Aristotle and Gove

Michaael Gove

Michael Gove is the pin up boy for the latest set of thoughts about the school curriculum in general and the history curriculum in particular – see  here . The fundamental issue is of contending values and thus of world view.

It is felt by Gove and his like that the formal education system can be the vanguard for radical change. However, educational research shows that formal education serves to reproduce rather than transform social norms and values – reference Bourdieu and Passeron.

The curriculum issue has been around as long as there have been schools. I have been locking horns with it in various parts of the world for more than 30 years.

For example, I served as a Curriculum Consultant to the Ministry of Education in Belize from 1988 till1992. At the time TV was becoming popular and there was an awareness of cultural swamping from the USA. Many of the schools were managed by religious groups. There was thus a clash of cultures and a strong interest in morality and ethics, and of how to influence the value systems that underlay them. Following lengthy conversations, especially with members of the Belize Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (BAPSS), I prepared two discussion papers.

“The School Ethos” (1988) - 5 pages
http://www.scribd.com/doc/56967591/School-Ethos

“Moral and Spiritual Learning Needs (1990) – 18 pages
http://www.scribd.com/doc/56747762/Moral-and-Spiritual-Learning-Needs-a-discussion-Paper

The 1988 paper drew heavily on advisory work I had done in Scotland in helping to prepare policy documents for a progressive and innovative Primary School in the fishing village of Portessie. The 1990 paper recorded the progress of thinking in Belize over two years and proved useful in informing the design of curricula for Social Studies and for Homeroom (pastoral care).

The papers also helped inform the country-wide series of workshops which asked all education stakeholders “What should the children learn in school?” The workshops were part of a World Bank sponsored Belize Primary School Project (BPSP).
 
NOTE: I find it cute that my involvement in education in Jamaica, Zambia and Sudan should have informed my voluntary work in a small primary school in rural NE Scotland: and that this informed later work in Belize and possibly in several other countries via the World Bank education experts that were involved with the BPSP. (evidence?).

The 1990 document contained several lists of values which were drawn from many times and places. Several members of BAPSS were priests and Nuns. There was a strong feeling for at least spiritual universals. We might have been ahead of the game.

In 2004 Martin Seligman et al created a list of universal Character Strengths and Virtues (CSV) which were designed to look at what can go psychologically right for people. – see  HERE   Their list includes six main character strengths – see below – and there are 24 sub entries).

The Wikipedia article notes that  “Other researchers have advocated grouping the 24 identified character traits into just four classes of strength (Intellectual, Social, Temperance, Transcendent) or even just three classes (without Transcendence). This, not just because it is easier to remember, but rather because there is evidence that these do an adequate job of capturing the components of the 24 original traits.

To see the 24 sub-entries  - click HERE -

The virtues to some extent mirror the cardinal virtues and theological virtues of Aristotle and Aquinas: hope, faith, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance

SO ...

Aristotle, Aquinas, Seligman, Gove?