2 Chapter 2: Curriculum
- Curriculum
- Types of Curriculum
Curriculum
Before We Read
Before reading, spend some time thinking about the different decisions that teachers make every day as they plan their classes. The materials teachers choose, the way they organize a class, what is emphasized or not, and what choices are offered to the students all shape the student experience. To be an engaged teacher, it is important to build reflective practices and the habit of making informed and deliberate instructional choices. Think about your favorite experiences in school. What choices did the educators make that contributed to your experience?
Questions for Consideration
As you read, consider these essential questions: What are the goals of education? How is the experience of the students impacted by what is written or missing in the curriculum? What hidden lessons are we teaching students? In what ways are we, as educators, shaping our schools and communities through our curricular and instructional choices?
Introduction to Curriculum
A simple definition of curriculum would be the subjects and the course of study in a school or college. Curriculum and instruction is an entire sub-field of education. Definitions of curriculum vary. The differences in the definition of curriculum from educator to educator provide clues to the varying stances on education and what it means to be educated. For example, the curriculum may refer to knowledge students are expected to have or may refer to certain skills or competencies students should be able to demonstrate.
Curriculum: The subjects, knowledge areas, and skills that students are expected to learn. The course of study.
Explicit Curriculum: The planned part of the curriculum includes the topics, standards, and learning materials used in a course of study. The word explicit is used to differentiate and contrast it from the hidden curriculum.
Hidden Curriculum: The lessons that arise from the culture of the school and the behaviors, attitudes, and expectations that characterize that culture.
Some educators describe the curriculum as a prescription, a series of interactions, lessons, and topics that ought to be included in an education. This is the most traditional definition of curriculum. A prescriptive curriculum would define bodies of knowledge and ways that it would be taught to students, serving as a master plan for teachers and administrators. For this group of educators, the curriculum is a series of experiences mapped across the students’ journey of growth, preparing them for their adult lives. The mandated and planned part of the curriculum is sometimes referred to as the explicit curriculum. The explicit or planned curriculum refers to the topics and standards covered by a class and perhaps the documents that align with the standards, such as lesson plans, textbooks, and other teaching aids.
An alternative way to look at curriculum is from the students’ lived experiences. This more holistic view of the curriculum would include the lessons taught to students both formally and informally. From the student’s viewpoint, there is more that is learned in school than in the planned subject areas. The implicit or hidden curriculum refers to the lessons and values that are not explicitly taught but are implied and inferred by the students from the classroom and school culture. The hidden curriculum is taught to students often unconsciously through how instructors interact with students: types of behavior the teacher praises, rewards, admonishments, or classroom dynamics.
Explicit vs Hidden Curriculum
The hidden curriculum can have positive and negative effects on students’ learning and development. Social skills, norms, and community values may be positive aspects learned at school. Schools teach our children how to behave in class and are the primary socialization for young people. Positive aspects of this might include social norms for dress, how to speak with authority or persuasively, and how to think critically.
However, the hidden curriculum can also affect students’ academic performance and reinforce inequalities. The hidden curriculum can be the place where biases or prejudice are inadvertently passed on. The critical educator must constantly evaluate their approaches to make sure that their practices align with their educational philosophy. The hidden curriculum is not easy to change because it is unconscious, subtle, and pervasive. It can reinforce stereotypes and inequalities and impact academic performance.
Critical Consciousness
The ability to recognize and analyze systems of inequality and the commitment to take action against these systems.
Paulo Freire and other critical theorists use the term critical consciousness to depict individuals’ deep understanding of the world, the ability to identify political and social inequities and their dedication to taking action against those systems. As an educator, having a critical consciousness means regularly inspecting your own practices, the materials you choose, and the way you structure your classes. An Educator must consider what message and lesson they send students.
Imagine a newly certified Social Studies teacher teaching Global History. A Social Studies teacher is certified to teach all history from the beginning of time to the present day, plus other courses like economics, sociology, civics, and government. While many civilizations are included in the curriculum as written by the state, this teacher notices the textbook is much more detailed about the Roman Empire than the Chinese dynasties. Remembering their own History and Social Studies instruction, the educator feels they are at a disadvantage as well because their own teachers didn’t spend a lot of time covering the topics. While the new teacher has ideas and resources for how to add to a unit on Rome, they feel less prepared to teach about the cultures of Africa or Asia.
