The challenge of ‘recontextualisation’ and Future 3 curriculum scenarios: an overview

The GeoCapabilities project (www.geocapabilities.org) was motivated by the need to develop and strengthen the educational principles that we believe underpin healthy, open democratic societies. The chapter looks to Jerome Bruner’s curriculum thinking to launch the discussion and his explicit position on the benefits of formal educational processes, which include nurturing in young people ‘general understanding’ and their ability to use a ‘well-disciplined, well stocked mind’. Thus, what to teach and how to do this ‘effectively’ (in the Brunerian sense) are the questions GeoCapabilities focusses on – but only after due consideration of who we are teaching and especially why we think geographical knowledge is of significance in their education.

The chapter argues that what we teach children – and why we make the selections we do – is an important matter, not to be treated lightly. The GeoCapabilities approach asks us to deliberate over the ambitious principles of Future 3 curriculum thinking based upon the idea of developing with young people geographical knowledge which is ‘powerful knowledge’. Being interested in powerful knowledge is not just a matter of teaching effectively or efficiently. It is primarily concerned with the quality of what is being taught and for what educational purposes. It requires teachers who are confident in their own agency and who are engage fruitfully in the dialogic practice of ‘curriculum making’.