Putting the Learner into the Curriculum, not the Curriculum into the Learner: A Case for Negotiated Integrated Curriculum

Abstract

The question “what is good teaching?” leads to further questions about the nature of curriculum and decision-making. This paper explores the need and feasibility of a Negotiated Integrated Curriculum (NIC) to better empower the voice of teachers and students within their own curriculum. The international neo-liberal agenda that is increasingly encroaching on the nature of curriculum change and development inhibits the voice of learners within their own curriculum. Based on decades of research, and the theoretical foundations of meaningful learning, the NIC progresses the issues of both student and teacher empowerment in the face of this agenda to better allow “good teaching” to happen. Teacher education is significantly placed to enable this process as a review of international educational polices maintain with particular reference to the Irish context.