- While this story focuses on Social Studies, each certification area might have its own issues. What type of similar issues about content may come up in other classes?
- What message does it send to students if certain topics are given unequal time in the school year?
- Do you think that students know when a topic is their teacher’s favorite vs something the teacher feels they have to cover?
- What steps could you take to improve this situation?
- What does the hidden curriculum mean to you?
As an education student, you have had the experience of being a student, and very soon, you will be visiting classrooms as an observer. The hidden curriculum has important implications for the socialization of students but also potential for inequalities.
The hidden curriculum can have different aspects, such as cultural expectations, gender inequalities, racial biases, class and social privileges, and other aspects. Reflect on your experience in school, interactions with instructors and other school staff, and in classes.
Consider when hidden messages are embedded into the way content is communicated or taught. In mathematics education, a traditional way of thinking prioritizes the learning and following of the instructor’s rules and procedures for a type of problem. Students may be expected to solve all problems of a particular type in a routine way. Students who follow the procedure but get the problem wrong may even receive more points than students who got the right answer but did it a different way. What message may this instructor inadvertently be teaching their students about creativity?
As you consider these questions, think both about your own experiences and your future classroom.
- How does the hidden curriculum impact students’ learning, attitude, and behavior?
- How does the hidden curriculum reinforce or challenge mainstream ideas and traditional power relationships?
- How can students and educators transform the hidden curriculum to promote more inclusive and equitable education?
Learner-Centered Curriculum
Learner-Centered Curriculum: An approach to curricular design where student’s interests determine the direction and design of the educational experience. Educators customize learning paths for individual students.
The central premise of the learner-centered curriculum entails designing instruction for the student’s needs, interests, and abilities. By fostering student engagement, teachers hope to encourage more autonomy in students’ own learning, developing their student’s talents and potential.
Practitioners of the learner-centered curriculum work hard to individualize instruction and differentiate it for each student, allowing students to have choices in their learning. The learner-centered curriculum values the diversity and uniqueness of each student and seeks to create a supportive and respectful learning environment.
One of the guiding principles of learner-centered curriculum is the doctrine of interest. The doctrine of interest is the idea that students should study what they want to study. In this mindset, the curriculum is built based on the individual student’s interest. Proponents of the doctrine of interest argue that forcing students to learn what they aren’t interested in is largely a waste of time. Critics contend that to truly embrace the doctrine of interest, the teacher must trust that the students have the ability to choose wisely what will benefit them the most in the future.
The role of the instructor in the learner-centered classroom has multiple responsibilities. They must ensure a learning environment that anticipates students’ needs and interests as well as appropriately challenging their abilities. While providing autonomy in the learning process, the instructor needs to encourage active participation, promote collaboration, and suggest activities that balance the learners’ interests.
Explore more: Many educational psychologists and philosophers have contributed to the framework of the
learner-centered curriculum. Explore some of the educators that have contributed to this framework.
John Dewey
John Dewey was a major educational reformer and college professor in the early 1900s. He advocated for a progressive educational system. Dewey advocated for education to be a social and collaborative endeavor with hands-on and real-life applications.
Additional Resources on Dewey: John Dewey: Portrait of a Progressive Thinker | The National Endowment for the Humanities (neh.gov)
Maria Montessori Maria Montessori was an Italian physician and educator. She advocated for a method of education
that prioritized respecting the individuality of children, independence, and stimulating curiosity. Additional Resources on Montessori Maria Montessori – Quotes, Theories & Facts (biography.com)
Montessori Education: Learner-Centered Curriculum in Practice
Prepared Environment
In Montessori Education, the prepared environment is a classroom with materials and manipulatives that the students can see, select, reach themselves, and begin to explore.
Montessori education is an example of a learner-centered curriculum. It is based on the idea that children are eager to learn. Students at Montessori schools can initiate and direct their own learning in a prepared environment that offers materials and activities based on a variety of interests. In Montessori education, the prepared environment refers to a learning space with educational activities at the ready, which can be chosen and utilized by the students.
Montessori education emphasizes hands-on learning and real-world skills and allows children to work at their own pace on activities they choose. Montessori education fosters independence, responsibility, and self-discipline, as well as cooperation, collaboration and social skills.
