'Lovely Literature': Teacher Subjectivity and Curriculum Change
Catherine Beavis
Deakin University
Teachers, subjects and curriculum change
In the growing body of literature dealing with curriculum change, the
central concern is generally with change across institutions, with its
implications for 'stakeholders' - principals, teachers, parents,
students, consultants and so on, and with the factors contributing to
the success or failure of school or system-wide reforms. Within such
studies, limited attention is paid to the implications of such reforms
for teachers' perceptions of the subject and of themselves, and to how
these things in turn contribute to the shape and nature of curriculum
change. Even less attention is paid to emotion, satisfaction and
pleasure. Thus, studies such as Fullan & Stiegelbuaer's (1991), while
acknowledging the central importance of teachers' 'beliefs' and of 'the
subjective meaning' of educational change, reveal a too global and
institutional concern with the implementation and management of change,
and in this fail to take account of the role and effect of teachers'
subjectivities or emotions in any detailed way.
Curriculum change is not a simple matter of the translation of policy
documents into classroom practice. Rather, it is lived out at
particular sites, implemented and enacted by teachers acting
individually or collectively, within a network of pedagogical,
institutional, personal and practical considerations and constraints.
Curriculum change entails more than a reformation of the subject and
its constituent elements. Teachers too are required to change, in the
ways they conceive of the subject, how they position themselves and are
positioned in relation to it. For curriculum change to be successful,
new formations of the subject, its pedagogies and principles, are only
the first step. Change must also be effected in the ways teachers see
their subject and in the positions they take up in relation to it
themselves. Not just the formation of curriculum subjects but also
constructions of the subject and of teacher subjectivity are involved.
As studies in curriculum history show (Goodson 1988, 1994, Goodson and
Ball 1984, Kliebard 1986; Seddon 1989 et al.), school subjects have
always been contested. Historical perspectives offered by Mathieson
(1975), Ball, Kenny and Gardiner (1990) or Morgan (1990), for example,
or in Australia by Green, Hodgens and Luke (1994), Green and Beavis
(1996) et al., show that from the earliest times English, like other
subjects, has been laced with social and political agendas, with
institutional struggles over meaning and resources (Goodson 1988)
differentially framing the shape the subject takes and the way it is
taught. In the case of English, the pivotal role Literature and
literary texts have been seen to play in defining and maintaining
national and cultural identity, together with societal expectations
about literacy and perennial crises about 'standards', structure the
external interferences and pressures that subject English inherits, and
contribute to the form the subject takes in specific times and in
individual schools.
This paper takes the introduction of a new final year subject, VCE
Literature, as an example of the ways in which curriculum change
entails not just a reformulation of the subject, but also teachers'
reconstruction of the subject and themselves as teachers of it.
English, Literature and the Victorian Certificate of Education
In 1991-92, a new curriculum structure for the last two years of
schooling was introduced into Victoria: the Victorian Certificate of
Education - the 'VCE'. It was developed in response to a government
commissioned study, The Ministerial Review of Post Compulsory
Education, ('the Blackburn Report', Blackburn, 1985), whose brief was
to 'transform the post compulsory level of schooling into a stage in
which the great majority of young people can participate.' (Blackburn
1985: 2) In introducing the concept of a common study structure for
subjects, the VCE replaced what had been a diversity of offerings in
many areas with one common framework, designed to meet the needs of all
students, whether University-oriented or not. The need to devise new
courses provided the opportunity to reconceptualise curriculum subjects
in the light of changing views of teaching and assessment, and in
relation to theoretical developments within the disciplines.
In the case of the compulsory subject English, as distinct from the
separate subject Literature, this lead to wider use and acceptance of
the term 'text' in place of 'books' or 'literature', and to the
validation and acceptance of a number of practices already in place at
more junior levels in the school, such as 'creative' response to texts,
the ability to read and critically analyse representations in print and
non-print media, and an increased emphasis on oral work. The changes in
English, while highly controversial in the public sphere (Gill 1994)
and continually modified in a conservative direction in the light of
public pressures, were largely accepted by the English teaching
profession after the first year (Northfield and Winter 1993). This was
in part due to the extensive program of consultation and professional
development that accompanied the subject's introduction, and in part to
English teachers' familiarity with, and approval of, most of the
curriculum practices it brought with it.
