The Meaning Of Educational Change

Change leads a doubly double life. There is a fundamental duality to our response to change:we both embrace and resist it. We acknowledge its inevitability, and yet a profound conservative impulse governs our psychology, making us naturally resistant to change and leaving us chronically ambivalent when confronted with innovation. Furthermore, change means something different to each and every individual.The first chapter discusses the general understanding of change in public discourse, that is, the public meaning of change. It discusses what expected change will bring to our lives. Western theories of social evolution have tended to see change as natural, cumulative, and purposeful, with civilization advancing by stages. But the change-as-eternal-progress view never been unanimously accepted. Some thinkers have also seen growth as a cyclical process involves flowering, decline, and eventual death.The second chapter discusses the private reality to the individuals when confronted with change. Whatever a change is planned or unplanned, personal or professional, welcome or unwelcome; whether we take the perspective of reformers or their targets, of people or organizations, the response is characteristically ambivalent. It reflects that everyone has a deep-seated conservative impulse to find patterns in life and preserve the continuity. And thus it is natural for individuals to resist the change. The third chapter probes into what change means to individuals, organizations, and institutions dealing with the problems from the curriculum reform of basic education in China. Change is actually the expectations of the people who advocate the reform. But the hopes only come when the changes are implemented by the implementers. So understanding the meanings to implementers of change is the key to succeed in a change. According to an authoritative study, change provokes loss, challenges competence, creates confusion, and causes conflict. Based on the framework, this paper mainly discusses the subjective realities of the ongoing curriculum reform of basic education which is representative of the educational reforms in China. It helps the leaders, managers, and implementers know and understand more about the reform, and thus provide a comprehensive analysis framework to solve the practical issues encountered in the change.