Technical (& Ideological) Questions around Curriculum Change

Consider how knowledge should be made accessible to students. In an age of distance learning and technology, one could take this to mean how children “technically” receive the curriculum and even their “technical” experience in the classroom. However, I think the more valuable discussion here is the intent and philosophy behind how the curriculum is presented.

One of the significant challenges of critical inquiry based curriculum is that it promotes “a new approach to learning”. The curriculum asks teachers to use an inquiry approach to learning and to look at events and experiences around them and throughout history through a multitude of perspectives. This “technical” change, in effect produces an ideological change, in that curriculum becomes inquiry driven versus being content driven. This presents a significant challenge for classroom teachers, who in the past relied on the content to be the engine that moved them along. It also produces questions around the ability to measure specific outcomes. In Alberta, Provincial Achievement Tests and Diploma Exams have long been geared to the content and a move away from this makes one wonder how future accountability measures will adequately examine this technical and ideological change?