zaterdag 7 april 2012

citizenship and/as thought


Citizenship and/as Thought
Scientific literacy and deliberative democracy in The Netherlands

Introduction

Like every country that has agreed upon the so-called Lisbon Agenda, The Netherlands have pledged to become ΅the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-driven economy by 2010 (European Commission, 2000). As much as the failure to reach this high-staken goal has by now been acknowledged, the language of 'Lisbon' still permeates Dutch educational discourse. During the largest part of the last decade the educational means contributing most to international competitiveness were sought in the large-scale introduction of ICT, 'straightening' the column of vocational training andalbeit hesitantlythe reform of general secondary education along the lines of constructivist thought and instruction. Whereas the former two policies can be seen to have succeeded, the latter thrust has quite suddenly come to a halt. Widespread unease with state-directed school reforms among teachers, parents and other stakeholders may have played quite a part here, but essentially, 'Lisbon' seems to have been beaten by 'Lisbon'; it's under the spell of PISA, TIMMS and other international rankings that the Dutch government has recently left the path of structural educational reform in order to plea now for a strengthening of the 'core subjects'at the expense of the 'soft' ones - and to promote 'talent development' and 'excellence'.
Even if we deem the explicit goal of this new orthodoxy– catching up with students from East Asia – quite questionable, we do second to the means chosen. In order for Dutch general secondary education to become indeed more meritocratic we believe, however, that the curriculum in secondary schools ought not be more restricted, but instead be made more instructive. Loosely reorganized around a broadened concept of 'scientific literacy', so we hope to show, any secondary school could develop a curriculum that enhances the intellectual agility of all their students, including the 'excellent' ones. The rationale behind this mere shift of focus is not only that it leaves the existing structure of the school and its curriculum largely intact, but also, and even more so, that it explicitly aims to link a possibly more adaptive approach to the instruction of individuals with the goal of educating citizens inhabiting a pluralist democracy.
In order to unfold this both ambitious and rather modest scheme we will first address the continuing need for educational reform, postmodern society asking for individuals operating at different cognitive levels than Dutch secondary education now seems able to produce (par. 1). Along this part of the route we will argue that both the economic goals as stipulated by the Lisbon-agenda and the socio-political aims as stated by liberal theorists of citizenship are all in effect epistemic issues, such that can and ought to addressed in terms of deeper, more profound ways of learning. Further along the course (par. 2) we will show how a program for general scientific literacy could dovetail into any (subject-centered) school curriculum, thus promoting the development of meta-cognitive and higher order thinking skills in individual children, a sense of ownership among the teachers and a healthy public sphere for society at large (par. 2). We do notagainwant to prescribe teachers how they should organize which educational reform in what ways. The best we can hope to achieve, however, is to show how a mere change of focus could help them develop a curriculum that does take the 'grammar of schooling', the needs of different learners and the future of democracy all into into serious account.

  1. Knowledges and/as procedures
Recently, Van Rossum and Hamer (2010a & 2010b) have shown that the majority of Dutch students entering higher education persistently show to have rather shallow notions of what 'knowledge' is and what 'learning' comprises of. Combining a number of models of epistemological growth or development into their own 'taxonomy of epistemic learning', and applying this grid to analyze a rich, longitudinal data-set, they claim that only a tiny faction of students conceive of 'learning' as something other than reproducing or applying facts. Hence, the majority of undergraduate students seems to have the implicit and pretty naive notion that 'knowledge' is something that is simply 'out there'. Again, it's only a minority of studentsand teachers (!)that show able to match explicit, more mature epistemological concepts and concerns with deliberate choices for life and strategies for learning (Van Rossum & Hamer 2010a & 2010b, comp. Prosser & Trigwell 1999). 'Translated' into the more commonly used categories of Bloom's (revised) taxonomy of learning, these results seem to show that secondary education in The Netherlands, even at pre-university levels, does not, or not sufficiently help adolescents to develop so-called higher order thinking skills. Although philosophy has been introduced as a subject to be opted for in the higher Forms of both A- and B-levels1, pre-academic training seemsin generalunable to foster critical and creative thinking that would allow students to develop into truly independent learners.
In order to enhance the quality of this general, pre-academic secondary education, the current Minister of Education has challenged schools to become 'highly ambitious' and 'foster every talent', stimulate 'civic education' to enhance active participation in a 'multicultural and complex society', and finally make the Netherlands 'one of the leading knowledge-based economies in Europe' (Bijleveld, 2008; 2010). In this paragraph, we hope to show that all these issues, to a certain extent at least, are epistemic issues.
Addressing them – whether as a policy-maker, a curriculum-developer, or indeed as a teacher - could or indeed ought to encompass a reflection on the types of 'knowledge' and 'learning' that they imply. In doing so, we will argue that fostering critical – and higher order thinking skills among students of every level will prove beneficial on a macro-level - bearing, as they do, on economic, socio-cultural, moral and political domains. The meso-level of specific schools and their means instruction will be addressed more extensively in Par. 2.

