Improving the Alignment Between Values, Principles and Classroom Realities

Abstract

The curricular reforms described in this book are wide-ranging and are driven by many external factors and value systems. They usually begin with a vision of ‘how things should be’, but as we have seen, their implementation is often a travesty of their aims. In this chapter I begin with a synthesis of the values exhibited in curricula across the world, then go on to analyse the kinds of classroom activity that are implied when these are taken seriously. This process will be illustrated through a specific case—a national consultation in England that attempted to elicit, prioritise and exemplify apparently competing values held by mathematics educators. I argue that the misalignment of the intended and enacted curriculum is at least partly due to the almost universal lack of vivid exemplification in curriculum specifications and consequent reductive interpretations of them by their users. An argument is thus made for a serious systematic design-research effort into the production of beautiful examples that illustrate and effectively communicate our core values to the key educational stakeholders.