미래 학력 논의가 교육과정 연구에 주는 시사

Abstract

Nowadays, Korean schools struggle to meet the rising demand of preparing students for their future lives. Although the goal of schools is to prepare students for the future seems simple and agreeable, there is still debate surrounding the difficulty to reach an agreement on the objectives of school curriculum, the criteria of selecting the subject-matter, and methods to deliver the curriculum. These difficulties arise mostly from the failure of defining the concept of academic ability for the future. This study reviews recent debates over academic ability for the future and identifies its implications for the curriculum research. As academic ability for the future views curriculum as indispensible means for developing students’ abilities, the discussion of academic ability for the future is deeply related to curriculum research. Paying attention to this relationship, firstly, this research attempts to analyze three basic questions of academic ability for the future: 1) what are the objectives academic ability for the future?; 2) which subject matter effectively develops students’ abilities? ; and 3) which methods effectively develop students’ abilities? Results of this study involve three controversial issues which are discussed one by one in detail. Firstly, this study discusses the problem of identifying the concept of academic ability for the future with that of competency. Secondly, this research endeavors to reconstruct the concept of academic ability in terms of three primary approaches in contemporary curriculum research. It shows the concept of academic ability can be reconstructed in terms of 1) ability as a consequence of subject-matter study, 2) ability as general ability, and 3) ability as competency. Finally, when these three characteristics of abilities are carried over to the discussion of curriculum theory, they restore the context of using the concept of academic ability for the future in the field of curriculum research.