Transformation of Teachers as Active Agents in Curriculum Building

Abstract

The policy 40x40 Curriculum for Excellence and Comprehensive Education was conceived as the proper framework to design and implement programs to offer quality education in the framework of the Bogota Humana District Government Plan. Nevertheless, there is a struggle in relation to the curriculum in Colombia: on one hand, the Law established curricular autonomy and on the other the teachers and educative researchers who oppose pedagogy to the curriculum. Thus, for the development of this public policy in Bogota, the Center for Research and Formation in Education–CIFE- design and offered a teacher training for the re-signification of the concept of curriculum and the empowerment of teachers in building curricula in line with the proposals of the policy and responding to their particular contexts. This article shares the results of the systematization of the experience (Jara, 1994; Jara, 2006) lived in the course by answering two questions: What are the perceptions of the teachers about the course? And, what are the main ideas learned by the teachers in the course? The results of this study show that the course designed shows some divergences and convergences of the curricular realities faced by teachers in institutions. Among the tensions were identified, in addition to the new demands that students and teachers generate to the institutional curriculum, the difficulty to make decisions in relation to the curriculum change. Within the convergences, the results show that the designed course is a pertinent and suitable strategy for the diffusion and appropriation of the policy documents.