As you are probably aware
of, the Norwegian government has announced a major school reform that is
scheduled for the autumn of 2019, which primarily revolves around changes in
the national curriculum. Needless to say, this is a big deal for the educational
sector in Norway in general, and for pupils, parents and teachers in
particular. It has been a while since the last big reform (K06), 12 years to be
precise, and given the ever-increasing rate of globalization and technological
development (unprecedentedly influencing communication, understanding and knowledge)
many consider the need for reform to be highly due.
Of course, there are
always pros and cons regarding reforms like this: they are time-consuming,
extremely expensive and success is hardly a guarantee. Still, the possible end
result can potentially improve the whole concept of Norwegian education on a
national level in profound ways. Furthermore, the process the Ludvigsen
committee has gone through during the last years in the planning seems open,
fruitful and well-communicated. Therefore, I give the curriculum changes a warm welcome. Here is one reason why:
In an article at Khrono.no, published in 2016, math-teacher and prof.
Bjørn Smestad has a very optimistic take on the forthcoming reform. He
highlights the fact that the government has ordered fewer competence aims,
which implicates more “depth-learning” and cross-curricular subjects. At the very
core of what we as teachers are supposed to teach our pupils are the competence
aims, and as of now, simply, there are too many of them. At worst, this can
lead to nerve-wrecking “time trouble” for teachers (and pupils) during year 10,
wondering if they have covered all the aims sufficiently prior to the spring
exams, and hereby jumping from topic to topic in order to get them all “done”.
At best, it seems as if the pupils experience a subtle alienation in regards to
both the often vague nature of the competence aims and the shear amount of them.
Of course, one could argue that the pupils are not necessarily supposed
to relate to the competence aims on a day-to day basis, rather they could be
regarded as useful tools for the teacher to use in planning her lessons and
semesters. However, working in a year 8-10 school, I often see examples of
teachers using competence aims directly as learning aims on weekly schedules
etc. This practice has been advocated by some (Egil Hartberg), but is in my
opinion seldom beneficial for the majority of the pupils in a given class.
Frankly, using the aims from K06 in practice seems highly teacher-dependent,
reflecting the fact that the level of freedom in the competence aims of
today is a blessing, but also a curse.
There are many reasons to look forward
to the changes in our curriculum. However, the reform certainly also provides
some challenges. Bjørn Smestad briefly mentions one (probably the greatest one?):
what to leave out? This question orbits what we regard as important when we imagine
our future society and consider what aspects of knowledge and methods we think
should be a priority in preparing our pupils on what to come.
In my opinion, the curriculum changes are most welcome!
Curious to hear your opinions on this!
Sources:
https://khrono.no/debatt/gleder-seg-over-mye-i-nye-laererplaner
