To Teach Is to Set Free: Liberation Theology and the Democratisation of the Citizenship Agenda

Abstract

Once again the personal dimension of the curriculum is in flux. Initiatives in spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC) have been overshadowed by new working parties in citizenship, sustainable development, personal, social and health education (PSHE), culture and creativity, all brought together under the acronym PAL (Preparation for Adult Life), itself a process begging methodological questions. In addition, interest groups on parenting, emotional literacy and spirituality have introduced considerations of participation, control and wholism into the process. All this is caught up in the reform of the national curriculum. This paper will draw attention to dangers in the present uncertainty and in likely developments. Citizenship in particular causes concern because of its elevation to the status of a National Curriculum subject; this raises directly democratic issues. The paper will then explore various forms of liberation theology with the aim of discovering how they can introduce both intellectual coherence and democratic values into the at present untidy cluster of interests and methods constituting citizenship and the other personal development processes in education. Liberation theologies will be applied both to the understanding of who the pupil is as a historical subject (ontology) and also what the pupil can experience and achieve (epistemology) in the context of school, community and planet. Can the intrinsic educational and cultural processes of liberation theology act as a paradigm or metaphor for teachers trying to facilitate personal development, in its fullest sense, through the curriculum?