Walking into a Montessori classroom, a guest would not see a teacher in the front of the classroom or children of all the same age. Instead, children would be grouped in similar age ranges, typically 2-3 years apart, and there would be several teachers in the room, who are called guides. Students choose their own hands-on learning activities around the five main topics of Montessori education: Practical Life, Math, Language, Sensorial, and Cultural. Students have long work periods of 2-3 hours where they can work through activity-based lessons, or they have the freedom to move between several activities.
Montessori education prioritizes hands-on manipulatives to aid student learning through experiences. A well-designed Montessori activity integrates hands-on learning, includes multiple domains of knowledge, and integrates them in a holistic way. A student who is interested in the solar system might pick materials off a shelf for themselves. There would be physical manipulatives for them to interact with, such as wood blocks that symbolize the planets or cards with facts and information about each planet. Students would have tasks to do, such as classifying planets in different ways or placing them in order. The instructor would observe the student, try to identify if and when to intervene, and may attempt to give the student a new prompt or challenge to work through with the materials they have chosen.
Critics of Montessori education point to the large cost of running these schools. With one adult per every twelve children, Montessori schools are often private schools with long waiting lists and expensive tuition.
Project-Based Learning: Learner-Centered Curriculum in Practice
Project Based Learning (PBL)
An approach to education where students learn by completing projects that are designed to mimic real-world situations.
Project Based Learning (PBL) is a method of teaching where students investigate or respond to an authentic problem or question over an extended period of time. Not simply tacking on a project at the end of a unit, practitioners of Project Based Learning carefully design a project so that through completion of the project, students engage with the important knowledge and skills that students need to learn.
A key part of courses that utilize project-based learning is that students work on an authentic or real-world problem. Students may then collaborate to develop what information they need to know and want to know to address the question. This may include working with experts and community members, research, and collaboration. The teacher would help the students create a project plan on how they will collaborate and how they will present their work.
An instructor using a project-based approach would be responsible for working with groups of students. While the students would be expected to come up with the questions, finding resources and applying that information to their project, the instructor would be intervening when necessary, suggesting additional framing questions, aiding students in finding resources, and making sure groups are working well together.
Ill-structured problem
A real-world problem that may not have a clean or simple solution. Ill-structured problems require students to do research and creative thinking.
Many proponents of project-based learning believe that the public product or presentation is a key factor in the success of project-based learning. The public sharing of projects reinforces the idea that the students are working on real-world problems and that their work is intended for an audience greater than just their own teacher or class.
Project Based Learning can be integrated into a single course or may be used as an opportunity to collaborate between multiple subject areas. Proponents of PBL argue that it encourages students to deal with complex and ill-structured problems, integrate information from multiple sources, and have ownership over their learning. Critics say that PBL takes significant resources and time and that it may lead to missed content or gaps in knowledge due to the time projects require.
Society Centered Curriculum
Society-Centered Curriculum: An approach to curricular design where the needs of the society are prioritized. Lessons and subjects are organized ; based on community needs or problems.
Progressive Educational Movement: A movement in educational history that rejected rote learning and recall in favor of experiential learning and authentic tasks.
The society-centered curriculum is based on the idea that education should be designed around societal concerns and community issues. In this approach to education, the purpose of education is centered around the future needs of the community. This approach focuses on preparing students for their roles and responsibilities as citizens and also addresses the problems and challenges that society faces.
The society-centered curriculum shares many aspects with the learner-centered curriculum. Both could be classified as part of the progressive educational movement, a reaction to earlier knowledge-centered approaches that prioritized education. Both learner-centered approaches and society-centered approaches seek to focus education on the whole person, making it more democratic, and empowering students.
While the learner-centered curriculum emphasizes the individual agency of students, the society-centered
curriculum emphasizes collective well-being and the needs of the community. The society-centered
curriculum targets societal issues and trends. Practitioners that favor a society-centered
approach may state among their goals preparing students to be engaged citizens and prepared to interact with their government, may focus on leadership, advocacy, and teamwork as key parts of their classroom, or may emphasize subjects and topics where they see a need or shortage of workers.
Explore More: Many educational psychologists and philosophers have contributed to the framework of the society-centered curriculum. Explore some of the educators that have contributed to this framework.
Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator and a leading scholar of critical pedagogy. His book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, was published in 1968 and outlined a new relationship between teachers and students, with students acting as co-creators of knowledge. Freire believed that education and critical thinking were the essential foundation of democratic societies.
bell hooks
bell hooks was an educator and social critic. She is best known for applying critical theory to the American education system. As a black feminist and educator, hooks wrote about the influences of race, capitalism, and gender on the educational system. Her 1994 book, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, reflected on her time in segregated black schools and her time at integrated schools. hooks describes her time in all-black schools as joyful and her time at integrated schools as traumatic, challenging educators to understand how the school culture could be oppressive for students. bell hooks was born Gloria Jean Watkins. She took on the name bell hooks, which was her great-grandmother’s. She chooses not to capitalize her name to focus on the message, not the person.
Teaching to Transgress – Books – Act Build Change
Freire’s Brazil: Society-Centered Curriculum for Societal Change
Freire’s philosophy on education was a direct reaction to the historical context of Brazil in the 1970s. At this time, Brazil was a third world country in the original meaning of the term, meaning that they were not directly aligned with either the United States or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. From 1964 to 1985, Brazil was under a military dictatorship that saw gradual democratization, eventually leading to a new democratic constitution and government in 1988.
Working as an educator during those times of change, Freire saw education as a means to overcome all types of oppression: political, economic, and intellectual. The goal of his pedagogies was the intellectual liberation of both the oppressed from the colonialist and capitalist social structures. He hoped education would change people’s mentalities and processes so that a truly democratic society could emerge. Freire warned that an uneducated society would be susceptible to misinformation and that democracy would be fragile if the population made decisions based on emotional thinking rather than critical thinking.
To Freire, education should empower the people to:
- Discuss the real problems of their time and come up with solutions.
- To empower students to reevaluate constantly using scientific and systematic methods.
- To view themselves as part of and in conversation with their society.
- To assume a critical attitude towards the world and, in doing so, be prepared to change it.
To underscore the differences between his model of education, which sees students as partners in the classroom and emphasizes the knowledge each student brings to the table, Freire derisively used the phrase “the banking model of education” to describe past practices. In the banking model of education, students are treated as empty vessels, needing to be filled with information. Freire believed this mindset reinforced racist colonial attitudes. In The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he wrote about an alternative, which was to respect student knowledge, to include their voice in the curriculum, and to empower them. Freire’s pedagogy is a criticism and reaction to colonialism where only the dominant culture’s ideas, literature, and ways of understanding are valued. Critical pedagogies roots are, then, an act of decolonial resistance to colonialism and oppression
Knowledge Centered Curriculum
Knowledge-Centered Curriculum
An approach to curricular design that is subject-based and aims to teach students disciplinary knowledge.
The goal of the knowledge-centered curriculum is to teach all students a broad range of subjects that are considered essential. In a knowledge-centered approach, there is a canon of agreed-upon essential knowledge or skills that are scaffolded across the educational experience. Traditionally, students are taught a variety of disciplines separately, including science, mathematics, the humanities, and art.
The knowledge-centered approach is deeply rooted in traditional educational philosophies. The focus is on skills and facts from academic subjects. Although there may be some interdisciplinary work, the majority of the time is spent working with teachers who are themselves specialists in one area or another. Proponents of the knowledge-centered curriculum believe that a foundation in math, science, literature, and history is the best preparation for life because the broad skill set will allow the educated person to adapt to multiple environments. While the academic curriculum isn’t opposed to career training, proponents of the knowledge-centered curriculum prefer that specific career training comes after high school, and students are not identified and tracked into groups who will go to college and those who will go directly into the workforce. This is because the advocates for the knowledge-centered curriculum believe that broad exposure to academic disciplines is the goal. The argument is that a well-educated and well-rounded person is adaptable and prepared for the future.
Textbooks as curriculum
One example of a knowledge-centered curriculum is the textbook. Modern textbooks consist of a multitude of learning materials, multimedia, question banks, supplementary resources, and teacher guides. A giant industry, three or four leading companies produce the majority of textbooks in the United States. Many of the curricular battles play out in what is included in the textbook. There has been a drive to make sure more diverse voices are present in all textbooks to try to make sure students are exposed to a wide variety of cultures. This push for inclusion has also prompted a backlash from parent groups and lawmakers who feel that a progressive agenda is being pushed on students.
