‘It is taken for granted, apparently, that in time students will see for themselves how things fit together. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that they tend to learn what we teach. If we teach connectedness and integration they learn that. If we teach separation and discontinuity, that is what they learn. To suppose otherwise would be incongruous.” (Humphries, 1981)
One of the key features of current curriculum policy in South Africa is the integration of knowledge and learning. What are the issues and debates regarding this principle?
The debate about integration of knowledge has been going on for about 50 years all over the world and there has been renewed interest in it during the past 10 years. In South Africa we have our own form of integration in Curriculum 2005.
The underpinning issue is relevance. How do teaching and learning and assessment methods contribute to deep, meaningful learning for all learners? How can school learning be applied in the workplace and to other life roles?
It has been common practice to separate learning into subjects for more than 300 years. Supporters of integration argue that these subject divisions lead to fragmented learning and hence do not prepare learners for real-life situations. They say that only a small percentage of learners benefits from this approach. They argue that integration avoids the fragmented and irrelevant acquisition of isolated facts. It allows learners to transform knowledge into personally useful information.
Supporters of integration also claim that there is a ‘feeling of frustration among teachers that is motivating the development of an integrated curriculum”. The causes of this frustration are ‘the explosion of knowledge, the increase in government demands on a range of issues such as HIV/Aids, road safety, drug awareness” and other identified topics. They are also
concerned about fragmented teaching time tables, curriculum relevancy, and a lack of connectedness and relationships among disciplines. ‘Most teachers experience the feeling that there just isn’t enough time to get it all in, the school day just isn’t long enough and new things get added to the curriculum every year.”
Other arguments in favour of integration are the trends towards more global interdependence and contact, the interconnectedness of complex systems, the increase in pace and complexity of the 21st century, the information superhighway, the need for workers to draw from many fields and solve problems that involve interrelated factors.
Educationalists have carried out research that shows that children organise new knowledge on the basis of previous experiences. They can remember holistic experiences quickly and easily. They say that the human brain looks for patterns and finds meaning through these patterns. This is a basic learning process. In fact, children may even resist learning fragmented facts that are presented in isolation. These educationalists also believe that children learn more quickly and more deeply when information is presented within an experiential component. Thus they advise interdisciplinary learning,
thematic teaching and experiential learning. In addition, they stress the need to respond to different learning styles.
Historically, the formal South African curriculum has been very isolated from the local context and cultures. Fragmentation has been sharper. Therefore, relevance and integration are even more important.
Other issues are that teachers have to deal with multiple languages and varied and diverse cultures. More integrated approaches could assist with dealing with these challenges.
The review of C2005 engaged in a wide range of debates. Among these was debated whether integration is desirable and
possible. Critics indicated that Version 1 of C2005 went too far with integration through the phase and programme organisers, and that it did not sufficiently cover sequencing and progression of knowledge. They pointed out that this would result in learners becoming skilled at a variety of interesting things but that they would not necessarily develop the core skills needed to progress from grade to grade. In sum, they said that integration exposes learners to many forms of knowledge instead of one form of knowledge. They argued that any forms of knowledge were being included without critical examination.
The answer seems to lie in getting the right balance between these elements in a systematic way. The challenge for achieving balance lies on the shoulders of all of us: policy-makers, officials, academics, researchers, parents, publishers and
educators. If we can combine the elements appropriately, then we may be able to address the myriad challenges lying in our system from the past, as well as those facing us in the present and the future.
Haroon Mahomed is executive director of the Gauteng Institute for Educational Development. He was assisted in this article by Jenny Hatton.