Curriculum: the objectives and contents of school education and their transformation

The requirements for school education are codified in curriculum documents. These are curricula, syllabuses, curricula, education standards, textbooks, methodological guides, etc. The creation of curriculum documents represents the "first level of didactic transformation" and is a commission for curriculum designers, who are the "first constructors of educational content". 

This first level of didactic transformation is referred to as ontodidactic transformation and consists in the transformation of disciplinary content into curricular content. The result of the ontodidactic transformation is relatively easy to grasp, as it is materialised in curricular documents. In these documents we encounter both the conceptual form of educational content (concepts, visions, plans of what should be the content of education in schools) and the project form of educational content (specifically planned projects of educational content) - cf. (Průcha, 2002, p. 246).

Curriculum documents regulate education and define the framework for teachers' and pupils' activities in teaching. In these activities, educational content undergoes a "second level of didactic transformation", which is a commission for teachers who are "second constructors of educational content". 

This second level of didactic transformation is referred to as psychodidactic transformation and consists in the translation of curricular contents into teaching contents. The result of psychodidactic transformation is more difficult to grasp. It can take the form of the teacher's preparation for teaching, which captures the content of learning in its project form. Alternatively, it may take the form of a lesson record that documents the content of learning in its implementation form (what is actually presented in the teacher-student interaction).

Other forms of the existence of learning content relate to how students have learned the content and how they use it. In this context, J. Průcha (2002, p. 246) refers to the outcome form of educational content (content processed/acquired by the learner) and the effect form of educational content (acquired content functioning in the life of the individual and society in the long term). 

Learned content is the result of a cognitive transformation in which the learner is the actor.

 The development of scientific knowledge, social practice, the economic and cultural level of society, considerations of the personality of the educated individuals, traditions, etc. Extracurricular sources, various institutions and the mass media also have a significant influence. The main and overarching source of educational content is culture, or the various areas of cultural production (science, art, politics, technology, religion, etc.). 

The term disciplines or fields has been adopted to specify the different areas of cultural production. The term discipline refers not only to a particular form of organisation of human knowledge and cognition, but also to a specialist field within which specific tasks and problems are addressed.

But how does a certain disciplinary (cultural) content become the content of education? This question is closely related to the issue of selection and legitimation of educational content. The selection of educational content is the answer to the question of what to teach in school; the legitimation of educational content is the answer to the question of why to teach it in school. The content of education as defined in the curriculum has changed with the changing historical epochs. A concomitant of these transformations is the continuous struggle that the various disciplines wage to carve out a place for themselves in the curriculum and thus ensure their reproduction.

In selecting educational content, the category of educational objectives must be taken into account, and certain criteria or principles must be applied - e.g. the criterion of usefulness, cultural relevance, historical significance, relevance to the future, scientificity, etc. W. Klafki (1991) points out the special importance of the criterion of cultural relevance of the content. He states that only what has become crucial for a certain cultural epoch and for culture in general should be included in the selection of educational content. It should reflect ...the key epochal issues of our present and foreseen future" (Klafki, 1991, p. 19) and should concentrate on issues such as war and peace, ecological issues, economic and social, political inequalities between people here and in the world, and the possibilities and dangers of technology.

Curricular contents are formed from subject contents that are competently selected and legitimated, e.g., with the support of the above-mentioned criteria. These curriculum contents are generally organised in curriculum documents into educational areas, which are further subdivided into teaching subjects. 

Teaching subjects "...define the framework of the curriculum and at the same time provide the prerequisites for the professionalism of teaching by being embedded in individual specialised areas" (Slavik, 1999, p. 220). They can be understood as ways of encountering the world, as ways of thinking about certain phenomena, asking certain questions and seeking certain answers.

In addition to disciplinary considerations, anthropological, psychological and pedagogical considerations are applied in the formation of teaching subjects. Thus, teaching subjects are not 'sciences in a pocket edition'. While the teaching subjects are grounded in the various scientific, artistic and other disciplines, they transform them with regard to the educational possibilities and needs of the pupils. Rather, at the level of basic education, they represent certain areas of life and prepare pupils for them, thus fulfilling their propedeutic function. The curriculum-defined set of subjects is referred to as the canon of subjects.

