Written at a time of uncertainty about the implications of the English government's curriculum policies, Knowledge and the Future School engages with the debate between the government and large sections of the educational community. It provides a forward-looking framework for head teachers, their staff and those involved in training teachers to use when developing the curriculum of individual schools in the context of a national curriculum.
While explaining recent ideas in the sociology of educational knowledge, the authors draw on Michael Young's earlier research with Johan Muller to distinguish three models of the curriculum in terms of their assumptions about knowledge, referred to in this book as Future 1, Future 2 and Future 3. They link Future 3 to the idea of 'powerful knowledge' for all pupils as a curriculum principle for any school, arguing that the question of knowledge is intimately linked to the issue of social justice and that access to 'powerful knowledge' is a necessary component of the education of all pupils.
Knowledge and the Future School offers a new way of thinking about the problems that head teachers, their staff and curriculum designers face. In charting a course for schools that goes beyond current debates, it also provides a perspective that policy makers should not avoid.
This will not be an uncontroversial book - certainly not amongst politicians of either left or right. It is an important one, however. For passionate teachers everywhere, drawn into teaching by their love of their subject and the emancipatory power of education, it will be one which re-inspires them to think more deeply about what should be taught in their classrooms. The challenge to teach 'powerful knowledge', which liberates the mind and gives young people the ability to engage critically with the world will resonate deeply with teachers whose intrinsic motivations have always been to educate without dogma. This book's proposed 'Future 3' model will help teachers to transcend the sterility of the current ideological debate and fashion a future for their schools and pupils where deep educational values can take centre stage.