Productive Knowledges
The most explicit, and probably most important aim as stated by the Minister, is her 'Portuguese' desire to sky-rocket The Netherlands into one of the leading 'knowledge-based economies'. Thus formulated, this goal presupposes that 'knowledge' a) is or ought to be fundamental for the (future) economical system of The Netherlands, a basis that b) could and should be laid by secondary education.
The Netherlands are a post-industrial society in which commercial and collective services seem to outweigh the productivity of the primary and secondary sectors. Still, transport and the production of agricultural and industrial goods make up a more than considerable part of the GDP. The imagery of a 'knowledge-based economy' therefore seems to be more an extrapolation of recent or imagined trends than a description of any status quo. On the one hand side, this Idea of a knowledge-society pledges adherence to human capital theory, which holds education to be a rewarding individual and collective investment, 'being knowledgeable' having measurable economic benefits (Dieleman e.a., 2005). On the other hand side, it assumes 'knowledge-as-such', and not 'science' or 'fundamental research' as instrumental for economic growth and competitiveness. In that sense, discourse seems to reflect the postmodern priority of applicable, i.e. technical, medical, etc. knowledges over 'pure' science and fundamental questions concerning the production of knowledge (Kwa, 2005). This prejudice is reinforced by the popular equation of the 'knowledge-society' with the Internet- or web-based society, in which 'knowledge-as-such' seems a rather unproblematic and partly free commodity that, in order to be fruitfully exploited, needs to be managed efficiently. In this popular version, 'knowledge' is not merely applicable, but has been degraded to sheer information.
Education for any (future) 'information-society, however, would include training young people in strategies not merely how to access, but rather how to evaluate and select abundant information and to transform the good bits into knowledge and understanding. In order for this knowledge to be used, then, 'knowledge-workers' of the future should be able to not merely apply, but transform itideally - into new knowledge and innovative technologies. Education for a 'knowledge-based society' should thus address not so much 'information-skills', but also, and even more so, evaluative and creative mental operations (Anderson e.a. 2001; Kuhn, 1999, Kuhn & Pease, 2008). In order to surpass the shallow equation of information with knowledge, schools would do wise to focus, more and more in-depth, on so-called meta-cognitive skills, such that make young people come to grips with their own learning processes, and pay due attention to the ways knowledges are produced in different segments and strata of society (Volman & Van Dam, 2004).

Political Knowledges
These very same goals could very well be set to make sure secondary schools accomplish not only their instrumental – economical - tasks, but also help fulfill their roles as a socializing institution. Faced with the challenge to redefine the public sphere in an age of supposedly new and supposedly cultural cleavages, many an educationalist, like many a politician, has fallen into the trap of overt moralism. Any attempt, however, to circumscribe the 'character' of communities, the values or virtues their inhabitants ought to embrace, will fall short of the radical plurality of contemporary life. If ever, common ground can and will not be found in new norms or identities, but in shared knowledge and some basic agreement about how to negotiate about its production and meaning. The explicit want, then, to 'produce' democratic citizens actively participating in a complex multicultural society suggests that schools transmit and/or foster a body of knowledge, skills and values that partly coincides with, partly transcends 'mere' higher order-, metacognitive and creative thinking skills. Addressing the need for a more than superficial 'multicultural education' for a ditto society, Banks has argued that: 
 