While there are legitimate fears of over-standardization and teachers being forced to use scripted or canned
curricula, textbooks have been a ubiquitous part of most American schools. Textbooks have strengths. They are organized and supply a structure and sequence for complex subject matters. Teacher certifications can be very broad, and instructors can find themselves teaching several subjects and will likely not have the time to assemble resources of the appropriate difficulty and scope for their students.
Critical teachers must be aware of the strengths and limitations of textbooks. Part of building a critical consciousness is being aware that textbooks may contain biased coverage of certain topics, may not have problem-solving or higher-level activities for students, and may limit students’ exposure to a wide variety of resources because the textbook becomes the single source of information. Expert teachers make informed choices with their text, including when to use it, when to supplement it with outside resources, and how to structure class with or without it.
Explore More:
Many Educational Psychologists and Philosophers have contributed to the framework of the Knowledge-Centered Curriculum. Explore some of the educators that have contributed to this framework.
E.D. Hirsch Jr.: Essentialism
E.D. Hirsch Jr. was a professor of English at the University of Virginia. Hirsch put forward the idea that knowledge, not competencies or skills, should be the goal of the curriculum. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Curriculum lays out what he considered to be essential for Americans to possess in common. His 2020 book How to Educate a Citizen is a follow-up to his 1987 book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know.
Mortimer Adler: Perennialism Mortimer Adler is the author of the Paideia Proposal (1982), in which he laid out the need for a classical education focused on the perennial or everlasting ideas of the greatest thinkers and philosophers. Adler’s approach calls for everyone to study great thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas.
The Committee of Ten
Standardization of the American High Schools
In 1892, a group of American educators were brought together to make recommendations on the future of high school education. Drawing heavily from colleges and universities and led by the president of Harvard University, the Committee of Ten made recommendations to standardize the high school curriculum. The central part of the recommendation was to create a core curriculum that would prepare students for higher education and the workforce.
The committee’s recommendations centered on a core curriculum comprising literature, classical languages, mathematics, science, and history. The recommendations of the committee of ten create a structure for high school that still might feel familiar to students. English, history, math, and science. Math should be taught in a sequence of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. Science should be taught every year with a year each of practical geography, biology, chemistry, and physics in that order. A major difference between the curriculum of the early 1900s and today would be the early curriculum’s emphasis on classical languages such as Greek and Latin. A high schooler would have taken both Greek and Latin, as well as two modern languages, usually French and German.
The Committee of Ten’s work laid the foundation for the structuring of high schools in the United States, setting the precedent for core subjects. While there have been extensive reforms to education over the years, the initial structure recommended by the Committee of Ten is still visible.
The legacy of the committee lives on in a few different ways. The high school schedule still bears a close resemblance to the committee’s recommendations, but perhaps the more important and enduring legacy is the idea that every student should take this college preparatory curriculum. An ongoing debate since the release of the Committee of Ten’s initial report has been the need to balance standardized curriculums and the need for flexibility and student-centered approaches in modern education.
Advanced Placement (AP) Tests
Each year, more than a million students challenge demanding Advanced Placement tests in high school, hoping to gain college credit for taking an advanced high school course. Run by the organization The College Board, the same organization that runs the SATs, Advanced Placement tests have become a benchmark by which students and schools are judged. These high-stakes exams are marketed towards high schoolers and their parents as a way to show rigor in their high school education and a way to stand out in the college admission process.
To be able to teach an AP Course at a high school, the school must apply to the College Board, submit a detailed curriculum outlining alignment to the AP test, and choose a textbook that the College Board has approved. AP Courses are available in math, science, history, english, world languages, and a newer capstone program in research methodology.
Students in AP Courses are challenged with a broad curriculum that includes all the topics typically taught in a college introductory course. Critics of the AP Exams have said that AP courses focus too much on a wide breadth of materials but lack the time to do a deep and thorough analysis of individual topics.
The number of AP courses taught and how the students score on them feature prominently in how American high schools are compared to each other in ratings, such as the US News ratings of High Schools. School administrators attach letters in their student college applications stating how many advanced courses are available at their institutions. 35% of high school students who graduated in 2022 took at least 1 AP course, and college credit for high school courses has continued to grow as a trend and expectation in the American High School experience.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program
The International Baccalaureate Organization is a non-profit educational organization based out of Switzerland. Since the 1960s, the IB Diploma program has been utilized in international schools to cater to the families of multinational corporations, military families, and mobile groups. In the United States, IB diploma programs are often used as an accelerated learning opportunity for exceptional students.
