In 2006, the largest network of schools in Belgian Flanders implemented a radical change in the curriculum of one specific study direction in technical secondary education. A new school subject, called Integral Tasks, was introduced as an integration of the four subjects Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Food & Nutrition and Self-Expression. This new school subject had to be taught by a team of teachers covering, together, the needed expertise. This curriculum change was driven by a competency-oriented vision. The new subject was in fact meant to be the place in the curriculum where specific competencies of students, needed in relation to their expected future position in higher education and in the job market, would be developed.

The practice-oriented research we have done in relation to the school subject Integral Tasks can be placed in a critical agenda aiming at exposing problems and limitations of competency-based curricula, and challenging curriculum changes that are possibly not enough thought-out. Our starting assumption is that it is the teacher who can e-ducate young people. It is also the teacher who will have to implement curricula and changes in practice. In the context of the current (European) crisis of the teacher, we are concerned about the functionalized role assigned to teachers in competency-oriented reforms. Therefore, in this work we adopt a perspective and use arguments addressing features problematic for teachers.                                                                 

The newly introduced school subject Integral Tasks soon turned out to be problematic in its realization in the school practice. Teachers have now been struggling for more than ten years to give a reasonable and workable concrete form to Integral Tasks. In this context, as practice-oriented educational researchers we have been approached by teachers facing the challenges of teaching this subject. In collaboration with three schools, in 2016 we started a practice-oriented research project aiming, among other things, to develop a learning community of Integral Tasks teachers.  

In the orientation phase of the project, we conducted group interviews with Integral Tasks teachers in the involved schools. Teachers made it very clear that Integral Tasks is an unwanted subject to teach, requiring large efforts that are not rewarded. ‘Who has the possibility, escapes!’ said a teacher to us. We heard about the ‘Integral Tasks tears’ and we also saw them: we were there when a teacher received the communication she had to teach Integral Tasks in the coming school year.

We also observed that teachers, despite the different approaches to Integral Tasks in the three schools, all focused on practical issues when discussing their problems with Integral Tasks. The urgency of their everyday practice was dominant in their discourse. This focus on everyday practice did point out to relevant concrete obstacles, but could hide problems from the view, inherent to the nature of the school subject Integral Tasks as such. In order to possibly identify these problems, it was necessary to temporarily transcend the level of the concrete teachers’ practice, and to study the school subject Integral Tasks as an ‘educational construction’ abstractly described by the official documentation. In this talk we present and discuss the results of this documentary analysis.

Since Integral Tasks is characterized by being integrated, competency-based and team-taught, we have analysed the official documentation on the basis of three research questions. What is the structure of Integral Tasks as an integration of Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Food & Nutrition and Self-Expression? How is this structure placed in relation to the legal requirements and the pedagogical freedom within the Belgian-Flemish educational system? What are the expected roles and actions of the teachers in the Integral Tasks teaching team?

We have applied documentary analysis to the public records relevant for our research questions. We have used as main sources the guidebook for teachers (learning plan) and its addendum called book of goals, both produced by the network of schools, the webpage of the Belgian-Flemish Ministry of Education listing the mandatory learning goals to be realized, and the webpages of the other networks of schools, which have not introduced a similar integrated subject. We have also consulted presentations of the pedagogical support service used by the network of schools in professional development events for Integral Tasks teachers, and reports of the school inspection where the concrete realisation of Integral Tasks in a specific school had been evaluated. To study the structure of Integral Tasks, we have considered it as an abstract object constructed out of four elements (the four integrated subjects) and we have studied the relations between those elements using symmetry arguments. We have used logical arguments to derive the implications of this structure for the teachers in the team. We have studied how the structure of Integral Tasks is placed in relation to existing frameworks by systematic comparison, of learning goals (legal requirements vs. Integral Tasks’ goals) and of the study direction as realized by different networks of schools (through different lesson timetables). We have studied the roles and actions of the team of teachers as described in the documentation for Integral Tasks, by using semantic searches. Especially, we have searched on the one hand for the singular ‘teacher’ or explicitly mentioned teachers of different subjects, and on the other hand for ‘teacher team’ and analogue expressions. We have then analysed the relevant content associated to the hits, to collect richer information concerning the expected roles and actions of teachers. Together with these methods and sources specific for our documentary analysis, we have also used group interviews with teachers, which were relevant to define our research questions in the first place, but also to share and discuss our results with the teachers afterwards. For teachers our results were an eye-opener, suddenly making hidden features and issues visible. Since a major reform of secondary education is currently taking place in Belgian-Flanders, opening the way to new integrated, team-taught and competency-based school subjects, we have also consulted official sources (Ministry of Education, networks of schools) concerning the reform, providing a relevant context for our conclusions.

