Shaping the Future of D&T Education: Lessons from the Past

Subscriber-only episode

In this episode of Talking D&T, I delve into the historical context and the reasons behind my decision to start the "Shaping Design and Technology Education" series. I reflect on the conversations and committees formed to discuss the state and future of D&T education in England, drawing parallels to the development of the national curriculum in 1990 and 2013. I express my concerns about the representation and balance of stakeholders in these committees, emphasizing the importance of power, legitimacy, and urgency in shaping the curriculum.

I also discuss my contribution to a Festschrift in honor of Professor Mark De Vries, where I propose a new approach to developing the D&T curriculum. Instead of writing a new curriculum, I suggest a framework for evaluating proposed changes and identifying the appropriate stakeholder group. This framework consists of seven criteria, including the subject's epistemology, aims, inclusivity, values, real-world relevance, and feasibility across educational settings.

Throughout the episode, I emphasize the need to view the development of the D&T curriculum as a design project, with each iteration being a resolution relevant to its time. I also highlight the importance of involving teachers at the micro-level, as they have the greatest power, legitimacy, and urgency in delivering the curriculum.

Mentioned in this episode
Documents from the 1990s government directive on the D&T curriculum
Bob McCormick's paper on designing the D&T curriculum by committee 
The 2013 D&T curriculum - the first version
Abstract of Alison Hardy's book chapter for the Festschrift in honor of Professor Mark De Vries
Information about the "Redesigning D&T" project

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Chapters

• 0:55 Shaping Design and Technology Curriculum
• 10:24 Redesigning Curriculum and D&T Project

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:55

okay, so you've heard well, if you've listened on Tuesday, I'm assuming my introduction to this new series shaping design and technology education. I just kind of want to give a little bit more background and some of the kind of maybe historical context of why I felt this was important. So, as I said in the Tuesday episode, yeah, I've been listening and taking part in and contributing to a whole range of different fora about the state of D&T in England, what could be done, what should be done, and it's been really exciting and really interesting and a privilege. But what's been happening is similar to kind of what happened with the iteration of the national curriculum in England in 1990 and also with some of the conversations that happened in 2013 around the development of what is the current national curriculum in England, and that is, they've been done by committee and the committee has been formed not necessarily on a democratic basis. I'm not saying that the people around the table don't have a right to be there, but it's whether it's representative of the stakeholders. And what I mean by stakeholders is I draw on some theory here from the field of business, where a proposed stakeholder theory says that stakeholders have one, two or three of the following characteristics. That's power, legitimacy and urgency. And I think around the table that's discussing the future of design and technology, there needs to be a balance of stakeholders that have those characteristics. That it's not so much always about personality and experience, but it's about those characteristics.

Alison Hardy: 2:56

And if I look back to what went on in the 1990s and in 2013, the groups, the committees that were formed, were brought together for lots of different reasons. The ones in the 1990s were brought together under the auspices of the government directive and I'll put a link in the show notes to the documents that were produced as a result. They're available on the STEM Centre website and Bob McCormick wrote a really interesting paper I think it's round about 1995. Again, I'll put a link in the show notes talking about how the national curriculum for D&T was designed by committee and then in 2013, when we had a really dodgy curriculum that came out and if I can find my copy of it, I'll put a link to that in the show and I think that's really fascinating a group was formed of about 40 50 people that brought together a diverse range of people, but again, there was power in terms of who formed that group, where it was hosted. It was hosted at the Royal Society of Engineers and who brought that group together. And then it turns out later there was an inner group. So how is that decided upon? So kind of all of these things.

Alison Hardy: 4:15

You know, uh, things in the curriculum are shaped by the people who have power and who speak the loudest around these different committees. So it's kind of happening again and I felt in 2023, 2024, um, particularly the political impetus around a new government potentially coming in later in 2024. The polls are predicting that we're likely to get a Labour government We've had a coalition and then a Conservative government since 2010,. So that's going to bring some change that there were particular groups of people or organizations speaking out. Some had legitimacy, some maybe had less legitimacy, and some other organizations, like the design council, for example, tried to bring groups together and create neutral space, and CLEAPS did the same. So I think the intent behind many of these groups is honourable, but we all come with different values and different perspectives and I think sometimes, if they're not acknowledged, then the outcomes are biased and we don't necessarily realise. Again, that's not to criticise people, but that's just to say that we need to have an awareness. So that led me to doing the shaping dnt podcast and it's also led to me writing a book chapter that has kind of come from these thinking about these different spaces and these different committees for want of a better word who sometimes have power and sometimes don't, and whether that is the right way of creating new curriculum for dnt. And if it's not, then what's the way.