The major domains of the IB Program model.
The IB Program consists of coursework in 6 main areas: Language, Second Language, Individuals and Societies, Mathematics or Computer Science, Experimental Sciences, and The Arts. In addition to the coursework, all students take a required Theory of Knowledge Course, have to do experiential learning through their Creativity Action Service requirement and do an independent research project or extended essay of 4,000 words.
The purpose of the IB diploma is to have an internationally recognized qualification that could be recognized all over the world, to have an international intellectual framework, to educate the whole person, and to develop inquiry and thinking skills. The IB diploma is recognized and well regarded, with similar prestige for graduates as those who score highly on Advanced Placement or AP tests through the College Board. A major difference between the IB programs and Advanced Placement programs is that the AP Tests are single high-stakes tests, while in the IB program, testing is integrated throughout the school year, with external graders used to rate students and the schools.
For a high school to participate in the IB Diploma program, administrators and teachers must be certified by the IB Organization, attend additional professional development, and continue their education.
Advocates for the use of the IB program and its high standards praise the international focus, rigor, and emphasis on critical thinking and research. Critics bring concerns about the demanding nature of the IB curriculum and stress on students.
Unlearning Box
A substitute teacher was supposed to give an assessment while the classroom teacher was away, but one student refused to take the test. “He started yelling and walked out of the room, saying he wasn’t going to take this test that the teacher left for him. He kept saying that he was supposed to have questions read aloud to him, but that isn’t fair, and I wasn’t going to do it!” Sometimes we think that fairness means everyone is treated the same way, but in reality, “fairness” involves meeting the needs of different students. In this example, the student had an IEP accommodation that allowed him to have tests read aloud to him. When considering planning, instruction, and assessment, sometimes treating all students the same is actually quite unfair since students have different learning needs and strengths
Types of Curriculum
You have had some kind of experience with schooling, whether it was homeschool, private school, public school, or some combination of those. No matter the setting where you learned, someone decided what you would learn. This is the curriculum. It reaches far beyond the textbooks that you might have used or the novels that you read. It even includes things that are unstated.
There are different kinds of curriculum, including the explicit curriculum, implicit curriculum, and null curriculum. Explicit curriculum is the state, district, and schools’ formal accounting of what they teach. Another term for explicit curriculum is formal curriculum. The explicit or formal curriculum is often laid out in standards or other curricular materials. Implicit curriculum, or informal curriculum, involves hidden messages that students learn from schooling that aren’t specifically in the standards and possibly aren’t even explicitly taught.
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Explicit Curriculum
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Null Curriculum
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Extracurricular Experiences
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For example, students may see bulletin board displays where people who look like them are missing and therefore feel like they do not belong in that classroom, or they may see the way the teacher treats students when it comes to conflict and realize the teacher displays favoritism towards certain students. Finally, null curriculum is made up of those things that are not taught in schools at all for a variety of reasons, such as contributions in science by scholars of color or women (Eisner,as cited in Milner, 2017). Finally, extra-curricular curriculum includes school-sponsored opportunities that fall outside of academic requirements prescribed on the local and state levels. Examples of extra-curricular activities include participation in sports, music, student governance, yearbook, school newspaper, and academic clubs. Extracurricular participation is a strategy to promote school connectedness (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009). Extracurricular activities are often associated with many positive outcomes, such as higher academic achievement and decreased school dropout (Farb & Matjasko, 2012). According to the United States National Center for Education Statistics (2012), sports are the most common type of extracurricular activity among secondary school students, with 44% of high school seniors reporting participation in some type of sport. Additionally, 21% of students participate in music activities, as well as clubs, such as academic (21%), hobby (12%), and vocational clubs (16%).
