A UCL Symposium on knowledge looks like it might be a useful CPD opportunity. It is on the 26th of March 2025
This symposium aims to investigate:
a) how knowledge in education in different countries is shaped by contemporary ideas about the relationship between the past, present and future, and
b) epistemic growth in university disciplines and school subjects.
We will discuss whether schools can and should do without ideas of epistemic growth and progress in education and how we should think about and revise the relation between knowledge, education and progress in different socio-political and educational contexts.
This symposium will bring together scholars and teachers interested in exploring the relationships between knowledge, education and progress.
As John Hopkin (a former President of the GA) succinctly explains:
‘The idea of education is an idea of progress, an investment in the future of our young people and community’ (2011, 116).
The suggestion that humanity is lifted through studying a planned curriculum of learning different disciplines dates to Peter Rasmus (1515-1567).
Rasmus built a case for learning from a designated series of books (a curriculum), not just individual scholars, thus opening the potential for the democratisation of education. In 21st century Europe, societies struggle to articulate a positive vision of the future and a vision for education. Ideas of social, economic, moral and political progress are problematised and contested.
The idea of progress has been tainted with its past association with colonialism, exploitation and domination and is thus criticized as a genuinely `Western ideal´, a secularized `hollow replica of a Christian conception of history´ or even as a kind of `Prozac for intellectuals´ (Gray, 2004).
Some academics now envisage Education After Progress, while others think schools must engage with the meaning of social progress.
The cost is £40 (£10 for unwaged/students)