In the case of Literature, however, the changes were far more abrupt,
and accompanied by very little consultation or professional
development. A course that had remained largely unchanged since the
1940s, based on Leavisite and New Critical principles and grounded in a
set of 'certain certainties' about the value both of the subject and of
the 'great tradition' of canonical texts whose study it comprised, was
replaced by one which drew extensively on more recent literary theory,
most notably poststructural views of reading, readers and texts. These
theories rendered problematic the very notion of Literature as cultural
phenomenon, the titles set for study and the identity and the form this
new version of the subject might take. Teachers were faced with the
overturning of concepts and principles which had informed their
teaching and thinking for many years. In doing so, the new course
challenged their understandings and values about the teaching of
literature, and hence, at least potentially, their identity as teachers
of it. The strong commitment of many teachers to the subject area, and
their longstanding investment in Literature made across their personal
as well as professional lives, meant that changes to the subject had
implications for the ways they constructed not just the subject but
also themselves.
The study
This paper reports on a larger study (Beavis 1997) in which I took the
introduction of VCE Literature as an opportunity to explore how school
subjects, in this instance Literature, are reconstructed and renewed,
and the ways in which subject teachers are affected by and contribute
to curriculum change.
Much of the 'data' for the research came from an extended series of
interviews with nine VCE Literature teachers, conducted over the first
three years of the new course. These teachers were chosen to be
inclusive of a wide range of schools and sites (state, private,
Catholic, Independent, mixed and single sex, city and country, 'middle'
and 'working' class, old and new), and a range of teaching experience.
Of the nine teachers, five taught in State schools - two in the
country, two in Melbourne's industrial Western suburbs, and one in a
middle class area. Four of the teachers worked in Private schools. Of
these, two taught in the Catholic system, one in an old and prestigious
Melbourne girls school and one in a recently established mixed school
in a country town. The remaining two taught in Melbourne at a similarly
old and prestigious Independent ('Public') school. There were four men
and five women, all of whom were regarded within the profession as
highly committed and interested teachers, and who were chosen either on
the basis of my own professional knowledge of the field, or on the
basis of recommendation. They ranged in seniority from one teacher
who was in his second year of teaching when the study began through to
a number who had been teaching for twenty to twenty five years. The
teachers were interviewed four times a year (every term) for half an
hour about teaching literature and their experience of the new course.
My readings of the interview transcripts provided the basis for much of
the analysis.
A second and related set of 'data' came from the domain of curriculum
history. Utilising views of curriculum as socially constructed and a
window on the wider educational and political cultures of a country
(Green 1995, 1991; Goodson and Medway 1990; Morgan 1990; Seddon 1989;
Ball 1985 et al), together with Foucauldian views of history as the
archaeology of the present (Foucault, 1977; Tyler and Johnson 1991), I
undertook critical rereadings of a number of definitional histories of
English (Mathieson 1975, Ball, Kenny and Gardiner 1990, Doyle 1989,
Hunter 1988, Dixon 1991). In the absence of a history of the subject in
Victoria, I turned historian myself, and constructed a history of the
subject in Victoria, drawing on such textual historical sources as
School Readers, the Education Gazette, examination papers and reports,
and Parliamentary debates (Beavis 1996). In both endeavours I sought
to identify recurring crises, contestations and themes in the
construction of the subject over time. Situating VCE Literature in
this way served to foreground elements and debates which had always
characterised struggles over the subject's identity, and to make
visible some of the discourses shaping Victorian Literature teachers'
conceptions of both the subject and their own role as teachers of it.
A further set of 'data' derived from a close analysis of the new
subject's study design, in which threads of both old and new discourses
of 'Literature', Leavisite/New Critical and 'new' perspectives drawn
from critical theory, were intertwined, allowing teachers to 'read' the
subject a number of ways.
