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Hi Karl
 
You have a point. In fact I was thinking less about a set curriculum and more about how
the approach to study is divided into too narrow disciplines and that we should bring
many disciplines together to study broader subjects. And yes we cannot teach how to
understand nature,etc, we can teach the history of humanity's attempts to understand
these broader subjects and whilst we need to value genuine input from teachers we
should also move away from the low ambitions of state education and look to be
examinating the highest level of critical debate on these subjects, where the genuine
openness of conceptual variety and conflict cannot be ignored. So yes, the reality of
non-consensus would be brought into study by jumping into the deep end long before
any natural curiosity has been cut off from all nutrition. I think my vague vision of an alternative
national curriculum would be 'alternative' enough to look nothing like a curriculum, more a
a set of broad questions to be investigated at as high a level as the student can
undertake. And I would like to see alot more free wandering study. As for exams, do
they have much real use other than expressing educational inequalities divisions?
 
David Morey
----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Karl Rogers
To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 7:28 PM
Subject: National Curriculum

Hi David,
In my opinion, while I am sympathetic to your suggestion that an alternative national curriculum would be a nice idea, I think that one of the main problems with UK school education is the existence of a national curriculum at all. The decision about what should be taught at schools should not be a governmental decision, but should be decided by the school (including the teachers, parents, and, the pupils) through a public, democratic process. How the subject-matter should be taught should be a matter for individual teachers to decide. How pupils should be tested should be for individual universities, colleges, or employers to decide, and, the government should be involved only if school leavers were to apply for a government job.
While the government is involved (even under the best of motives) in universalising the content, structure, and testing of education -- the technical constraints of evaluating and quantifying performances and results will constrain the possibilities of what can be taught in schools.
The problem is that, even though it would be nice to have schools teaching children how to understand Nature, how to understand science, etc., there a complete absence of any education in how to critically question our understanding of anything. Given that we do not have any consensus on what it involved in this (hence, the existence of philosophy since Plato), it is essential that the process by which this crucial aspect of education is taught in schools must be pluralistic.
It would be a terrible mistake to centralise this process, even if the best of intentions were behind the design of the national curriculum.
 
best regards,
Karl  

David M <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi Nick
 
I wonder if an alternative national curriculum would be a nice idea?
Where the subjects studied were: understanding nature, understanding science, understanding human beings and human expression,
understanding society, understanding values, etc, aimed at orientating an individuals place in/relationship to reality, and where the
traditional subjects are tools that need to be brought together in understanding these bigger questions.
 
regards
David Morey
----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask]">Nicholas Maxwell
To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 2:43 PM
Subject: Press Release

Dear Friends of Wisdom,
 
                                    A news item about Friends of Wisdom is to appear in the Times Higher Education Supplement on 12 May - the journal appears in newsagents here in the UK a day before, on Thursday, 11 May.  So we may take that as the day Friends of Wisdom announces its existence, aims and aspirations to the world. I propose to send out the following Press Release to as many media outlets as I can think of - to education correspondents of newspapers and magazines, to Radio and TV news programmes.  Also, I will let other relevant emailing groups and campaigning groups know of our existence.  I will be concentrating on the UK.  If Friends of Wisdom in other countries feel able to do something similar in their countries, that would be great.
 
                          Best wishes,
 
                                   Nick
www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   
11 April 2006
 
 
Press release from FRIENDS OF WISDOM
 
 
A new group calls for a radical change in the role played by universities in society. Friends of Wisdom, an international group of academics and others are calling on universities to address the most important problems facing humanity.
 
There is a news item about Friends of Wisdom in this week’s Times Higher Education Supplement (12 May).
 
According to Friends of Wisdom, the relationship of universities to government, the media, to business, students and the public at large is profoundly inadequate and needs to be re-thought to tackle the pressing current and future problems of humanity.
 
Universities and academics need to become fully engaged with the societies in which they exist and to which they should be contributing. Such engagement will transform the activity of universities, connecting the pursuit of knowledge to the task of enabling human beings to flourish and work together to solve human problems, reduce human conflict and live in a sustainable relationship with nature.
 
This radical new group says that universities need to help humanity acquire the wisdom we can no longer afford to be without, challenging politicians, raising public debate, empowering individuals with the highest quality education.  They must also promote critical debate about what is genuinely of value in life and how it is to be achieved.
 
At present universities seek to help promote human welfare (insofar as they do) by, in the first instance, acquiring knowledge.  First, knowledge is to be acquired; then it can be applied to help solve social problems.
 
But this is damagingly irrational.  If the basic aim really is to help promote human welfare, then the problems that need to be solved are, fundamentally, problems of living, not problems of knowledge.  The intellectually fundamental task of universities ought to be to help humanity learn how to tackle its problems of living in more rational and cooperative ways than at present, so that we may make progress towards a better world.  The pursuit of knowledge is important, but a secondary matter.
 
The aim of Friends of Wisdom is to help change our universities and schools so that they take up their proper task of helping all of us learn how to realize what is genuinely of value in life.
 
Nicholas Maxwell
Emeritus Reader in Philosophy of Science at University College London
Tel:- 020 7263 0279
Email: [log in to unmask]
Websites: http://www.knowledgetowisdom.org

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