A Short History of Technology in UK Schools

Handicraft

That aspect of the school curriculum concerned with doing, as opposed to knowing, could be loosely described as having come full circle over the past century. It was the Samuelson Commission of 1882-84 which recommended that handicraft be introduced into schools as an answer to Britain’s economic decline, while, more recently, the case for National Curriculum technology has been urged on similar grounds.
Handicraft was intended not as some sort of overt apprentices’ foundation course, but was based upon unambiguous educational objectives:
“the object . . . is not to create carpenters and joiners, but to familiarise pupils with the properties of such common substances as wood and iron, to teach hand and eye to work in unison, to accustom the pupil to exact measurements, and to enable him by the use of tools to produce actual things from drawings that represent them.” 1
Regarded as largely for pupils who were “dull in all ‘brain work’” 2, handicraft was from the outset bereft of status, view as the black sheep of the British educational system - a position not helped by the 1944 Education Act which effectively relegated workshop skills to the secondary modern sector, thus further reinforcing the established “gentlemanly culture” 3. Britain’s post-war economic decline is seen as rooted in this culture: humanistic and aesthetic pursuits being regarded higher than practical and commercial activity, resulting in the more able youngsters being attracted away from careers in business and industry.

Craft and Design
An increasing element of design was gradually integrated into the handicraft area of the curriculum in a move that was about “the rehabilitation of the practical” 4: an attempt not only to provide it with greater status and quality students but also to acknowledge that intelligence could show itself in doing as much as in knowing:
“Problem solving strategies became the order of the day . . . Design methodologies using analytical and synthetical criteria moved logically from need identification to optimised solutions and their evaluation.” 5

Craft, Design and Technology
In the late 1960s, craft and design, through the auspices of the Schools Council’s Project Technology, began to take on board elements of physics and engineering to such an extent that, by 1981, the then Department of Education and Science adopted the title Craft, Design and Technology (CDT) 6. A new subject had been created.
During the 1980s there was a growth in modular Technology examination courses which focused on teaching elements of electronics, pneumatics, structures, and such like. In other words, elements of applied science with, in turn, a strong industrial and vocational flavour. Initiatives such as the Technical and Vocational Educational Initiative helped to further develop the industrial and vocational theme.

National Curriculum Technology
The subject that emerged when the National Curriculum Orders were brought into force in 1990 saw a shift away from the applied science which had been generally accepted as a loose definition of technology to a broader subject encompassing the “applied” subjects of art and design, home economics, and business studies, in addition to CDT. It was a broadening which introduced elements of learning not previously accepted as technology. The National Curriculum Council defined the new technology as:
“a way of working in which pupils investigate a need or respond to an opportunity to make or modify something. They use their knowledge and understanding to devise a method or solution, realise it practically and evaluate the end product.” 7

At the centre of the subject lies design, and the intellectual process of investigating, analysing, devising and evaluating implicit within that. The positive result in schools of this emphasis upon design has been to allow students to express themselves in modes different than the traditional written method - they can now represent their thinking in oral, graphical and non-linguistic forms. This means that a radical change has taken place in the whole basis by which academic excellence is measured, and could have considerable effect upon the sorts of students who find success at school.

References
1. Magnus, P. (1886). “On Manual Training”. “Report of the Fifty-Sixth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science ,” 748-49
2. School Board of London (1898). “Report of the Joint Committee on Manual Training on the Development of Work in Connection with Manual Training,” 1-24
3. Medway, P. “Constructions in Technology: Reflections on a New Subject.” Chapter 3 of Beynon and Mackay (1992). “Technological Literacy and the Curriculum,” p66
4. Layton, D. (1984). “The Alternative Road: The Rehabilitation of the Practical.” University of Leeds Centre for the Study of Science and Mathematics Education.
5. Penfold, J. (1988). “Craft, Design and Technology: Past, Present and Future.” Trentham Books, p127
6. Department of Education and Science (1981). “The School Curriculum.” HMSO, p17
7. National Curriculum Council (1990). “Non-Statutory Guidance for Design and Technology Capability

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