Living the curriculum: Teachers’ journey of personal and professional self-discovery

There is considerable degree of agreement among the educators that specific skills of critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, communication and information fluency, collaboration and cross-cultural understanding are needed for students to succeed in life in the 21st century. The development of these skills requires a curriculum, which is current, vibrant and in constant state of review. The paper reports on a school teachers’ journey of living the curriculum for developing the twenty-first century skills among the students. The teachers undertook this journey under a continuous professional education programme. The programme comprised thirty lead teachers from pre-nursery to high school - grade eleventh level. Teachers’ reflections and classroom discussions are the main sources of data for the paper. The paper reveals a new model of curriculum planning and a paradigm shift in teaching and learning, which was required to allow the creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication - the 4Cs of the 21st century skills – to flourish in all class levels of the school. More specifically, the paper uncovers those important aspects of teachers’ personal and professional self-discovery, which were at the heart of achieving new curriculum targets. In the end, I argue that mere advances in the curriculum suited to the development of 21st century competencies are not sufficient. How teachers undergo professional self-discovery and form personal theories have an important effect on how curriculum is lived for transforming classroom teaching and learning.