Historical and comparative analyses show that the canon of subjects has been relatively stable throughout the 20th century and that there is some harmonisation of the curriculum worldwide. In terms of development trends, classical, encyclopaedic curricula receded into the background during the 20th century, and comprehen- sive curricula were added. The importance of Greek and Latin was weakened in favour of living languages. In less developed countries, the importance of mathematics and science was more emphasised than in richer countries.

(abridged from Janík, 2009, pp. 139-140).

Teaching is, among other things, about creating a reciprocal relationship between the learner and a certain fact represented by the educational content. The formation of the learner-content relationship has an objective dimension and a subjective dimension. The objective dimension requires the factual (disciplinary) legitimacy and correctness of the content, while the subjective dimension is about taking into account the interests, experiences and learning potentials of pupils. This observation is not new; it has already been expressed in rough outlines through the didactic triangle, which captures the dynamics of the relationship between teacher, learner and the content of education.

The teacher's role, then, is to realize "...the fruitful encounter of certain children with certain educational contents" (Klafki 1967, p. 121). In this thesis, it is expressed that the teacher should seek the educational value of certain educational content and embody it for the purpose of teaching in such a way that it contributes to the fulfilment of the defined educational purpose. In didactic terminology, this activity of the teacher is referred to as didactic analysis of the curriculum and is understood as the basis for the psychodidactic transformation of the educational content.

The term psychodidactic transformation tends to be used in loose connection with the concept of psychologizing the curriculum - the idea is that the teacher selects for teaching "...the most effective analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, verbal demonstrations, ways of representing and formulating the topic that will make it intelligible to others" (Shulman, 1986, p. 9). Psychodidactic transformation is based on the application of a wide range of different ways of representing educational content which we collectively refer to as forms of content/learning representation.

Teachers use them in order to stimulate the processes of forming and developing in pupils their knowledge (which is the result of the process of learning about certain facts, their properties and relations to other facts); skills (the disposition to perform certain motor, social, thinking and other activities); attitudes (which express the pupil's inner relationship to various facts associated with value orientation) and competence (a complex structure of knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and values important for personal development and application in society).

(abridged from Janík, 2009, p. 140-141).

Teaching is creating opportunities for learning. At the heart of teaching are pupils' confrontations with the curriculum, in which a wide range of learning processes are implemented. In learning, the content of teaching (the curriculum) undergoes a so-called cognitive transformation, which is a task for the learning subjects themselves (the learners). Cognitive transformation refers to the process of processing information that takes the form of (external) representations of the learning content in the learning process.

The manipulation of representations of learning is guided in teaching by the aim of stimulating learners' processes of forming and developing their internal (mental) representations and, consequently, their knowledge (which is the result of the process of learning about certain facts, their properties and their relations to other facts); skills (the disposition to perform certain motor, social, thinking and other activities); attitudes (which express the learner's inner relationship to various realities, linked to value orientation); and competences (the complex structure of knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and values important for personal development and social integration).

The outcome of cognitive transformation is more difficult to grasp. It can take the form of a conceptual map that captures the content of learning in outcome form (content processed/acquired by the learner) or in effect form (acquired content that functions in the life of the individual and society in the long term). The knowledge or other dispositions formed are subjected to various kinds of testing in the classroom and beyond. Pupils enter situations where they have to communicate their knowledge, apply it in problem-solving tasks, etc. This can lead to various corrections, sometimes even to a reassessment of these dispositions.

(abridged from Janík, 2009, pp. 140-141)

Summary

If education is to fulfill its functions of personalization, socialization, enculturation and others, it is necessary to select educational objectives thoughtfully, select educational contents (create a curriculum) and represent them didactically with respect to the pupils.

It can then be verified how successful the path the pupil has taken in school, accompanied by the teacher, has been in turning what was presented to him to learn into his knowledge, skill, competence or other disposition.

In this chapter, four levels have been distinguished that are important for defining the goals and contents of school education: disciplines - curriculum - teaching - the learning individual (pupil).

Following this, the three types of content transformation (ontodidactic - psychodidactic - cognitive) were discussed and the roles of the different actors of these transformations (curriculum designer - teacher - learner) were analysed.