The curriculum in the schools must be transformed in order to help students develop the skills needed to participate in the knowledge construction process. [This] transformative curriculum changes the basic assumptions of the curriculum and enables students to view concepts, issues, themes and problems from diverse ethnic and cultural perspectives (Banks, 2006)

In this positively relativist conception, multicultural education includes knowledge about others' and one's own cultural heritage as well as about the different knowledge-claims that are or can be made within these systems. Especially the latter presupposes insight in cultural systems and 'cultured knowledges' as well as the skill to critically reflect upon one's own background(s) and assumptions (ibidem, see also: Perkins e.a. 1993; Blom e.a. 2003).
Because and in spite of the fact that the Idea of multiculturalism seems to have lost much of his appeal, educational authorities in The Netherlands have recently made a mildly universalist but inclusive form of 'citizenship-education' mandatory in both primary and secondary schools. Ever since 2005, they are held to show proof of teaching about democratic institutions in The Netherlands and Europe, and organize activities that are thought to enhance democratic attitudes and skills. Matched with a mandatory history curriculum that highlights Dutch endeavor in the past, this return to 'national-democratic' education certainly is part and parcel of the current backlash against 'relativism' (Grever, 2006; Jonker, 2006). One of the more progressive proponents of (post)modern moral and civic education, the secular humanist Wiel Veugelers, tries to overcome this incipient conservatism by focusing more on the integrative and critical functions of 'educating democracy': 
 
[] promoting critical democratic citizenship in education means promoting critical thinking and critical behavior as well as developing solidarity. This requires distance as well as involvement. Citizenship relates not only to the formal political domain, but also to the everyday life world. Citizenship is concerned with how a person stands in society, the giving of meaning to life on the personal, interpersonal and the socio-political levels (Veugelers & De Kat 2003b; see also: Veugelers 2003; Veugelers & De Kat 2003a, Leenders & Veugelers 2006)

Without reference to politicized adjectives like 'critical' or 'multicultural', the American developmental psychologist Deanne Kuhn seems to combine both these lines of thought when she asserts that:
A more flexible, and forgiving version of education for citizenship is to prepare youths to engage in effective debate of the issues that arise in a democratic society that coexists with a diversity of other societies in a complex world (...). Students well educated to engage in effective debate are able to construct or reconstruct, for themselves the rationales on which democratic societies are founded, without the requirement of absolute uniformity in the conceptual edifices that are constructed (Kuhn, 2005; 11-12)
In either of these three versions, education for postmodern society eventually builds upon sophisticated, well-informed and reflexive forms of empathy. Such a democratic posture does not merely presuppose some mastery of epistemology, like Banks argues, but incites us to actually transcend from critical thinking to what Kohlberg c.s. have coined a post-traditional morality (Power, Higgins & Kohlberg, 1991; Cliteur 2010).

