What Should Schools Teach?
Disciplines, subjects and the pursuit of truth
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert (Editor), Alex Standish (Editor)
Series: Knowledge and the Curriculum
The design of school curriculums involves deep thought about the nature of knowledge and its value to learners and society. It is a serious responsibility that raises a number of questions. What is knowledge for? What knowledge is important for children to learn? How do we decide what knowledge matters in each school subject? And how far should the knowledge we teach in school be related to academic disciplinary knowledge? These and many other questions are taken up in What Should Schools Teach?
The blurring of distinctions between pedagogy and curriculum, and between experience and knowledge, has served up a confusing message for teachers about the part that each plays in the education of children. Schools teach through subjects, but there is little consensus about what constitutes a subject and what they are for. This book aims to dispel confusion through a robust rationale for what schools should teach that offers key understanding to teachers of the relationship between knowledge (what to teach) and their own pedagogy (how to teach), and how both need to be informed by values of intellectual freedom and autonomy.
This second edition includes new chapters on Chemistry, Drama, Music and Religious Education, and an updated chapter on Biology. A revised introduction reflects on emerging discourse around decolonizing the curriculum, and on the relationship between the knowledge that children encounter at school and in their homes.
Praise for What Should Schools Teach?
‘The book takes up the ‘knowledge challenge’ in an ambitious and courageous way by confronting what knowledge means for education in modern society.’
The Curriculum Journal
‘If you want an in-depth analysis of the curriculum by subject, UCL’s What Should Schools Teach? is superb.’
John Tomsett, johntomsett.com
‘An important book that restores much needed sanity to debates about schooling’s purpose. It makes an excellent primer for aspiring teachers, will be of interest to parents and other interested laypersons, and should be mandatory reading for educational policymakers throughout the Anglophone world.’
Areo Magazine
‘… Seghal Cuthbert and Standish, aided by their team of subject experts, inject a healthy blend of cerebral intellect, classroom experience, and plain common sense into the curriculum debate. The well-researched content makes the contributors worthy of attention, with more than enough expertise to warrant moments of candour.’
Secondary Ideas
‘This book brings profound questions about what children need to know back to the centre of educational enquiry where they belong. The additional chapters in this second edition are excellent. We all need to read it.’
Professor Elizabeth Rata, University of Auckland
‘I am afraid that what we actually teach is so often forgotten in debates about schools. Subjects – the way that most people choose to divide up human knowledge – are too rarely the focus of our interest. Yet the subjects we offer and the syllabus content of each is arguably the most important single element of the school system. This book bucks the trend and should be of great importance to all teachers.’
Barnaby Lenon, CBE, University of Buckingham
‘In an education system that requires teachers to focus their education aims on supporting students’ economic opportunities, civic ideologies, and such, the authors of What Should Schools Teach advocate for the broader development of the human and humanity rather than the social engineering so often prevalent in contemporary educational reform movements and their prescribed curriculum… The call for teacher education to specifically refocus our efforts to produce the next generation of teachers who can accomplish the authors’ vision should resonate for teacher educators who read this text..’
Teachers College Record
List of figures
List of abbreviations
Notes on contributors
Foreword
Tim Oates
Introduction to the second edition
Alex Standish and Alka Sehgal Cuthbert
1 Disciplinary knowledge and its role in the school curriculum
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert
2 School subjects
Alex Standish
3 English literature
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert
4 Art
Dido Powell
5 Drama
Martin Robinson
6 Music
Simon Toyne
7 Foreign languages
Shirley Lawes
8 Geography
Alex Standish
9 History
Christine Counsell
10 Religious education
Rania Hafez
11 Biology
Fredrik Berglund and Michael J Reiss
12 Chemistry
Gareth Bates
13 Physics
Gareth Sturdy
14 Mathematics
Cosette Crisan
Conclusion
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert and Alex Standish
Index
DOI: 10.14324/111.9781787358744
Number of illustrations: 11
Publication date: 07 January 2021
PDF ISBN: 9781787358744
EPUB ISBN: 9781787358775
Hardback ISBN: 9781787358768
Paperback ISBN: 9781787358751
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert (Editor) 
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert has spent more than 20 years as an English teacher at secondary level and lecturer in Cultural Studies in higher education. She currently works part-time as an English teacher for the educational charity, Civitas. She writes on educational issues for academic and public audiences, and has a particular interest in social realist epistemology, aesthetics and the pedagogy of reading and English Literature. She has contributed to the Standing Committee for the Education and Training of Teachers’ publication, ‘The Role of the Teacher Today’, and published articles on English in The Curriculum Journal and English in Education. Alka is a school governor and sits on Ofsted’s advisory panel for the new inspection framework for English. She is a committee member of the Cambridge Symposium of Knowledge in Education and member of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.
Alex Standish (Editor)
Alex Standish is Associate Professor of Geography Education at the UCL Institute of Education and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He works in teacher training and supervises students at Master’s and doctoral level. He completed his doctoral degree in geography at Rutgers University New Jersey and then taught at Western Connecticut State University for six years. Alex has provided curriculum guidance for the Department for Education, the Department for International Trade, the London Mayor’s office, examination boards and schools. Other books: The False Promise of Global Learning and Global Perspectives in the Geography Curriculum.
‘… Seghal Cuthbert and Standish, aided by their team of subject experts, inject a healthy blend of cerebral intellect, classroom experience, and plain common sense into the curriculum debate. The well-researched content makes the contributors worthy of attention, with more than enough expertise to warrant moments of candour.’ Secondary Ideas
‘An important book that restores much needed sanity to debates about schooling’s purpose. It makes an excellent primer for aspiring teachers, will be of interest to parents and other interested laypersons, and should be mandatory reading for educational policymakers throughout the Anglophone world.’
Areo Magazine
‘If you want an in-depth analysis of the curriculum by subject, UCL’s What Should Schools Teach? is superb.’ John Tomsett, johntomsett.com
‘The book takes up the ‘knowledge challenge’ in an ambitious and courageous way by confronting what knowledge means for education in modern society.’
The Curriculum Journal
‘In an education system that requires teachers to focus their education aims on supporting students’ economic opportunities, civic ideologies, and such, the authors of What Should Schools Teach advocate for the broader development of the human and humanity rather than the social engineering so often prevalent in contemporary educational reform movements and their prescribed curriculum… The call for teacher education to specifically refocus our efforts to produce the next generation of teachers who can accomplish the authors’ vision should resonate for teacher educators who read this text..’
Teachers College Record
‘This book brings profound questions about what children need to know back to the centre of educational enquiry where they belong. The additional chapters in this second edition are excellent. We all need to read it.’
Professor Elizabeth Rata, University of Auckland
‘I am afraid that what we actually teach is so often forgotten in debates about schools. Subjects – the way that most people choose to divide up human knowledge – are too rarely the focus of our interest. Yet the subjects we offer and the syllabus content of each is arguably the most important single element of the school system. This book bucks the trend and should be of great importance to all teachers.’
Barnaby Lenon, University of Buckingham
Listen to the editors of the Knowledge and the Curriculum series
Listen to Arthur Chapman and Alex Standish (editors of the Knowledge and the Curriculum series) review the contemporary debate on the school curriculum on the IOE Coffee Breaks podcast
Listen to series editor Jennie Golding (editor of the Knowledge and the Curriculum series) discuss the future of knowledge and the curriculum on the Research for the Real World podcast
Listen to series editor Arthur Chapman talk about Knowledge and the Curriculum on the Research for the Real World podcast.
Listen to the editors of What Should Schools Teach?
Listen to Alex Standish talk about What Should Schools Teach? on the Research for the Real World podcast
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