Our analysis reveals that Integral Tasks has a complicated structure in terms of the integrated subjects, characterized by a fourfold asymmetry. This asymmetry in turn implies a different positioning of the different teachers in the team. As a consequence, teachers have to act individually in the context of Integral Tasks. On the other hand, the documentation always refers to a ‘teacher-team’ acting as a whole. We conclude that Integral Tasks is an unbalanced construction, like a chair with legs of different length, and is internally inconsistent. As such, it is impossible to implement in the form in which it has been described. Since teachers must implement it anyway, the unnatural and illogical structure leads to compensations and tensions affecting the teachers’ practice. Our findings show that Integrals Tasks is problematic at the fundamental level of its design. We argue that basic design principles have not been respected in the development of Integral Tasks. How could this happen? Our analysis shows that the structure of Integral Tasks is not a consequence of the legal requirements or the study direction profile. While Integral Tasks complies with all requirements, its very nature is to be found elsewhere, in the competency-oriented vision of the network of schools that introduced it. The construction of Integral Tasks was driven and justified by what was expected to be needed by students in their (pre-determined) future, and not by an endeavour to e-ducate young people. In Belgian Flanders a reform of secondary education is currently taking place, opening the way for more integrated, team-taught and competency-based school subjects. In this perspective, we formulate a set of basic design principles for the development of a new integrated subject taught by a team of teachers. To which extent these principles are compatible with a competency-oriented vision remains an open question.

Educational vision: J. Masschelein, M. Simons (2013), ‘In defence of the school. A public issue’, E-ducation, Culture & Society Publishers, Leuven J. Ranciere (1987- translation 1991). ‘The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation’, Stanford University Press; (2008 - translation 2011) ‘The emancipated spectator’, Verso. Practice-Oriented Research Project: ‘On the way to an integral learning community for the study direction Social and Technical Sciences. Qualitative approach for the Integral Tasks’ (2016-2019), funded by University College Leuven-Limburg. Information (in Dutch) can be found at: https://www.ucll.be/onderzoek/call-research/goedgekeurde-pwo-projecten/goedgekeurde-pwo%E2%80%99s-2016 Main references for the document study: Teacher guidebook for the study direction Social and Technical Sciences, 3rd and 4th year of Technical Secondary Education, of the Flemish Union of Catholic Secondary Education (VVKSO – BRUSSEL D/2015/7841/015), in Dutch: http://ond.vvkso-ict.com/leerplannen/doc/Sociale%20en%20technische%20wetenschappen-2015-015.pdf Book of goals for Integral Tasks of the network of schools Flemish Union of Catholic Secondary Education (2011), in Dutch: http://ond.vvkso-ict.com/leerplannen/doc/bijlage/Doelenboek%20STW.pdf Belgian-Flemish legal requirements for Technical Secondary Education, Flemish Government, Agency for higher education, adult education, qualifications and study grants, in Dutch: https://www.onderwijsdoelen.be/secundair-onderwijs/tweede-graad Lesson timetables of the network of schools GO! (union of state schools) for Technical Secondary Education, study direction Social and Technical Sciences, 3rd and 4th year (2018-2019), in Dutch: http://pro.g-o.be/blog/Documents/TSO%20tweede%20en%20derde%20graad%202018-2019.pdf Lesson timetables of the network of schools OVSG (union of schools of towns and municipalities) for Technical Secondary Education, study direction Social and Technical Sciences, 3rd and 4th year (2018-2019), in Dutch: https://www.ovsg.be/leerplannen/secundair-onderwijs Belgian-Flemish reform of secondary education: See for instance the press release of the cabinet of the Flemish minister of education, July 13th, 2018 (in Dutch) (‘the difference between subject-specific and cross-subject legal requirements is eliminated’): https://onderwijs.vlaanderen.be/nl/nieuwe-eindtermen-ambitieus-duidelijk-en-coherent See also the new legal requirements for the first two years of secondary education (in Dutch), approved by the Belgian-Flemish Parliament on December 5th, 2018: https://www.kwalificatiesencurriculum.be/secundair-onderwijs Publication of the results: Tamassia L., Frenssen T. (2019), ‘Over vakkenclusters en leerkrachtenteams: naar basisprincipes voor integraal werken. Een documentenstudie van de Integrale Opdrachten als casus.’ (in Dutch), Belgian-Flemish journal ‘Impuls - Tijdschrift voor onderwijsbegeleiding’ number 49/03.