Moral Knowledges
In 2001, weeks only after9/11, the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas held a remarkable speech about the preconditions for democracy to thrive in a 'post-secular' society. In spite of what European intellectualsafter Weber - had expected, secularism has not become the dominant version of the good life, but is actually losing ground to religious modes of life and thought. Politically, there is no alternative, however, for a liberal, neutralizing state that guarantees equal citizens the right to partake in political deliberations on the basis of secular, i.e. rational, non-metaphysical arguments. Inasmuch as citizens with religious leanings are thus forced to 'live' the separation of State and Church in their minds, secular citizens should seriously consider the historical, moral or indeed intrinsic rationale of the metaphysical arguments put forward by their fellow-citizens (Habermas 2001; 2005). Post-secular citizenship thus demands certain 'epistemic stances' (epistemische Haltungen), such that thrive on reflexivity and, as Habermas explained earlier, the development of post-traditional morality in a Kohlbergian sense (Habermas 1995; Power, Higgins & Kohlberg 1991). Like in Veugelers' plea for critical democratic citizenship, social peace eventually rests on individual citizens learning how to deliberatively weigh their moral intuitions against a diversity of abstract moral principles.
Of course this cognitivistKantian- conception of morality has been contested, not so much because its 'phallocentric' nature (Gilligan 1993), but because it fails to acknowledge the genetic, emotive and/or intuitive basis of morality. Whether or not naturalistic assertions are based on fallacious reasoning, as yet, and on principle, they can not lay the foundation for justice in a pluralist democratic society (Habermas, 2005). The same can be said for those theorists that focus on 'emotion' or 'intuition' as the primal sources of moral action, at least insofar as these are considered pre-rational and/or subliminal: as much as we are able to describe and even understand the actions of individuals as driven by unconscious processes, these acts cannot be justified by either these impulses or by themselves, legal as well as practical considerations demanding rational agency in a normative, necessarily discursive context (Dijksterhuis, 2008; Lamme, 2010, Swaab, 2010; for a critical assessment see: Bakhurst, 2008; Habermas, 2005; Visser & Wansink (in print)).
Others have argued that both emotion and intuition are – in defiance of folk psychology – anything but irrational, but in fact important sources of information about ourselves, others and the world at large. In this neo-stoic version, emotions and intuitions are considered both as knowledge-in-itself and as based on well-informed (moral) reflection. Learning how to think and reflect would then not only link individual cognition to a healthy public sphere, but enhance our personal and interpersonal, moral and physio-psychic well-being (Nussbaum, 2006).
If the Dutch minister of Education really wants to stimulate 'civic education', enhance active participation in a 'multicultural and complex society', and make the Netherlands 'one of the leading knowledge-based economies in Europe', she would be well advised to stimulate schools to work out a transformative or procedural curriculum that focuses not on knowledge-as-such but more on the procedures by which different knowledges are made and unmade. Attaining a more advanced level of critical thinking would not merely help young people prepare for the 'knowledge-based economy' of the 21st century, but could help them find their ways in a complex world that has moved beyond historical certainties. The most feasible way to do so would be for schools to develop a curriculum that would opt for enhancing thinking by means of general scientific literacy.

2. Scientific literacy: a curriculum for thought
When the Dutch government was still trying to press more girls and boys to choose a career in science, their primary objective was not emancipatory but plainly economical: innovation and growth were expected to take off in the techno-scientific and medical arena. Even though that seems not congruent with fact, those schools that have successfully taken up this task 'sell' their programs for intensified science-studies in the same terminology. Sending your child to a 'Technasium' or one of the so-called 'Omniversum-schools'two varieties of schools offering extended science - will enhance their perspectives on a scientific study as well as on the labor-market. 'Thinking scientifically' is thus seen as an end in itself, not as a means to otherpedagogical or political- ends.
Interestingly, a third group of schools is busy implementing 'scientific literacy' (Wetenschapsoriëntatie), a more general program for intensified training in research in and reflection on all sciences, including social sciences and the humanities.2 Although this 'movement' also justifies herself as instrumental for the 'knowledge-based society', she at least acknowledges the existence of different sciences and, hence, of different knowledges. Conceived, not so much as an alternative subject but as an integral part of the whole curriculum of middle- and high-school education, this type of scientific literacy can serve us as a model for a modest curricular reform. More than 'scientific literacy' in the strict senseknowledge about the hallmarks of technical sciencethis general scientific literacy aims to gradually develop skills and values of inquiry in all the fields of knowledge taught at schools (languages, sciences, humanities and the arts), explicitly addresses the historicity and contextuality of scientific knowledge-claims and thus helps the gradual advancement critical and higher order thinking skills (vgl. Holbrook & Rannikmae, 2009).

