What are the influential contemporary opinions of knowledge and how can these opinions help to further educational progression?

Confucius is now supported by neuroscientists in his summation of learning, ‘Tell me and I forget; show me and I remember, let me do and I understand’. Confucius may well point to understanding as knowledge yet now there is an epistemological debate which challenges conceptions of what is knowledge.

Knowledge in most secondary schools is measured in grades at GCSE level. Hence schools that have been achieving low GCSE scores in academic subjects have now adapted by running BTEC courses which are more vocational. One may question if this ‘changing of the goal posts’ truly reflects a development in educational progression with regard to knowledge.

This debate is not new to the 21st century. Practitioners such as John Dewey suggested several meanings for the word Knowledge as early as 1939. More recently Parker Parmer (1989) illustrated his objectivist beliefs with a model which portrayed learning as being dictated from the top down. In this model there was little room for the students (amateurs) to question the ‘knowledge’ of the teacher (experts). Therefore knowledge remained static and according to Palmer this model has ‘profoundly deformed the way we educate’.

Now student teachers are encouraged to include group discussion and more interaction in lessons. New equipment such as SMART boards is strenuously promoted by the government in the belief that it encourages teachers to teach away from the Parker model.