This range of 'data' implied a view both of history and of language and
meaning - a view of discourse, texts and subjectivity. These
perspectives had implications in turn for how I viewed the teachers who
in some sense are the 'subjects' of this study, how I viewed
curriculum, the texts I read, the methodology I employed and the ways I
thought about my own role in the research. With both the 'histories'
and the interviews, I worked self consciously regarding both as text,
and foregrounding the situated 'subjectivity' of meaning in the
readings that I made of them. The views of text and reading which were
at the core of the new syllabus were also at the core of the analytic
approach taken in the course of the research.
Discourse and Discursive construction.
An important feature of the conceptual framework of the analysis was
the notion of discourse and discursive fields, and their role in the
ways in which school subjects continue to be contested and defined
(Walkerdine 1990, Brodkey 1989, 1992; Ball 1994; Donald 1985; Lee
1996). Discursive fields, such as education, 'consist of competing ways
of giving meaning to the world and of organising social institutions
and processes' (Weedon 1987: 35), with discourses within these fields
organising meaning and experience differently, serving different
interests, promoting particular power relationships and constructing a
range of subject positions which individuals within the field are
required or invited to take up. The concept of discursive field helped
illuminate the ways in which Literature teachers, including the
teachers in the study, were already positioned and constructed
historically, within the school as well as with regard to secondary
teaching and the subject Literature.
This view of discourse also provided a way of thinking about
subjectivity. Once one takes the view that 'language, far from
reflecting an already given social reality, constitutes social reality
for us' (Weedon 1987:22), the notion of 'discourse' becomes a
particularly powerful analytic tool. In such a view, the world is not
'fixed' outside language, with set and stable meanings or universal
concepts which language renders visible. Nor does language 'mean' in
precisely the same ways in different contexts, as if it were merely
expressing or giving voice to external and intrinsic realities.
Patterns of usage and association in each discourse construct ways of
being and meaning subtly different from each other, ways and meanings
which 'cannot be reduced to each other through translation or by an
appeal to universally shared concepts reflecting a fixed reality.'
(Weedon 1987: 22)
In perspectives such as those offered by feminist postructuralist like
Weedon, how we see ourselves is intimately linked to the language
practices or discourses in which we participate, so that our sense of
self, our subjectivity, is also (largely) constructed via language.
Subjectivity is seen as socially produced, with competing discourses
jostling for dominance in framing the way we see ourselves and the
world at any given place and time. Kamler's description of the
schoolgirl as 'a changing, multiply-constituted and contradictory
effect of the discourses and practices in place at particular social
sites' (Kamler 1994: 1-2) has relevance also for how teachers might be
seen, in the context of curriculum change. A view of the teacher, like
the schoolgirl , as produced as a nexus of shifting subjectivities at
the institutional site (Kamler 1994, Walkerdine 1990) , helps 'unpack'
the contradictions and multiple frameworks out of which words are
spoken, actions taken and decisions made.
Following Walkerdine, Kamler and others, interview transcripts were
read and reread for traces of key discourses identified as formative in
the construction of the subject in different contexts across time, and
central to the teaching of English/Literature in Victorian secondary
schools. I looked at the ways in which different configurations of
these discourses worked themselves out within individual teachers at
particular times; at the ways in which teachers were positioned within
them and influenced by them, and how this positioning in turn
contributed to the ways they did and didn't contribute to curriculum
change. I looked for the implications of this discursive positioning
for the teachers' construction of both the subject and themselves.
Taking five of the nine teachers, I read excerpts from the interviews
for traces of these discourses, teasing out the ways in which their
interplay shapes the way these teachers understand the new course,
remake it and position themselves in relation to it.