Possibilities and prerequisites
Deanne Kuhn has shown that and how children who are led to systematically engage in sciencesall kinds of sciencescan learn to use complex argumentative strategies and develop other, more mature 'epistemic stances'. If taught well, (general) scientific literacy does help enhance higher order thinking skills, an effect that can be measured with children operating at different cognitive levels and seems independent of SES (Kuhn, 1999; 2005; 2010).
Transferring these insights to Dutch schools would ask for a only a slight change in the standard subject-based curriculum, with minor readjustment of the means of instruction. What it would ask for, however, is a great deal op faith: students can learn how to think, and teachers are capable of helping every individual child to master such advanced thinking skills. Schools that show optimism about their students performing at academic levels make their students perform better, a fact that again shows to be independent of SES. The variable best predicting the effects of this 'academic optimism' seems to be teacher self-efficacy, i.e. the conviction that they can and do (collectively) make a difference (Hoy, Tarter & Woolfolk Hoy, 2006, Smith & Hoy 2007). Another prerequisite for the curricular change we are proposing here seems to be, then, that it is 'owned', i.e. developed, implemented, evaluated and adjusted by a group of enthusiastic, academically trained teachers and is explicitly made fit to the needs and levels of their students and the dominant features of their school-culture (Hargreaves & Zirley, 2009).
Aims
If the primary aim of general secondary education is that children become knowledgeable and skilled to the extent that they can successfully enter higher education, Dutch schools are failing: all universities have to offer students in their first years extra courses to catch up with what is expected of them. Simply heightening the standards of secondary school exams or reinvigorating the old Idea of Bildung will not prevent that 40% of Dutch student never graduate, but it is obvious that something needs to be done. Thus far, we have argued that secondary schools should shift focus from knowledge-as-such to the production of knowledges. By means of such a procedural curriculum, young people could be helped to develop the skills and 'epistemic stances' necessary to successfully participate in a 'knowledge-based', pluralist democracy. We figure that 'academic optimism' could also help bridge the gap between secondary and tertiary education, but do not take that as our primary aim. To the rather poor, primarily content-driven aims of general secondary education we add that we expect 17/18-year old student entering higher education to
  • Be knowledgeable in the subjects they have chosen, to the extent that they can reproduce, apply and reflect upon a selected range of facts, procedures, theories and paradigms hold end held in these disciplines
  • Be skilled in the subjects they have chosen, to the extent that they can demonstrate how to gather and process information into 'justified valid belief' according to the rules applicable in these disciplines.
  • Show able to plan for, execute, analyze and present the results of a scientific experiment or research on BA-level, written in English and annotated in APA
  • Show able to clearly express his or her opinion on social, political or ethical issues, actively considering a variety of possible positions, intellectual and religious traditions and using sound argumentative strategies.
  • Show able to reflect upon his or her own biography and current state as a 'knowing subject', which includes awareness about one's own preferences and weaknesses concerning learning-strategies.

Sequence and Scope
In order for students to meet these ambitious demands, schools can leave their existing curriculum and school-organization largely intact. Essential is, first, that teachers raise their levels of expectancy by introducing more opportunities to learn the same content-mater by addressing higher order thinking skills (see par. 3). Secondly, they would do wise to cooperatively work out a sequence for making students succinctly engage in practical research in different fields of knowledge (see appendix A). Needless to say that these activities should not be conceived as 'add-ons' to an already loaded curriculum, but can easily supplant content-matter.
Tendency will be strong to break down the goals stipulated above in three or four distinct levels of skills and knowledge that seem adequate for certain age groups (vgl. SLO, 2008). As much as this will prove practicable, strict sequencing will deny the obvious facts that students and their brains develop individually, not statistically. Sequence and assessment-practices should thus leave room for flexibility, teachers readjusting expectancy to what they actually perceive to be a child's zone of proximal development. Starting in year one (age 11-12) with relatively easy and straightforward, strongly guided experiments and assignments, teachers will typically plan for an inductive, Lockean, simple-to-complex curriculum, laying the foundations for ever more complex and open, self-regulated research experiences. In order to cater for the needs of different learners, they should not shun, however, from introducing alternative, more deductive or whole-to-part approaches, such that immerse children into more complex problems and procedures (see par. 3).
For what the more reflective parts of the curriculum are concerned, a lot of teachers and curriculum-developers seem to assume that reflection on learning and learning-styles 'typically' belongs to middle school education, where the foundations of 'serious study' are lain. Conversely, reflection on knowledge, society, ethics, etc. is usually assigned to high-school, when students are supposed to have reached Piaget's stage formal-operational thinking. From our own experience as teachers we infer, however, that a) children in their middle years are very well capable of 'doing philosophy', albeit, indeed, mostly on an intuitive, non-reflexive base, and that b) a lot of particularly smart children who have made it to high-school lack effective strategies to learn and are in considerable need of an extended program of 'learning how to learn' (Wientjes, 2008). We therefore strongly recommend that elements of reflection on both learning and knowledge are woven into the curriculum of general secondary education from year five or six, backwards to year one.

