It is not
surprising then that many teachers, when they come to enact the curriculum in
their classes, rely more on their own beliefs than on current trends in pedagogy.
These beliefs, conservative as they might be, have their own rationality in the
practical and daily nature of the teaching profession, and in the compelling
influence of educational systems from which these teachers are paradoxically the
social product. The literature indicates that many of these teachers hold
behaviourist beliefs, a fact that has strong implications for the success of
constructivist-oriented curriculum reform.
In general, studies of teachers’
pedagogical beliefs reveal the extreme complexity of bringing about educational
change, and largely explains the failure of many past reform endeavours.