ABSTRACT
Whilst the central government drove through greater control over content of the new moral education subject, pedagogy was hardly mentioned in reports of the supra-cabinet council or in the new curriculum itself. The non-binding curriculum guidance addressed pedagogy. Informed by ‘active learning’, and written partially by practitioner writers, it called for moral education through discussion of open questions. The Ministry’s exhortation for thinking and discussion might be expected to fall on fertile ground, as teachers were generally wary of imposing values on students and sceptical toward government intentions. Fostering a spirit of enquiry seems to hold potential to mitigate the risks of both government control and of imposing values. On the other hand, these exhortations are found in non-binding documents and might be easy to evade for pragmatic teachers. Based mainly on intensive observations and interviews, this chapter considers questions of pedagogy. It examines how moral education lessons have changed in practice, the extent to which this fulfils the aims of curriculum guidance, and how the planning stages provide insight into the process of enactment. Rather than simply observing the extent of change, it examines how those teachers enacting change made sense of policy during lesson planning and reflection on lessons. The analysis reveals some of the micro-processes through which teachers receive policy from local enthusiasts active in its interpretation and translation into practice.