Integration and Articulation
At the 2007 Nexus conference, organized around the themeWhat is an educated man?, an anonymous visitor held a clear and compelling plea for epistemology as a mandatory subject in all secondary schools. What he and others might not have been aware of, is that such is the case in quite a lot of schools already. Unlike British grammar schools, who have introduced the new subject of 'critical thinking' as an option for the A-levels, the 2000 schools worldwide who offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) are held to organize a mandatory 2-year course on Theory of Knowledge. Ideally, this course is constructed in such a way that it questions the foundations of all subjects taught at school, while all succinct subjects are held to refer back to ToK and the knowledge-issues at stake in their own field of study (IBO 2008).
A persistent trait of the 'grammar of schooling' is that knowledge is compartmentalized in subjects, each of which studies fragmented realities from distinct points of view (see e.g. Dewey 1916: 134ff). Criticism of this pretty unnatural way of getting to know a complex world is as old as the opposition against reforms has been strong. Giving in to both sides, we strongly recommend to devise scientific literacy not, or not only as a single subject, but, in the fashion of the IB, weave elements of scientific practice and scientific thinking into the curricula of more, if not all subjects.
If every subject group works out a vertical curriculum for its own field, it is generally feasible for any team of teachers to compare these curricula horizontally and make sure that the total body of knowledge and skills learned in different classroom show a minimum of coherence and common orientation. In an ideal world, organizing curriculum-meetings like these do not only help establish indispensable group-identities and value-orientations, but may also prove fruitful for developing cross-curricular thought and action and a rationalized approach to skills trained in more than one subject(group) (vgl. Romberg & Price, 1983).
What subject-matter is concerned, we believe it is up to schools and subject-groups to decide if, when and how additional content that might add to reflexivity is implemented in the curriculum. For history teachers, for example, it wouldn't prove much of a problem to pay more attention to the historicity of science and thought, nor for language-teachers to reflect upon the meanings of language and introduce literature as a distinct way of knowing. Especially non-denominational schools have to consider, however, if and how they are going to introduce comparative religious studies, humanistic ethics, critical media studies, or the like. Even if scientific literacy is considered a means to a civic end, there are good reasons for explicit instruction of the principles and ethics of scientific thinking and inquiry, or indeed of their history, philosophy and sociology (De Vos & Genseberger, 2000; Hodson, 2009). Schools could therefore consider to supplant the shallowly profiled but mandatory subject of Science for Public Understanding (SPU, in Dutch ANW) by -indeed- a more ambitious course in the history and philosophy of science and / or epistemology.
The extent to which schools actually contribute to the success of individual students might be not as large as teachers think or hope for, but the effect of two external factors seem well-established: teaching strategies and school culture. As difficult it might seem to make teachers change their professional habits (see par. 3), it shows even harder to reform the intangible culture of learning reigning within the walls of any institution. In order for a science-curriculum to work out the way, schools could try to make science, scientific endeavor, scientific ethics, critical and open-minded thinking, etc. sensible, visible throughout the whole curriculum, if not the whole building. That's why schools are well-advised to link up more closely with universities and private institutions nearby in order to provide for authentic research-opportunities, incite students to attend pre-university courses, participate in quests and contests, show parents and others the results of their children's endeavors, in short, try to foster a culture of truly academic learning.
Implementation and evaluation
A considerable but declining number of Dutch teachers at secondary levels are academically trained. Observing that 'doing research' is steadily becoming a more stable part of the curriculum of non-academic, so-called second-level teacher training, we can assume that a majority of secondary school teachers has at least a notion of what research comprises of. In order, however, to make scientific literacy one of the pillars of the secondary curriculum and help students to use those experiences to learn how to think, schools and teachers may be in need of some extra training. Ideally, teacher training institutions would pay due attention to the teaching of thinking, problem- or research-based pedagogy and – generally- the art of differentiation. As long as even freshmen teachers seem at a loss when asked to organize any of this, a large market of educational advisers and independent teacher-trainers may help schools and teachers out with planning and implementing the new curriculum, as with the enhancements of the appropriate instructional designs.
