Michael J. Reiss
This article argues that school curriculum development should start with aims rather than with subjects and that the fundamental aims of school education should be to enable each learner to lead a personally flourishing life and to help others to do so too. These overarching aims give rise to more specific ones by considering how human flourishing requires such things as the acquisition of a broad background understanding, moral education, a life of imagination and reflection, and preparation for work. This approach would result in a school science education that had similarities with much current school education, which is desirable as it suggests that the approach is not completely unrealistic, but some non-trivial differences too, which is desirable as it suggests that the approach does not simply replicate existing approaches.