Dominant Discourses
The teachers in the study, like most Literature teachers, were strongly
committed to the subject, and had become Literature teachers because of
their own 'love' of literature, their expertise, and their belief that
the subject contributed greatly to students' lives. In their daily
enactment of teaching Literature they lived out, and lived out of,
dominant discourses in their inheritance as Literature teachers. In
doing so, they adapted and remade them, shifting within them and taking
up or resisting the subject positions they offered. The teachers'
situatedness within these discourses, and the ways in which they were
constituted as Literature teachers by them, had implications for the
ways they taught, the stances they took up towards the new course, and
the ways in which the discourses framed and organised their sense of
themselves and the world. Their interviews revealed both their
inheritance of the legacy of the 'grand' discourses and debates charted
through the curriculum histories, and the continuation of these into
the present day, whether contested, modified, unchanged or transformed.
Four discourses seemed to be particularly influential in shaping the
teacher's reading of the new version of Literature, the stance they
took towards it, and the ways they reconstructed the subject and
themselves. The first three were much in evidence throughout the
histories of English, as through the substance of the interviews. The
fourth was the new element introduced by VCE Literature, which in most
cases challenged the older discourses of teaching Literature, and in
doing so challenged also the teachers' positioning within the mix of
older discourses, her construction of the subject, and even her in and
out of school teaching identity.
These four discourses provided the organising framework for the
analysis of the teacher interviews.
¥ the traditions and culture of the school (configured differently for
different teachers in the study)
¥ Leavisite and New Critical formations of the subject Literature
¥ Charismatic pedagogy (a teaching style stereotypically embodied by
Mr. Keating in the film Dead Poet's Society, as a 'typical' passionate
Literature teacher)
¥ The 'new' discourse of critical theory, as represented in the VCE
Literature Study Design.
1] The traditions and culture of the School
Teachers are responsive to and situated within a whole set of
discourses other than those of the subject(s) in which they specialise.
One of the most powerful of these is the culture and traditions of
the school of school system or community within which they find
themselves. The schools represented in this study encompassed a wide
range of cultures and traditions, which significantly shaped the ways
the teachers thought about the subject, their students and themselves.
Each had its own characteristic ethos, which influenced the way the
subject Literature was traditionally viewed and the way the teachers
saw themselves and their role. School cultures and traditions varied
locally, even when they were organisationally similar, as with
Catholic, State or Independent school systems, but they shared certain
common defining features. These features included the composition of
the student population, whether schools were run by the government or
private sector, the school's location, literacy levels, parental
attitudes and expectations, outcomes at Year 12 and expectations or
otherwise of tertiary entrance, curriculum values and priorities,
resources and facilities, the influence of the teachers union or
teachers' professional associations, orientations to curriculum and
students, the place of the English faculty.
2] Leavisite/New Critical formations of the subject Literature
Discourses defining 'Literature' dominated debates about formations of
the subject from the earliest times. Profoundly influential in the
Victorian context, as elsewhere in Australia, in England, and in other
British settler colonies, were Arnoldian or 'Leavisite' models that had
characterised senior Literature syllabi and examinations, almost from
their inception. (The American counterpart for much of the Twentieth
century was New Criticism, philosophical basis of the one American
teacher in this study) This view of Literature emphasised (English)
cultural heritage, nationally and historically, as embedded in and
passed on through the study of canonical texts. Certain genres are
privileged as more central or fundamental than others, with literary
imaginative writings, particularly poetry, regarded as the 'stuff' of
literary studies. Close engagement with 'great' texts not only
develops aesthetic sensibilities in the reader, but also inculcates
values and morality. The teacher's task, in such a view, is to
develop sensibility and response in students, through his mentoring and
individual example and care. This dimension is taken up explicitly
within the discourse of charismatic pedagogy.
