A teacher’s role in making a given knowledge curriculum into a powerful knowledge curriculum

Through examining the case of one senior high school geography teacher who has an understanding of powerful knowledge, this article presents the possibility of making a given geographical knowledge-based curriculum into a powerful geographical knowledge-based curriculum in China. The article argues that a curriculum based on powerful geographical knowledge can avoid the dangers anticipated with the ongoing competencies- based geography curriculum reform in China. In addition, the article demonstrates how the case study teacher’s pedagogical practice echoes some of the principles of Bernstein’s notion of ‘visible pedagogies’, namely strong classification strong framing (+C+F). The article discusses how ‘visible pedagogies’ could provide an approach to the absence of pedagogy in a powerful knowledge-based curriculum. The article argues that it is within the power of individual teachers to use ‘visible pedagogies’ to make a given knowledge-based curriculum into a powerful knowledge-based curriculum.