Flinders, D. & Thornton, S. (Eds.) (2022). The Curriculum Studies Reader, 6th Ed. New York: Routledge.
「課程研究」是什麼？怎麼做？其實眾說紛紜，一人可以吹一把號 — 這可能是社會議題探究的共同特性。所以，編輯一本眾家說法的「文選」實在是個好主意。這主意是 David Flinders (生於 1955 年) 與 Stephen Thornton (澳洲人，史丹福碩士與博士) 發想的，從杜威寫於十九世紀倒數第三年的「宣言」算起，課程研究走了 127 年，還不能算是傳統領域，但至少也是百年招牌了。百多年來，畢竟還是有些能人吹出不同凡響的號角，值得被收錄在一起，讓新進人士觀摩。這本文選從 1997 年（杜威宣言的一百周年）首版以來，頗受好評，看來社群同仁確實同意：編輯一本百年來重要文獻選集，是個好主意；這本《課程研究讀本》成為不少師培機構或教育學系的教材或指定讀物，兩位編者受到鼓勵，2004 年出了第二版，2009 年第三版，2013 年第四版，2017 年第五版，我從清大南院跨校借到的是 2022 年的第六版。
每版之間有若干篇文章的取捨，例如第五版比第二版多了 Montessori 的選文，少了 Kliebard 批評 Bobbit 的文章，少了 Goodlad 的文章，也少了 Finders 自己關注文化素養 Cultural Literacy 的選文；第二版和第五版都選入 Nel Noddings 兩篇文章，他是唯一有此殊榮的教育學者，我猜他是兩位編者的指導教授；Noddings 選在第二版的最後一篇 (第 30 篇) The Aims of Education 以及第五版的最後一篇 (第 32 篇) The Common Core Standards 頗引人遐思。但是看來 Bobbit 和 Dewey 那兩篇總是常存。雖然有第六版，但後面三個版本似乎同時在 Amazon 上面銷售。
「文選」當然是給人「選讀」的。有志於「課程研究」的人，想要參與「課程設計」的人，應該要選幾篇讀。
中央大學圖書館有第二版的電子版本，雖然有每日下載限制，但勉強可用。我從清大南校區借來的第六版，馬上該還了，趕緊選讀幾篇，摘記如下。有些內容直接用英文摘記，沒時間翻譯，抱歉。
開卷第一篇，標誌性的文章。沒時間讀，先從網路下載了。第二版裡，有 Kliebard 發表於 1975 年批判「課程設計的科學方法」的文章，倒是先讀了這篇。
那時候杜威 (1859–1952) 實際做了教師培育，這篇〈信念〉宣言寫於 38 歲，這是剛要長成的年紀，但已經展現了大師前兆。我倒是注意了一個現象，整篇文章裡，杜威完全沒有提及數學，不曾以數學舉例。我認為他是刻意謹慎避免踩到數學的。這篇教育宣言很容易在網路找到，甚至還有 Wiki 條目。To prepare him for the future life means to give hime command of himself. (p.34)
... the individual who is to be educated is a social individual, and that society is an organic union of individuals. (p.34)
... to share in the inherited resources of the race, (p.35)
Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living. (p.35)
The value of these is conceived as lying largely in the remote future; (p.35)
introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies (p.36)
[History] taken simply as history it is thrown into the distant past and becomes dead and inert. Taken as the record of man's social life and progress it becomes full of meaning. (p.37)
It is true that language is a logical instrument, but it is fundamentally and primarily a social instrument. (p.37)
I believe that consciusness is essentially motor or impulsive; that conscious states tend to project themselves in action. (p.38)
These interests are neither to be humored nor repressed. ... To humor the interests is to subsitute the transient for the permanent. (p.38ff)
The community's duty to education is, therefore, its paramount moral duty.
Unless the learner also masters himself, disciplines his taste, and deepens his view of the work, ... (p.87)It is as important to justify a good mathematics course by the intellectual discipline it provides or the honesty it promotes as by the mathematics it transmits. (p.87) 說數學培育誠實情操，這倒是對數學科的好見地。
Men everywhere are humans, however advanced or "primitive" their civilization. The difference is not one of more or less than human, but of how particular human societies express their human capacities. A remark by the French anthropologist, Levi-Strauss, puts it well. (p.95ff) 我認為編者選的 Bruner 這篇並不太精彩，最精彩的是他引述 Levi-Strauss 的這段：
...that the kind of logic in mythical thought is as rigorous as that of modern science, and that the difference lies, not in the quality of the intellectual process, but in the nature of things to which it is applied. This is well in agreement with the situation known to prevail in the field of technology: What makes a steel ax superior to a stone ax is not that the first one is better made than the second. They are equally well made, but steel is quite different from stone. In the same way we may be able to show that the same logical processes operate in myth as in science, and that man has always been thinking equally well; The improvement lies, not in the alleged progress of man's mind, but in the discovery of new areas to which it may apply its unchanged and unchaning powers.
