English renewed: Visions of English among teachers of 1966

Abstract

This article examines the way in which curriculum renewal in English teaching in the late 1960s was brought about largely through the democratic process of teacher participation. It describes the role that the newly formed National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE) played in creating the process in conjunction with American colleagues from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) at the 1966 Dartmouth Conference. The author, who participated in this event, describes the values debated at this conference which underpinned reform and which were subsequently tested out and implemented in England by practitioners in schools, supported by NATE local branches. He asks the reader to consider the ways in which this process of reform differs from the ways in which processes of curriculum change are currently structured.