3] Charismatic pedagogy: the passionate Literature teacher
The discourse of charismatic pedagogy is particularly familiar in
English teaching. The passionate English teacher is much in evidence in
Victorian schools. Discourses associated with the role and nature of
the Literature teacher in this line trace back to Arnoldian conceptions
of English teachers as 'Preachers of Culture'. Literature teachers are
in many respects a specialist subset of this group. The dramatic,
passionate English teacher, with 'his' elevated view of the subject is
regarded more or less kindly in different traditions, as evident in the
'histories'. For some, s/he is a figure worthy almost of adulation
(Dixon 1991; Protherough and Atkinson 1991) for others, s/he warrants
rather scepticism, suspicion and mistrust (Hunter 1988; Patterson 1993
,1995)
The characteristics of such teachers include a deep knowledge and love
of the canon, a passionate commitment to the subject, and a flamboyant
and idiosyncratic personal and teaching style (Inglis 1975; Holbrook
1961; Abbs 1976) et al). Accompanying this emphasis on personality is a
view of themselves and their subject as occupying a particular status,
singled out from other subjects by virtue of its centrality to the
culture. Literature is seen as having special significance in dealing
with matters of great sensitivity and importance: the texts that are
studied, the skills developed by their study, and in the subject matter
with which they deal. Close bonds often develop between teacher and
students, as they unite in their shared enthusiasm and love for the
subject. Literature teachers claim to know their subject 'inside out',
know what is best for their students and hold to these views often in
opposition to more pragmatic concerns that characterise other subjects
and the bureaucracy and administration of schools.
4] Critical theory
The VCE Literature course was posited on a substantially different body
of theory than the one which preceded it. While it retained elements of
older expressive humanist discourses, and of Leavisite/New Critical
approaches, its organising principles, around which curriculum and
assessment were designed, were drawn from that set of discourses
loosely characterised as critical theory. They included an emphasis on
readings as multiple and constructed, and as serving particular
interests, an interest in the ways in which texts and their readings
are context-specific and reflect the values and ideologies of
particular groups, an interest in the ways texts work to position
subjects, a view of both texts and readings as ideological, and a view
of what counts as literature as not a fixed and self-defining body of
texts, but rather, varying according to sociocultural values.
Pleasure
In addition to these four discourses, a fifth element emerged as
crucial in shaping teachers' construction and acceptance of the new
course, and their participation in change. The teachers' preparedness
or reluctance to change was not simply the result of an inability to
shift their allegiances to familiar discourses. Change to curriculum
organisation and subject formations also threatens established
pleasures, satisfactions and desires. Desire, Hargreaves (Hargreaves,
1994)notes, - moral, political, and emotional - is fundamental to good
teaching. The importance of pleasure in maintaining teachers'
commitment to the subject and their continued preparedness to teach it,
cannot be underestimated. A study of how teachers experience
curriculum change must attend to the ways in which 'purpose, passion
and desire' are brought into play in reconceptualising the subject and
themselves as teachers of it. A further dimension of the analysis,
then, focuses on the pleasure the teachers took in teaching Literature,
on the ways in which this was and was not made possible in the new
course, and on its role in the processes of curriculum change.
Subjectivity and the discursive construction of Literature
The teachers took up a range of stances towards the new subject over
three years. In different combinations the four discourses reinforced
or challenged views of the subject Literature and its purposes, and
teachers' perceptions of themselves as teachers of it. For some, the
new discourse of critical theory barely troubled their continuing
perceptions of what the subject should be. In some instances, the
'new' discourse was experienced as so dissonant with the others as to
make teaching Literature unsustainable. Thus, Jim moved from a strong
Leavisite position seeing Literature as 'one of those unusual subjects
where you get to where students actually feel that they are breaking
through to something quite extraordinary' (0192 Jim) to feeling
philosophical changes in the new subject were so so far reaching he no
longer wanted to be part of them. 'It's not simply ideas about
literature that I'm talking aboutÉ. but I think we're playing a role in
parcelling up our ideas of what human beings are in a way that I don't
find very recognisable.' (0494 Jim).
