Knowledge and ways of knowing

This professional guidance article offers a critique of the slippery concept of 'powerful knowledge' and its mis-use as part of an attack on radical pedagogy. As an alternative, the paper proposes a practical framework for curriculum planning and review: 'Knowledge and Ways of Knowing'. The knowledge and Ways of Knowing (KWK) framework adopts a social realist perspective, that there is worthwhile rich cultural knowledge that pupils should learn but also that they should learn that such knowledge is contested and dynamic. The framework accepts the usefulness of traditional curriculum subjects but adds a responsibility for schools to plan teaching of transdisciplinary topics around big societal issues such as poverty, obesity and climate change. The framework requires an epistemological element, that pupils should learn ways of knowing in different subject disciplines, but also adds a responsibility for schools to plan development of metacognitive learning and development of pupils as self-regulated learners.