ABSTRACT
I continue still to pose the question to anyone who cares to listen and have yet to receive an answer that I find persuasive. The argument is not about numeracy and not about choice but about a compulsory ‘core’ curriculum and the justifications for its construction. ‘The way it spozed to be’ seems to be the prevailing rationale. David Hargreaves’ response, when I posed the question to the Government Task Force on Standards, was that knowing the square on the hypotenuse etc. helped him to calculate whether or not his ladder would fit into his new garage diagonally. The paper included here posits a situation in which, had you to start from square one in the world as we know it, what would you put in to the curriculum to stimulate, engage and inform young people on their journey to self confident and self directing adulthood?