As much as planning will typically start with the goals to be reached in year five or six, the actual implementation of a curriculum for scientific literacy will most likely start in year one. This means, first of all, that teachers working at junior-levels and those at senior levels have to bridge any gap that might exist and take responsibility for a common curriculum. Within the context of any school, not only the planning-sessions mentioned before, but also in-company-training, collective development of instructional material might serve pedagogical, but no less social and (micro)political needs. Secondly, teachers in the upper grades need not necessarily wait until the first group has reached age 15: apart from being crucial to the initial processes of planning the whole curriculum, they are well advised to start experimenting with complex research activities and the more philosophical add-ons straight from the beginning. These may not yield the expected returns, students failing the necessary background, but will – therefore - help teachers set goals and develop criteria for what is to be taught and practiced in the junior levels.
Secondary schools in The Netherlands generally work with norm-referenced systems of assessment, numbered grades on a scale of ten (and two decimals!) creating a strong illusion of objectivity. If reflection on processes of learning and gathering knowledge are indeed the focus of our science curriculum, then the development of criterion-referenced systems of assessment would better suit our aims and objectives. In comparison, however, criterion-referencing seems more valid but less reliable than norm-referencing, which makes grade-inflation ('to the top') more than a theoretical possibility (Freeman & Miller, 2001; Ratcliffe, 1992; Wikstrroem, 2005). In order to prevent this, and to make sure Dutch teachers gather ample experience with this 'strange' system of assessment, developing schools would do well to bide considerable time with this topic; criterion-referencing does work, but only if teachers within any schools have time to practice and exchange and thus make explicit what exactly the boundaries of the different (grade-)levels are (vgl. Visser, 2010).
According to the latest creed, school reform ought to be 'evidence-based'. Even if (double blind) experimenting with groups of children seems not always feasible or indeed ethical, schools embarking on a road to reform would of course do well to systematically register the changes they (fail to) provoke. We therefore strongly advise schools implementing our science-curriculum to get in contact with universities nearby and/or have some of their teachers trained to do so-called action research. The latter will hopefully serve the same need as any validated empirical research done by university students or experts, namely to help further precisize and readjust the curriculum to the needs of schools and students, and add to the self-efficacy and the ambition of teachers involved in it (vgl. Ponte e.a., 2004; Zwaneveld & Tillmans, 2010). At the same time, it could help schools to get and keep in close contact with higher education institutions, which could help lower the thresholds to actively benefit from each other's knowledge and services (see above).

3. Summary & Discussion

Alderik Visser
Utrecht / Leiden / Rotterdam, September 2010



year
languages
sciences
humanities
arts
Knowledges (integrated)
6
5
Teaching for the final test

Deductive, whole-to-part learning in selected fields of study

Autonomous, semi-academic research in some fields of study

Approaches to learning


Theory of Knowledge / History, philosophy and sociology of science
4
3
Content-matter of different subjects largely intact
subject-specific concepts practiced in subject-related and / or integrated real-life problems

Semi-autonomous research in the different fields of study

Approaches to learning


Critical Media Studies
2
1
Structure and content-matter of different subjects intact

introduction to the main concepts and procedures of subject(groups)

Guided instruction on research in the all different fields of study

Approaches to Learning


Comparative religious studies

Appendix A: a curriculum for epistemic growth



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1A-levels being a 6-years preacademic course calledVWOthat enables direct acces to university studies; B-levels being a 5-year higher general preperatory course calledHAVO, which allows students to enter Higher Vocational Training, a.k.a the Universities of Applied Sciences.
2See: www.platformwon.nl

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