Alison Hardy: 6:11

So back in september I was invited to write a chapter for a book called an edited volume. That's called a fest shrift, and I know I'm not going to pronounce that right, I never do um, but it's for Professor Mark De Vries, who is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for Design and Technology Education, and also for the PAT conferences. So if you listen to the podcast, you'll be aware of both of those held in hugely highly esteem and internationally. That is, you know, is brilliant, and our conversations with him I've had have changed the way I think about things or challenged the way I think about things, and I think that's having a person around that is just fantastic. Anyway, john Dacres has decided and got permission from a publisher to pull together a Festschrift. Now, a Festschrift is a volume of chapters, volumes of writing that are in honour of a person, and so this is in honour of Mark De Vries and I felt very honoured and touched to be asked to contribute to this book and I was asked if I would free my mind from the chains of policy and politics and propose a new curriculum for D&T.

Alison Hardy: 7:24

I'm not the only person who's been asked to do that, by the way, quite a few people. And this was happening at the time when I was on these different groups and these conversations were happening and it was making me angry and I was getting frustrated and I was wondering why it was making me angry and I realised that partly. I felt that, like I said, that some of the people who needed to be around the table weren't around, or some of the people who needed to be around the table weren't around, or some of the characteristics and the levels of influence weren't around these tables for all sorts of reasons. Again, not to be deliberately exclusive, you know that some people had tried to bring different people around the table. I'd found some of that uncomfortable, the way they'd done that. Again, that was still exclusive.

Alison Hardy: 8:04

And then I was reflecting on the fact that you know we had we've had seven iterations of the national curriculum and D&T poor. We're still in this position where the subject's misunderstood. So I thought I wrote to John because I don't want to write a new curriculum. What I want to do is I want to propose a new way of developing the D&T curriculum. So that's what I did. So my chapter was it's been accepted, it's been submitted and I don't know when the book's coming out later in the year, I imagine.

Alison Hardy: 8:36

I decided to write a book chapter that was a proposal for evaluating any proposed changes to the national curriculum, and so I proposed a framework for evaluating that and also who that stakeholder group should be. So, drawing on that theoretical framework around stakeholders power, legitimacy and urgency, the different levels, the macro level, the government level, the meso level, the school level, the local level and the micro, the classroom and the departmental level so who should be there representing those different levels and with those different characteristics. And then I proposed a framework for evaluating proposed content. I proposed seven criteria and I'm going to put the abstract in the show notes so that's available for you to see and those seven criteria around the subject's epistemology, the subject's aims, inclusivity, values, real world, relevance and feasibility across educational settings. So when that chapter's out I'll share what I can and I'll also share links to that, but I just think we maybe need to look at design and technology and the development of this curriculum as a design project and that each development is a resolution that is relevant for that point in time, rather than it being a definitive end point, which is what the 2013 curriculum was seen as by Michael Gove, not just for D&T, but for all subjects and so I think that's why Pearson's sort of decided to propose a new curriculum which has kind of stimulated all of this conversation, or most of this conversation, and the people were doing things as well that stimulate this conversation.

Alison Hardy: 10:24

So that's where I sit in in all of this is that I have concerns about committees and committees and designing curriculum by committee when there isn't a thoughtfulness about representation and there aren't criteria or terms of reference that committee is working to. And then it's also about I'm doing this podcast series to give teachers who may not have an insight into these different spaces where the subject's being discussed and there does need to be discussed at a macro level and a meso and a micro level, and it needs to be brought together in some way, and so that's where my chapter came in is I thought how could I practically suggest something? How could I practically suggest something that actually builds on those ideas and those thoughts that I've had over the years about how do we bring along new curriculum and that's also where my redesigning D&T project came from is how do we involve people at the micro level, in terms of the classroom? Who are the people that have the greatest power, power, legitimacy and urgency for actually delivering the curriculum? And so that's where the redesigning dnt project comes in and I hope you've been getting involved in that.

Alison Hardy: 11:38

Responding to the debates amanda, kieran and andy are now leading on that project. I'm sort of there in the background facilitating, occasionally disrupting um, but they they're putting out those contentious questions and they're going to be launching a new podcast um, alongside the talking dnt, want to share some of those debates that people can hear about them and engage with them. So yes, that's where I am bit of a ramble there, but I hope you found that useful. It's a different insight into the context of the shaping dnt podcast and some of the theoretical and research background that I'm drawing on for designing and developing this podcast series. Thanks for listening.