The standing stones of Stenhouse: an enduring legacy

On the remote Orkney Islands off the North Coast of Scotland, there stand the remnants of a stone ellipse, The Standing Stones of Stennes. Not fully a circle, the massive Neolithic stones date from 3000 to 2900 BCE. In spite of the depredations of time the moss covered, granite columns soar proudly in the landscape. Some four decades after his death, it can be said that the outstanding contribution of Lawrence Stenhouse to progressive educational thinking also has the capacity to endure. He wrote ‘a book instead of a text book’ (1975, vii) that offered a highly personal view of what constitutes, curriculum and the practice of teaching. In this paper we explore what we see to be both those monoliths which have stood the test of time and those which have been systematically eroded over the past two decades by the corrosive actions of neoliberalism through the drivers of the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM). We suggest that while Stenhouse’s work pre-dated the origins of the GERM, that his ‘standing stones’ constitute a legacy with powerful potential for educators working to respond to the dilemmas of practice shaped by neoliberal policy discourses in education. We draw on examples from recent education policy shifts in England and Australia to make a case for clearing the way to ensure that the Stenhousian tradition is fully recognised and continues to contribute to contemporary educational praxis – that which is fully human and morally defensible.