For others, the new discourse confirmed them in the direction in which
they wished to go, or opened up new visions of the subject which they
found 'empowering' for their students and themselves. Hannah's
discussion of her text choices for 1995 provides an example of the ways
in which different discourses and their interplay were identified in
interview texts, and their significance in exploring constructions of
the teachers construction of the subject and themselves:
I always try to get a balance. This year I think there's a reasonably
good balance. You know, I mean things like The Well, juxtaposed with
Huckleberry Finn. That went well. So, the juxtapositioning of text, so
they sort of have that old fashioned notion of diet. I tend to believe
in that. That's one thing. Two, I quite like texts that will speak to
each other in some way, without necessarily being comparative. Three,
the course, well, there's no order, but will they like them? Almost as
important, if not more important, do I think this text is going to be
where eighteen year old heads are at? Because I actually do think you
can make a few generalisations there. Four I guess is a bit to do with
balance, are they going to be looking at things like Savage Crows and
Heart of Darkness.ÉI can never get this gender stuff right, one year it
was all women, and the next year it was all men! It's not about
representation, it's about the experiences you give kids via
literature. (They'd sayÉ spend a whole year reading about men's
experiences of the last century, well, that's what they would have
lived through). Do the ones we really want to do from the short list, a
short list of about twelve that you've got to pick six from. Will they
fit the CATs sort of thing? You kind of assume they do, because there
they are. But you've got to think of yourself as an individual teacher.
And you've got to have something to say yourself about the text I
think. And you've got to have questions yourself of the texts, both
those things. So simply, it's got to interest you. If it interests you
it's going to open up a lot of stuff for the CATsÉ.There are things
like, I'd love to do King Lear next year, but have decided against it
because I didn't have the time I'd have to give over to it. (0494
Hannah)
In Hannah's case, discourses which were potentially in conflict for the
other teachers - versions of the subject, the traditions of the school,
the culture of the Literature teacher and the 'new' discourse of
critical theory - coexisted relatively harmoniously, or rather, their
contradictions were able to coexist or had been 'worked through'. The
interrelationship of Leavisite/New Critical Literature and critical
theory together shaped her text choices, priorities and teaching style,
while the discourse of the charismatic Literature teacher, in a
formation shaped both by her commitment to critical theory and her
heritage as a technical school teacher, was also present in much of the
way she spoke.
Older discourse of Leavisite/New Critical Literature interweave with
those of critical theory in Hannah's account of her text choices for
1995. Hannah moves fluidly within the multiple discourses shaping her
construction of the subject, quite literally, for the next year.
Leavisite/New Critical versions of the subject, evident in the
inclusion of canonical texts and 'the old-fashioned notion of diet' sit
alongside a framework of critical theory, emphasising intertextuality
('texts that will speak to each other'), and a view of texts and
readings as partial. The distinction Hannah makes in relation to
'gender stuff', between 'representation' and 'the experiences you give
kids via literature', together with the attendant example, demonstrates
the ways theory for Hannah takes account of classroom practice and what
will work. The choice here is not so much about theory or political
correctness as about students' experiences through the year. Both
discourses of Literary theory here, Leavisite/New Critical and critical
theory, complement her priorities for classroom practice, with
'balance' (of gender, in this instance rather than of classic and
contemporary texts) being one of a number of criteria which also
include assessment constraints, (what won't take too much time, what
will fit the CATs) and what teacher and students will find interesting
and like.
The discourse of the charismatic Literature teacher can also be
discerned, in this case reworked in the light of the changed
assumptions about meaning and authority entailed in discourse four
(Critical theory). Speaking within this discourse, Hannah values
student engagement, and their sense of the relevance of set texts
(will they be 'where eighteen year old heads are at'?). She speaks out
of a passion for the importance of the subject in students' lives, (the
experiences you give kids via literature), and a strong belief in what
students might gain. In her valuing of 'that old fashioned notion of
diet', and 'balance', and the very weighing up of selection criteria
she demonstrates her authority and extensive knowledge of texts and of
what students 'need' that characterises Literature teachers in this
vein. Perhaps most telling is her insistence on setting texts both
she and her students will find interesting and enjoy. This emphasis
on 'enjoyment' throughout the interviews functioned as a virtual
'secret code' indicating insider status as a rightful inheritor both of
the discourse of charismatic pedagogy and of Leavisite/New Critical
traditions of Literature.
