1. Experiments with the General
Capabilities as starting points for
curriculum design
ENGAGING AND
DEVELOPING ETHICAL
BEHAVIOUR

2. Context
The Hills Montessori School – Adolescent Program
Adelaide Hills
Small school, Year 7 to 10
Accountable to the National Montessori Curriculum and the
Australian Curriculum
Small highly collaborative staff – committed to finding creative
problem solving

3. Key pedagogical approaches
Self direction
Prepared environment
Authentic work
Authentic consequences
Multiage classes
Flexible/responsive timetables
Integrated curriculum
Learning with head and hands
Meeting fundamental human needs

4. Project development
Brief – adapt the existing Community Service Program
Journey - toward a General Capabilities focus
Integration
• Humanities
• Occupations
• Mathematics
• Advisory
• Language
• Student Interest Groups
• Science

5. Key Experiences
‘Tell me and I’ll forget,
Show me and I may remember,
Involve me and I’ll understand’ (Chinese proverb)
1. World Trade Game – Ethical dilemmas
‘We thought we played the game well but so many people lost!’
‘I gave my chocolate away, I couldn’t bear to eat it’
‘I can’t believe how sneaky those rich girls were, they didn’t think
about us at all and we got nothing!’

6. Key Experiences (cont.)
2. Slum Survivor – Ethics under pressure
‘They wasted our hard earned money on chocolate behind our backs so we
disowned them.’
‘Now I know what it’s like to be poor.’
‘I was cold.’
‘Slum Survivor was really hard, next year we should do it for a whole week
and be out in the bush somewhere.’
‘It was just so unfair, I can’t believe the world is actually like that.’
‘I never want to make another paper bag again. Ever.’

8. Key Experiences (cont.)
The Bitter Truth – Ethical decisions
‘It’s not right that our cheap chocolate costs the lives and childhoods of
people our age’
‘I’m a bastard – I know it’s unfair but it’s not my fault, it happens
anyway and it’s not illegal’

9. ‘It was just a small step towards making the world
a better place’

10. Developing knowledge
Miniature Earth Project – locating ourselves in the global picture
Story of Stuff – Who is responsible? Who is more valuable? Why?
Readings and seminars
Remembering the issues are not so much ends in themselves for us as
educators but merely the contexts for engaging and developing ideas
and applications of ethical behaviour

11. Structured specialisation
Guided investigation: Working conditions in offshore electronics
manufacturing (Apple)
Providing a model for their own Independent Research Projects over
the break

12. Going Further
Donations through
Economy and Events
Occupation
(to TEAR Australia)
Actions taken up by
Student Interest Groups
World Religions:
People of Compassion
http://db.tt/nDVh98kC

13. Tracking Development and Assessment
• Outcomes drawn from the Ethical Behaviour Assessment Rubric -
http://db.tt/Ismyu8Ku
• Tools for mapping an integrated curriculum
http://db.tt/hoMNMJPS

14. Where to from here?
Interpreting and owning the General Capabilities (beyond
accommodation!)
Developing developmental continua
Integrating General Capabilities as central forces in the organisation
and development of curriculum