There is immense power in determining what students will learn, with many competing forces at play. Because schooling in the United States is left to the jurisdiction of individual states, certain content is viewed, valued, and taught differently depending on the collective values of the state or county. For example, some students are taught about the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression,” while other schools may not allow Confederate flags in their buildings or on school grounds. Historical events are a part of the curriculum, but in many cases, these have been boiled down to the simplest pieces of information. Consider, for example, the difference between the following two lesson objectives: “Identify that Abe Lincoln wears a top hat” and “Explain how and why Abe Lincoln created the Emancipation Proclamation.” Imagine how different learning could be if more complex and important details were a part of the curriculum for all students
Link between Curriculum, Planning, and Assessment
Curriculum, planning, assessment, and instruction are all inextricably linked. Planning instruction is like a spider web, where all of the threads are connected in a carefully designed pattern. There are different kinds of spider webs, just as there are different ways to plan and deliver instruction and assessment.
This chapter outlines effective methods of instructional planning, but other methods exist in the world. You may have observed a teacher teach differently, perhaps more spontaneously, and enjoyed the experience. Keep in mind that all students are not the same. What worked for you or your family or friends is likely not the best or only way that teaching should be done. Teaching is challenging, complicated work, but with a solid understanding of curriculum, planning, assessment, and instruction, teachers are prepared to reach all students and move them to the next level of knowledge, skill, and understanding.
Reference: License Introduction to Education Copyright © 2022 by David Rodriguez Sanfiorenzo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Teacher Agency in Curriculum
In education, the concept of curriculum is an important thing for the future teacher to consider. Educators must constantly examine and reflect on their curricular goals and analyze their teaching tools and methods to make sure that all parts of the student’s experience, both the explicit plans and the hidden lessons conveyed, match their purpose of education.
Remember the warning as we introduced the learner-centered, society-centered, and knowledge-centered classification. While classification systems are convenient, the truth is that most educators will incorporate a spectrum of approaches, and the examples given in the chapter may represent the extreme implementation of these philosophies. The main takeaways may be the ideals that each approach embodies, from individual empowerment and societal reconstruction to comprehensive knowledge and exchange. There are ways to give learners a voice and control in their education that are not Montessori education or implementing full Project Based Learning.
Analyzing the American education system, at first glance, it has many of the criteria of a knowledge-centered curriculum, with an articulated curriculum of facts, competencies, and skills that students should be able to demonstrate their mastery of in defined subject areas. However, there is space in this curriculum for instructors to use their discretion and expertise.
As educators, it is those instructional choices that wield substantial power in shaping the student experience and our schools. It is essential to build a critical consciousness, continually evaluating practices and questioning the impact of those choices. By embracing this agency, educators can blend curricular and instructional philosophies and find their personal approach to meeting diverse student needs, giving students voice and choice in the curriculum, and making sure that today’s students are tomorrow’s citizens and neighbors.
Being able to articulate one’s purpose of education is an important first step in the process of becoming a critical educator. Once your goals are well defined, the next step is critical awareness to make sure that the instructional methods and content match the stated purpose. As agents of change, educators have the opportunity to influence and shape curricular choices that shape our students, schools, and societies.
Activity: Your Philosophy of Education
What is your teaching philosophy? What do you feel your role should be as a teacher in our educational system? Teacher candidates are often asked to explain their philosophy of education as part of the application and interview process.
Your teaching philosophy should be 2-3 pages in length and written in first person and in present tense. You will want to include examples and descriptions so your reader can “see” you in your classroom—these may be specific teaching strategies you use, assignments you integrate, discussions you have with students or the physical environment you create.
Some questions to get you started:
- Begin by making a list of what you feel education should do—what is the purpose of education or what are the goals of education? Are there specific educational theories that you believe in strongly?
- Make another list of teaching methods you feel best help you to reach this purpose. How do you interact with students? What does your classroom look and feel like? What kind of assignments do you believe are best? How do you support your students? How do you assess learning has taken place? What kind of strategies do you use to teach your specific discipline?
- Jot down two to three specific examples of your teaching methods and describe how you apply these in the classroom. What does this specifically look like?
- Also, write a justification of how you feel that your particular teaching methods help your students to reach your chosen goals of education. Why do you feel these are the best strategies for reaching the ideal education?
Once you have these portions written, go through them and select the teaching methods and the examples of these that you feel most fully convey your style of teaching.
Source:
- Writing a Philosophy of Education by the University of Arizona Global Campus Writing Center shared with a Creative Commons Attribution License
- ReStorying Education Copyright © by Ed Beck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.