Neelands, Jonothan (2009) Getting off the subject: English, drama, media and the commonwealth of powerful culture. In: Imagination, innovation, creativity: re-visioning English education. Phoenix Education, Sydney. ISBN 9781921586194

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Abstract

There is an old riddle that makes us teachers chuckle knowingly. Imagine that a train driver, a surgeon and a teacher fell asleep in 1908 and woke up to go to work in 2008. Which one of them would notice they had been asleep for a century? The same rows of chairs, the same mode of instruction in many cases, the same content and modes of assessment. The same power and powerlessness between teachers and learners over what is learnt , how it is learnt and how it is valued through assessment. Our early 20c teacher would wake to find that in many places what young people are taught as valuable and socially controlled knowledge is still comfortably organised into „subjects‟. And that of these subjects English, along with Science and Maths are the kings of the curriculum. Over the sleeping century in the UK we have become naturalised into thinking that subjects are our only means of organising, delivering and assessing what young people learn about their worlds through schooling. Our children study the world through the frames of subjects and their success in later life will largely depend on their success in subject-based rather than real world-based learning. Primacy is given to achieving success in subjects rather than in a broader range of personal and social achievements and therefore to a curriculum which tends to isolate and reify the facts and figures from live(d) human experience.

Item Type:	Book Item
Alternative Title:	Getting off the subject: English, drama, media and the commonwealth of culture
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Institute of Education
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Bernstein, Basil B. Class, codes and control, Drama in education -- Great Britain, Teaching -- Methodology, Academic achievement -- Great Britain
Publisher:	Phoenix Education
Place of Publication:	Sydney
ISBN:	9781921586194
Book Title:	Imagination, innovation, creativity: re-visioning English education
Editor:	Manuel, Jacqueline and Brock, P. (Paul) and Carter , D. (Don) and Sawyer, Wayne
Date:	2009
Number of Pages:	12
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
References:	Bernstein, B. (1973) Class, Codes and Control Vol 1 (London, Palladin) Bourdieu, P. ( 1986) Distinction, A social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London, Routledge) DCMS/DCSF (2008) Find Your Talent: Prospectus (London, DCMS/DCSF) Delpit, L. (1995) Other People‟s Children; Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (New York, The New Press Eagleton, T. (2000) The Idea of Culture (Oxford, Blackwell) Friere, P. (1998) The Pedagogy of Freedom (London, Rowman and Littlefield) Halliday, B and Herzog, A. (1939) God Bless the Child (New York, Okeh records) Holden, J. (2008) Culture and Learning: Towards a New Agenda (London, DEMOS) Platt, L. (2005) Poverty and Ethnicity in the UK (London, Joseph Rowntree Foundation) Sutton Trust (2007) University Admissions by Individual Schools The Times 31/12/2007
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/2724

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