What Are We Teaching? - by Richard Bustin (Paperback)

About the Book

Discusses the importance of having a subject-based curriculum in schools and explores the responsibility that teachers, through their subject specialisms, have to help ensure this is achieved.

Book Synopsis

Written by Richard Bustin, What are we Teaching? Powerful knowledge and a capabilities curriculum offers a fresh perspective on curriculum design, arguing that subjects are key to enabling young people to develop the powerful knowledge needed to flourish in a complex modern world. Moving ideas beyond the 'traditional vs progressive' debates that have dominated education discourse, Richard Bustin challenges the overarching emphasis on exam performance at the expense of the broader benefits of subject knowledge and capabilities such as critical and creative thinking.

What are we Teaching? explores curriculum debates in relation to the current school climate, considering factors such as knowledge-led education, teaching to the test, and the challenge of teacher retention and recruitment issues. It includes new research involving teachers in real schools engaging with powerful knowledge, and it prompts teachers to evaluate their responsibilities as 'curriculum makers'. The book invites teachers to consider why their subject specialism is important as part of a whole school curriculum vision, and a provides language with which to articulate that.

Part One introduces the key theories on which the book is based, including different ways of making sense of knowledge, skills and values in the curriculum, powerful knowledge and educational capabilities. What are we Teaching?is research-based, using voices of real teachers who engaged with the question 'what makes your subject powerful knowledge for young people', and Part Two, which focuses on different subject areas, examines these testimonies. The final part offers advice on building a powerful knowledge and capabilities rich curriculum in schools. Each chapter includes a set of reflective questions which can be used as part of ITE training or staff CPD.

Essential reading for teachers, senior and subject leaders and curriculum coordinators.

Review Quotes

Richard Bustin has written an excellent book about one of the things which matters most - what teachers should actually teach. He makes a strong case for powerful knowledge, in both theory and practice, and does something which is unfortunately rare: he looks at each school subject, or groups of subjects, and asks what knowledge matters most. A terrific book.

Barnaby Lennon

Richard Bustin's book is a much-needed addition to the academic discussion on the meaning and role of subjects in school education. Much has previously been written about the concept of powerful knowledge and its potential to highlight the importance of specialised knowledge in education: scholars in several discipline-based subject groups - for example, in geography and history - have studied it, but most of this work has been done in the context of these individual subjects. In this book, Richard looks at different subjects and gives voice to teachers themselves. In the theoretical part of the book, he makes a clear introduction to the concepts of powerful knowledge and the capability approach to help teachers explore what kind of contribution their subjects can have for their students. Even though the book is mainly targeted at readers in the UK, it also works well for the international audience interested in the role of subject-based education. I highly recommend this book to all teachers, teacher educators and student teachers.

Sirpa Tani

This is a remarkable book and the timing of it is impeccable. The 2024 Labour Government is strongly committed to social justice and is looking to restore the promise of education. This book should inform that work. It is well informed, showing up some of the snake oil solutions of recent years, and through its conceptual framing provides a way to avoid the familiar swing of the educational pendulum. And Richard Bustin makes no bones about it: we need to trust teachers and support them properly in the 'knowledge work' which I fervently believe underpins great teaching at all levels.It is not a 'practical' handbook, but it is written mainly for teachers and the voices of teachers are loud. The book advocates for the rich and enriching intellectual component of teaching, summed up in the idea of curriculum making. Over half the book explores how over 200 teachers of various subjects (across three schools) respond to the simple yet radical idea that what we teach young people should empower them. Obviously, the book in no sense offers a final word. But it does open up this question and provides productive ways to work with it.

David Lambert

What Are We Teaching? offers school leaders and teachers a profound opportunity to reflect on the crucial role of subject specialist teachers and their contributions to a subject-based curriculum. Drawing upon research with educators across various subjects, the book captures the authentic voices of teachers in art, design and technology, drama, English, history, mathematics, modern foreign languages, music, physical education, religious education, and science. Alongside the teachers' insights, explorations of knowledge within these subject areas illuminate the potential for each subject to contribute distinctively to young people's education.

Grace Healy