Comments on: What is Curriculum?

By: Robyn McMaster

Robyn McMaster — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:28:10 +0000

Ben, you pose both challenging dilemmas and interesting opportunities. What about bringing more student curiosity to the topics you want to plummet? Seems that bringing more of their ideas to the table in the planning stages of “curriculum development” takes them over the edge as they dig in and follow through. This idea is not original with me, but is found in “Student Assessment that Works: A Practical Approach,” by Dr. Ellen Weber.

By: Ben Grey

Ben Grey — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:52:48 +0000

Sylvia- That’s why I said all the stuff. I agree, it is more than the standards or lists or facts. It’s also the how. That is included in the stuff. It’s every bit of what students leave our institution with. That includes both what we intended from our curriculum, and even what we didn’t intend. Which is why I think we need to be incredibly purposeful when we are building our learning experiences for kids. Because many times, for them, what they learn that we didn’t intend is every bit as powerful as what we did intend.

By: Ben Grey

Ben Grey — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:24:30 +0000

That’s but part of it. Because in the end, what isn’t on the test might speak louder to students than what it is. What I mean is, if we build a curriculum around standardized testing prep, our assessments will test student’s level of preparation for the tests, and we will then be implicitly teaching them the value of standardization and how a system can be gamed by preparing specifically to beat it.

If we build our tests to be much richer experiences that assess not only content, but also more global skills like innovation, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, etc., the methodology of that test will also serve as a curricular vehicle by which we teach our students.

Curriculum is all the stuff our students learn. Both which we intend for them to, and even that which we don’t intend but is learned by the system we create. It really depends on us to create a learning system that considers the whole, not just the one-dimensional content emphasis that is so often demonstrated in traditional curriculum guides.

By: Chad Lehman

Chad Lehman — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:02:34 +0000

Isn’t curriculum the “stuff” that’s on the test? I’m kind of serious.

By: Dr. B

Dr. B — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:16:38 +0000

Hi Ben,
I think it is great that you are exploring these questions and willing to engage in courageous discussion with other educators.
You are correct that allowing students to select is rife with complications… how do we actively engage students and allow them to become participatory citizens in the educational processes that shapes their development? Perhaps, as some authors suggest, we need to focus more on student voice and empowerment?
Societal pressures continue to shape education and schooling now as much as they did in the 30s! Also, if you look at Sputnik and how we replied in the 50s with the push to return to the R’s and the basics… and then question… what are we responding to now and how are we responding? What is the force behind the neoliberal push and the focus on testing? Interesting questions… would love to chat sometime with you about all of this.
lisa

By: sylvia martinez

sylvia martinez — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:52:01 +0000

Ben,
I don’t think it’s sufficient to define curriculum simply as the “stuff” we want children to know. It’s more than standards or lists of facts. Curriculum typically includes the how, not just the what. There is always an educational philosophy built into curriculum. The curriculum includes how much time is spent on various topics and in what order they are presented. That reflects someone or some groups decision about how a child learns and what the “next” logical topic is. Those decisions are made based on a belief about how learning happens. That’s why I don’t believe you can separate curriculum from an educational philosophy.

Perhaps this is why you are struggling with it. The question about values in the content and process of curriculum reflects this. There are values in every curriculum, partly in the “what” and even more so in the “how”. Values does not only mean morals. Values can also mean what you believe about the nature of learning, and whether you believe that children are natural learners, or whether learning is only the end result of teaching. Those kinds of decisions hide in every curriculum.

By: Hadass

Hadass — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:39:22 +0000

Ben, I took a course on “The Structure of Schools” at the University of Winnipeg as an education student. It was taught by a bureaucrat from the Manitoba Dept of Ed, and she was refreshingly blunt about it – quoted from a book by Ben Levin whose name escapes me (The Purpose of Schooling?). Anyway, she said that the purpose of schools was in large part allocative – determining the winners and the losers, the academics and the people who would clean their houses. I thought that was totally horrible, but I think it *is* a major purpose of school as currently constituted. If everyone passes, what about your curve? When I was a university instructor I got called on the mat if too many of my students passed the course.

Oh, you were talking about what schools *should* be about? Now that might be worth discussing … looking forward to your continued thoughts.

By: Ben Grey

Ben Grey — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:09:40 +0000

Ann,

There’s so much that so many of us do not remember from our high school education and earlier. This is why shows like “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader” work. Of course we are, but we just aren’t so freshly imbibed with the trivia as they are. Or think of American history. The average American student will take the exact same history course four times in their formal education. And how many would pass a basic 8th grade history test? We continue spending time teaching what will so soon be forgotten. And we’re making that the point of education. That has to change.

By: Ann

Ann — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:01:08 +0000

So even if districts do make a decision as to what the curriculum should be, there is always the question, do the teachers teach it as mandated? And then, even if the teachers are teaching it, are the students learning? We all know that teaching does not always = learning. Sometimes I struggle to remember anything I learned in high school, but I must have learned something, no?