John Peter White

Although Paul Hirst was no longer working in the educational field between 2010 and 2020, echoes of his ideas resonate through the decade. I look at three examples. [1] The National Curriculum. In the 1990s Hirst had been critical of the newly introduced National Curriculum of 1988, built as it was around ten foundation subjects rather than practices of everyday life. While curricular reforms under the Labour governments of 1997–2010 came somewhat closer to his ideas, there has been a reversion since then to a subject-centred curriculum, with tests and examinations based on it much to the fore. But calls for more attention to social issues like climate change and ethnic diversity have Hirstian resonances, as have critical comments on the status quo from leading figures in politics and the inspectorate. [2] ‘Powerful knowledge.’ This notion, closely associated with the sociologist Michael Young, has been widely influential in educational circles since 2010. Its original definition in terms of bodies of knowledge with their own systems of concepts, is reminiscent of Hirst's celebrated and later abandoned ‘forms of knowledge’ theory. The paper speculates on possible biographical explanations of this commonality. [3] Teacher education. In 2017 HMCI Amanda Spielman commented on the need to improve teachers’ poor understanding of curriculum theory and notes that in the past it was better. This chimes with comments of Paul Hirst in 1994, although it is not clear how far Spielman would support his view that this work should first be rooted in practical teaching experience.

Various conceptions of philosophy of education have been mooted over the last sixty years. The paper looks at five of these, associated particularly with R. S. Peters, D. W. Hamlyn, David Bakhurst, Philip Kitcher, and Harvey Siegel. It shows differences and sometimes overlaps among these, to do with whether or not philosophy of education should be seen as a branch of philosophy, as central to philosophy as a whole, or as a form of applied philosophy. The paper puts most weight on the last of these while recognizing the importance of work on the enculturation of young human beings as exemplified in Hamlyn’s and Bakhurst’s writings.

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career- long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces-extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions-so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field. Emeritus Professor John White has spent the last 35 years researching, thinking and writing about some of the key and enduring issues in education. In this book, he brings together 16 key writings in one place. Starting with a specially written Introduction, which gives an overview of John's career and conceptualizes his selection within the development of the field, the chapters cover: · Mind · State and Curriculum · Well-being · Politics · Curriculum subjects. This book not only shows how John's thinking developed during his long and distinguished career; it also gives an insight into the development of the fields to which he contributed.

This is a long review of a long book, the longest to my knowledge on what educational aims and the curriculum that flows from them should be. The first half of the review is devoted to a brief summary of each of the eleven chapters. The second half raises some critical points. These cover remarks about R.S. Peters' alleged traditionalism; the salience of climate change considerations among educational aims; the claim that the arts, like the sciences, make progress; seeing the elements of morality as a toolbox. The longest critical discussion is about Kitcher's notion of human fulfillment and whether he is right in his view that we should see it in terms of a successful life-plan aimed at furthering ‘the human project’.

The paper picks up from the widespread use by politicians and some educational theorists of maximising notions about those being educated such as ‘reach their full potential’ or ‘make the best of themselves’ or ‘develop their talents to the full’. The paper discusses then puts some of these ideas on one side to focus on the injunction that school students should be encouraged to do their best. It puts forward a number of objections to this injunction as well as answers to possible counter-arguments. Its final two main sections discuss links with maximising ideas in moral theory, especially utilitarianism; and Michael Slote’s case for satisficing rather than maximising as a guide to personal flourishing.

This is a reply to Rebecca Taylor's 2017 JOPE article ‘Indoctrination and Social Context: A System-based Approach to Identifying the Threat of Indoctrination and the Responsibilities of Educators’. It agrees with her in going beyond the indoctrinatory role of the individual teacher to include that of whole educational systems, but differs in emphasizing indoctrinatory intention rather than outcome; and in allowing the possibility of indoctrination without individual teachers being indoctrinators at all.

Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences has had a huge influence on school education. But its credentials lack justification, as the first section of this paper shows via a detailed philosophical analysis of how the intelligences are identified. If we want to make sense of the theory, we need to turn from a philosophical to a historical perspective. This is provided in the second section, which explores how the theory came to take shape in the course of Gardner's intellectual development. The third section looks at changes in the theory since its inception in 1983 and at problems with its applications to education. The paper concludes with a response to Gardner's critical comments on the argument to this point.