Controlling the Curriculum: Inservice Teacher Education as Product Implementation Training
Abstract
The curriculum has long since represented a site of struggle (Kliebard, 2004), not only with regards to its role in the sanctioning of official knowledge (Apple, 2000) but also in terms of the contested means through which it is disseminated in schools – the most prominent form of which occurs through the use of textbooks (Apple, 1988, 2000). Attempts to exercise control over the curriculum have taken countless forms, but much less recognized has been the role of inservice teacher education to function as a method of both influencing teachers’ instructional practices and externalizing processes of generating stronger control over the curriculum. One of the evolving ways in which efforts to maintain tighter control over the curriculum is currently occurring through the use of required professional development for inservice teachers, as a result of the seemingly common practice of bundling professional development sessions with the sale of curricular materials and programs marketed to schools and school districts. By approaching inservice teacher education in this way, these types of professional development sessions for practicing teachers are constructed in a manner automatically more likely to have greater similarity with forms of product implementation training than with the kinds of collaborative, inquiry-based learning demonstrated to provide lasting benefits for both teachers and their students. Concerns about the publishers of commercially produced instructional materials and programs as the expert generators of knowledge related to the curriculum need to be raised given issues stemming from the positioning of teachers as subjects of technical training.
Presentation Description
In this study, I note how attempts to exercise control over the curriculum have taken countless forms; however, much less recognized has been the role of inservice teacher education to function as a method of both influencing teachers’ instructional practices and externalizing processes of generating stronger control over the curriculum. One of the evolving ways in which efforts to maintain tighter control over the curriculum is currently occurring through the use of required professional development for inservice teachers, as a result of the seemingly common practice of bundling professional development sessions with the sale of curricular materials and programs marketed to schools and school districts.
Keywords
Curriculum control, Teacher education, Professional development
Location
Forsyth
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Crowley, Christopher B., "Controlling the Curriculum: Inservice Teacher Education as Product Implementation Training" (2016). Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative. 9.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2016/2016/9
Controlling the Curriculum: Inservice Teacher Education as Product Implementation Training
Forsyth
The curriculum has long since represented a site of struggle (Kliebard, 2004), not only with regards to its role in the sanctioning of official knowledge (Apple, 2000) but also in terms of the contested means through which it is disseminated in schools – the most prominent form of which occurs through the use of textbooks (Apple, 1988, 2000). Attempts to exercise control over the curriculum have taken countless forms, but much less recognized has been the role of inservice teacher education to function as a method of both influencing teachers’ instructional practices and externalizing processes of generating stronger control over the curriculum. One of the evolving ways in which efforts to maintain tighter control over the curriculum is currently occurring through the use of required professional development for inservice teachers, as a result of the seemingly common practice of bundling professional development sessions with the sale of curricular materials and programs marketed to schools and school districts. By approaching inservice teacher education in this way, these types of professional development sessions for practicing teachers are constructed in a manner automatically more likely to have greater similarity with forms of product implementation training than with the kinds of collaborative, inquiry-based learning demonstrated to provide lasting benefits for both teachers and their students. Concerns about the publishers of commercially produced instructional materials and programs as the expert generators of knowledge related to the curriculum need to be raised given issues stemming from the positioning of teachers as subjects of technical training.
