact on the pace and timing of the subject content; the content may take longer to get through. But as Bernstein states, the selection, pacing and timing of the content knowledge form the framework.
Curriculum Content for 5th grade social studies at Marymount
Now is a good time to look more closely at the content of the social studies curriculum. At Marymount, the curriculum has been developed by the teachers, using the curriculum mapping tool, Atlas. Teachers have added to it as they have gone along, so this means that the school is working on a curriculum which has evolved and grown over the last seven years. Originally, the material used was taken from the American textbooks that the school were using. Looking at it like this, it would be fair to say that the text books declared what was the valid knowledge, and then the teacher selected from this by choosing what to teach, and then modified the knowledge by adding to it, bringing in her or his own materials, methods and ideas.
As an overview of the curriculum at Marymount for 5th grade social studies it is useful to look at the course description, as found on the Atlas website:
“Course Description
The fifth grade social studies program looks at the Americas
Throughout the fifth grade program, historical connections to France
The development of effective inquiry and communication skills is promoted through the social studies program and supported by the Media Center
Units Covered:
- The World in Spatial Terms
- Exploration
- Settlement and Colonization
- Revolution and Nationhood
Students receive three 45-minute periods of social studies weekly.”
When one looks at the content of this curriculum, one would see it as content or subject-based, in that every student follows the same course and covers the same material. This satisfies the goal of democratic equality, but makes the curriculum academic in nature. At first glance it doesn’t appear to be learner focused; in fact all the students study American history together, regardless of their own background or culture. This is interesting in itself, given that only two out of twelve of my students last year were American. Neither is the curriculum vocational or utilitarian; they are not learning skills which will directly help them in the job market. So, is the curriculum at Marymount for 5th grade social studies really an academic one?
Interestingly enough if you read the prospectus for the school you would be led to believe that it is learner focused, and progressive. Parents possibly like the idea of this, but in reality are looking for a thorough academic curriculum, in order to confirm or improve their social status.
It should be noted that Stenhouse states that curriculum study is concerned with the relationship between intention and reality, thus acknowledging the point that we don’t always manage to implement the aims of a curriculum.
In order to evaluate the curriculum thoroughly, we need to look more carefully at the contents. It could be possible that there are parts of it where the framing is deliberately weak, and that there are some choices presented to the students as to what and how they learn. And what about citizenship? Is this addressed through the social studies curriculum?
At the beginning of the year the geography of the world in the 1400’s is taught. The children learn about longitude, latitude and co-ordinates. They then learn about the trade routes, and are introduced to the principal explorers of that time. Reasons for settlement and colonisation are then looked at. This is an area that requires much discussion as there are different sides to the story of colonisation. As stated in the course description oral communication skills are developed through the activities of role play, oral reports, speeches, and class discussions. So this is an important part of the curriculum, and with small class sizes (>15), it is possible for the teacher to include all the children in such discussions. In fact when we studied the American Revolution, we had a debate about the fight for independence; half the class took the side of the revolutionaries and the other half, the loyalists. This part of the curriculum is more learner focused, as it involves the learner empathising with characters in history, and really seeing history from their point of view; meaning the child has to actively engage with the material instead of passively assimilating it. This part also opens up the idea of citizenship, and what it really means. As a considerable amount of time is allowed for this part of the curriculum, the students and teacher have more freedom to explore these ideas, and I would say that this part is very much learner focused. Ideas and different points of view are welcomed and discussed in the classroom, and the students start to research their chosen character from the revolution. They are then asked to write a speech from that character’s point of view about the revolution. In order to really enter into the spirit of it they later dress up as the character and read their speech to an audience in the auditorium. In many ways this part of the curriculum is learner focused; first of all they have a choice of who to be, and therefore have some ownership of their learning. Next they need to do their own research, with guidance of course, and then they chose how to represent their character. Interestingly enough, the American boys usually chose a famous American, the French boys, a famous Frenchman, the English boys, a famous English man, and so on. It is less evident for the girls, and they sometimes take on the role of a man, but often take on the role of a native American woman, or the wife of one of the American revolutionaries. Children who do not belong to any of the cultures involved have more trouble choosing a character, but they usually find one and enter into the spirit of it. It is interesting to note how the children try to choose a character that they can identify with in some way.
Conclusion
The social studies curriculum is to some extent academic in nature, and has strong classification. However, due to the weak framing and the point that part of the material covered is chosen by the student, it is more learner focused than a typical academic curriculum. Also there are some connections between this subject and other subject areas. So it would seem that the curriculum goes some way to meet the aims of the school as set out in the prospectus.
The question remains, whose culture are we teaching? There is not a strong school policy on this, except that teachers are expected to teach respect for all cultures. I would like to suggest that we teach different cultures, and not only one. Although the 5th grade social studies curriculum is mostly American history, it is taken from different perspectives. No judgement is placed on who was right, and the children are free to choose any point of view. It becomes a part of world history, possibly less relevant to the Korean students for example; but still relevant, in that it examines questions of justice, conflict and citizenship.
As I am English and have been educated in the English system, I teach both the English and American ways of spelling, and both the imperial and metric system of measurement. Some may think this could be confusing for the child, but I don’t find it so. I think it is enriching; the children can see through everyday examples like this that there may be more than one way of being right, more than one way of doing things. Isn’t this exactly what we are aiming for when providing an international education and preparing children for global citizenship?
I would conclude by saying that a lot of the learning is done through the hidden curriculum, and this depends to a large extent on the individual teacher in the classroom. For this reason it is important that the teachers receive professional development so that they are in touch with new theories and innovations related to education.
References
Bernstein, Basil (1971) On the Classification and Framing of Educational Knowledge, in Young, M.F.D. Knowledge and Control, New Directions for the Sociology of Education, Collier-Macmillan, London
Goodson, Ivor ( 1987) Social Subjects and Curriculum Change: Studies in Curriculum History, A revised and extended edition, London
Marsh, Colin, J. (2006) Key Concepts for Understanding Curriculum, 3rd Ed. London and NY: Routledge Falmer
Ross, Alistair (2000) Curriculum: Construction and Critique, London , New York
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