The Cox Models Revisited: English Teachers’ Views of their Subject and the National Curriculum

Abstract

This article examines the views of the English Teaching Profession about the current National Curriculum for English, the Cox Models of English and the rationale for their subject. It compares the results of a survey in 1997 with an earlier study in 1991, revealing that English teachers are increasingly opposed to the dogmatic and prescriptive nationalistic Cultural Heritage model enshrined in the current Orders for English. The curriculum is perceived as irrelevant and impersonal. Teachers are holding on to their faith in Personal Growth and the value of literature in developing personal responses. However, they are also increasingly adopting a more Cultural Analysis stance to their teaching, chiefly through their advocacy of the importance of media education. This change is embroiled with tensions and uncertainties and English remains an arena of conflict in which debate and controversy are rife.

A Rough Guide to English Teachers

“…English teachers predominantly saw themselves as either fostering personal growth, or as cultural analysts. His second look at the evidence (Goodwyn and Findlay, 1999) shows only a slight shift in the percentages towards cultural analysis, but little real support for the other views. These findings correspond with those of others who have looked at the philosophies of English teachers.…”

On Being in English Teaching: A time for Heidegger? 1

“…Studies indicate that English teachers in the UK who privilege the 'Personal Growth' model of English are especially interested in the life of the child (Goodwyn & Findlay, 1999;Marshall, 2000;Bousted, 2000), and 'the philosophy of personal growth through English' certainly influences 'English teachers' expectations of their relationship with their pupils which, they argue, must be based upon a special knowledge of the pupils as individuals and an awareness of their lives outside the classroom' (Bousted, 2000, p. 24). The identity and learning of the individual child is consequently of special interest to English teachers (Pike, 2000a(Pike, , 2000b for reading and response cannot be understood without an understanding of the beliefs and values of the person reading (Pike, 2003b).…”

Poetic Experience: Found or Made?

“…Though challenged by structuralist and postmodern critiques of representation, it remains, arguably, the dominant view of literature in education, a t least among those who champion it in societies with vaguely liberal and humanistic agendas. Andrew Goodwyn and Kate Findlay's work on values in English teaching, for example, revealed a continuing bias towards liberal-humanist approaches and a 'personal growth' view of the is subject (not entirely to the author's approval: Goodwyn and Findlay, 1999).…”