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A metaphor might help to understand the nature of the articulation
problem. Suppose two committeeshave been charged with building a two-
story house. The only requirement is that the two stories be connected in ways
that facilitate a certain amount of movementbetween stories. In the design
process, there are going to be principlesinvolved. The existence of gravity and
wind, for example, lead to principles about structural support. General human
needs lead to requirements concerning, for example, plumbing, lighting, and air
circulation. Second, the fact that this is a two-story facility that must allow
movement imposes certain common constraintson design that must be met by
cooperation to make sure that supports are in the right places, the plumbing
meets appropriately, and that the staircase is planned for the same place.
Finally, the needs of the constituents servedby the committees produce a set of
design requirements concerning functions of spaces, connections to the outside
world, decoration, and so on. The committees spend a certain amount of time,
therefore, considering different design approachesthat will be consistent with
the principles, the common constraints and their clients needs.
Our profession is in much the same position. We are charged with
building learning "houses" in which our students can comfortably learn at
different points in their learning careers--but we have a history of forgetting to
include the stairs. This framework is an attempt--one that will need much
revision over time--to lay out some rules to follow if we want our programs to be
functional in the context of long-term learning.
This general discussion of the framework needs to be followed by three
caveats. First, the title of this document means what it says regarding the
institutions at which it is aimed. Although the principles may be relevant for all
Russian language education, the common curriculum and the examples are
geared for high school and undergraduate learners, not middle school or
graduate students. Second, this document is intended to be practical, not
theoretically elegant. It is not an academic monograph intent on demonstrating
the history and nuanced ownership of each idea, nor is it offered as a
comprehensive theory of teaching or learning. There has been and probably
always will be an ongoing, and very healthy debate about textbooks, course
and program goals, and maximally effective pedagogy, but this document
endeavors to remain largely agnostic on these questions2. Third, readers are
often tempted to jump straight to a part of a book that particularly interests them,
and then think that they can guess at the rest. In the case of this document, the
sections covering the introduction, the framework, and its implementation
contain important material as well; the section on the common curriculum
should not be read in isolation.
A note on the intended audience is also in order. Clearly, there is no
reason to publish a document for teachers who cannot be troubled to read
professional materials. There is also little need to produce a document for
2Of course it is impossible to be truly aloof from such issues; more precisely, the intent
here is to develop a framework whose applicability does not hinge on the theoretical
underpinnings of programs.
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