The remaining discourse, that of the culture and traditions of the
school, is less visible in this transcript than in others. Hannah
taught in a former technical (vocational) school, with a teaching
tradition both less formal and less hospitable towards academic
teaching of the disciplines than that of high or private schools, and a
culture in which school subjects had to justify their value to
students, rather than students needing to prove they were up to the
subject's demands. Technical schools in Victoria had also been the
site of considerable innovation and imaginative teaching approaches
from the 1960s on. Collectively, these emphases had significant
implications for the ways in which subjects were conceived of and
taught in year 12, as elsewhere in the school. Hannah's emphasis on
students' interest in set texts, on 'where eighteen year old heads are
at' and so on, is also evidence of her membership of this discursive
community.
Unlike the other teachers, Hannah had been involved from the outset in
the planning of the new course. For Hannah, as for no other teacher in
the study, the course is one where from the outset she has agency. From
the start of the first year both the theory and the design are familiar
to her, and she had already confronted many of the practical
implications of the changes in literary theory. As a result, in her
planning each year , while she constantly reconsiders and revises the
ways she will teach, neither her construction the subject nor herself
are threatened or undermined. On the contrary, she continues to find
pleasure and purpose in teaching it, translates its 'new' theory
readily into teaching practice, enjoying, as she said elsewhere, 'the
wonderful proliferation of theories and ways of coming at a text É
[and] being able to talk about those with kids.'
Conclusion: subjectivity and curriculum change
Curriculum change entails the reconceptualisation or reorganisation of
a subject - its 're-formation' - but this achieves little without
corresponding change on the teacher's part. Shifts in the ways in which
teachers construct a subject, the stance they take towards it, and the
ways they construct their own role and identity as teachers of it are
in turn also necessary if curriculum change is to occur. In other
words, the repositioning and reconstruction of both the subject and the
teacher are required.
The new version of Literature introduced by the VCE was informed by
both changes in literary theory and by debates which had characterised
the subject's struggle over its identity from the earliest times:
debates about the form the subject should take, its purposes and
content; its relationship to society and the sorts of 'cultured men' it
might produce. In interpreting this new subject in their own
classrooms, the teachers in this study were influenced by inherited
expectations, understandings and assumptions about what Literature
should be, by their historical positioning within pre-existent
discourses about the nature of the subject in school, and by
pedagogical and classroom factors, including what students would like
and find accessible, what would 'work', and what would bring good
examination results. Their construction of the subject in practice was
also strongly shaped by the desire to find ways of teaching and viewing
literature that would be satisfying and enjoyable, where the subject,
its texts and students' engagement, teaching practices and classroom
relationships could continue as sources of pleasure or at least, of
satisfaction.
The new course asked the teachers to make broad changes in the ways
they saw the relationship of the subject to their students' lives, the
purposes of schooling and the ways in which they or their students
might be powerful within the world. Changes to the subject were seen to
be about different ways of 'parcelling up the world' (0494 Jim). For
those teachers who read the subject as something new, this version of
Literature had profound implications for the ways they saw their
teaching selves. For some, the contradictions entailed became
intolerable. For others, the new formation of the subject opened up new
pathways for themselves and their students to become more 'critically
literate'; to understand more about the ways texts worked to position
them, and thus about themselves in turn. The new perspectives offered
by the Study Design were seen as enabling both their students and
themselves to become more critical and 'aware', and to act with more
agency in the world.
Curriculum change stands or falls according to the ways in which is
taken up, enacted and owned by those who teach it. This taking up
entails a complex process of exchange, whereby the teacher too needs to
reconstitute her vision of the subject. For the committed teacher, her
teaching subject is centrally part of her perception and construction
of herself. Where teachers' subjectivity is intimately linked to past
and present constructions of the subject, and of themselves as teachers
of it, changes to the nature of the subject imply changes also to how
teachers see themselves. 'Changing English is changing schooling.'
(Goodson and Medway 1990) As this study demonstrates, changing
curriculum subjects may also entail changing teaching selves.
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