這是整本書最新的一篇文章，主題是氣候變遷下的課程設計。以下這一番話把「進步」描述得挺好。Across the political spectrum people are thinking "progress" in terms of vocabularies inherited from the legacy of the Enlightenment thinkers of the late 16th and 17th century. That legacy was founded on concepts like individualism (with the ideal being the autonumous thinking individual), change and innovation, critical inquiry and science overturning traditions, transformative thinking, freedom, and literacy. These values are meant to lead to objective knowledge and individual empowerment that is epitomized by students constructing their own knowledge and values from the available data. (p.397)
作者一直強調「課程」的論述語彙，特別是譬喻，形塑我們的信念。特別注意 neoliberal 鼓吹者的語彙，以及這組語彙塑造的進步概念。看來社會學、教育社會學社群也在「語言學轉向」。
Ecological Intelligence：為了永續而設計課程的關鍵詞。 (p.399)
Ecological crisis is also a cultural crisis. (p.400)
We can begin by recognizing that everything has a history. (p.400)
Demystifying Language Issues: ... Understanding the metaphorical nature of language is especially important to becoming aware of how taken-for-granted vocabularies carry forward the misconceptions and silences that are at the root of so many of the ecological and social justice problems we now face. (p.405)
作者提出一個強烈主張：在強調為學生準備進入知識經濟或知識社會的教育主張中，知識本身卻很少被討論，甚至以此為目標的課程設計卻大量忽視知識本身，改以技能為導向。We need to make the question of knowledge our central concern and this involves developing a knowledge-led and subject-led, and not, as much current orthodoxy assumes, a learner-led approach to the curriculum. (p.411)
作者說所謂 progressive 課程觀如今被解釋為 learner-centered pedagogies and the emphasis on learning from experience. 而 critical 課程觀則根本只是前者的 empty rhetoric 而已。(p.411)
The reformed curriculum (of England) ... viewed the curriculum as an instrument for motivating students to learn. (p.413)
教育政策與評量機制的發展，使得 the curriculum itself is increasingly becoming a form of accountability rather than a guide for teachers. (p.414)
The curriculum needs to be seen as having a purpose of its own: the intellectual development of students. It should not be treated as a means for motivating students or for solving social problems. Intellectual development is a concept-based not a content-based or skill-based process. (p.414)
課程設計需要 re-contextualise 領域知識：重構知識脈絡。但這通常無法請領域專家操刀，課程專家要靠自己：自己深入領域，然後編製課程，或者真正從領域走進課程研究。
Schools are places where the world is treated as an object of thought and not as a place of experience. Subjects such as history, geography and physics are the tools that teachers have for helping pupils make the step from experience to what Vygotsky referred to as higher forms of thought. (p.415)
Charlot (2009) draws the conclusion that teachers have two fundamental pedagogic tasks. One task is to help students manage the relationship between the concepts of the different subjects that mkae up the curridulum and their referents to the students' everyday lives. The second task is to introduce students to concepts, which have meanings that do not derive from or relate directly to their experience. (p.416)
In qcquiring subject knowledge they are joining communities of specialists each with their different histories, traditions and ways of working. ... an identity-generating role for teachers and learners. Subjects are crucial for teachers' sense of themselves as members of a profession. (p.416ff)
作者對「跨領域」的回應很有意思，他說「跨領域」出自「領域」的開放與不足，而非制度或機構。我想到，要關注學科／領域對初學者／入門者待來的安全感，同時小心「跨領域」可能同時讓學生、教師產生的不安全感。 It is an inter-disciplinarity that arises out of the openness and its limitations of disciplines and not from some imposed external principle. (p.418)
教育的「中產階級津貼」：middle class subsidy (p.419)
In Howard's End, E. M. Forster commented on the perverse use of the great books: "The fault is ours, not theirs. They mean us to use them for sign-posts, and they are not to blame if, in our weakness, we mistake the sign-post for destination." (1993, p.10; Original work published in 1910.) (p.444)We seem to have forgotten the purpose of educational aims in guiding our choice of subject matter, pedagogy, and modes of interaction. Theachers should be encouraged to consult the aims of liberal education as they plan and evaluate their work. How might our daily lessons contribute to the search for wisdom, an understanding of the good life, the development of moral character, and aesthetic appreciation? (p.445)
All of our students should be prepared to think deeply about what constitues a good life in all three great domains: occupation, home and personal life, and civic participation. (p.446)
作者以微積分舉例，卻舉出 simultaneous invention 之例，這實在不算高明。當其他領域的專家用數學舉例時，常常踢到鐵板。可見杜威聰明，他在〈信念〉裡小心避開數學。
Dewey argued powerfully against separating the intellectuaol and the practical, insisting that knowing and doing are intimately connected. (p.446) 這就是「知行合一」囉。但杜威的「經驗說」卻被許多追隨者窄化為生活經驗在學校的延伸，前面的 Young 就在攻擊此窄化解釋。
... draw attention to the intellectual dimension of manual work, arguing persuasively that all students might profit from learning how "to do things." (p.446)