I feel
that curriculum is an important aspect of education if designed and implemented
appropriately. I think to a certain extent, a curriculum can be standardized
because to me, there is core information that all students in each grade level
need to be taught (i.e. math, language arts, science, social studies) in order
to be able to function in and understand the world around them. It seems that
where this goes wrong is when curricula is designed with too much detail, in
which case a teacher is not given enough leeway to adapt the content to fit each
group of students he or she is teaching, or when the curricula is too vague and
does not provide enough structure for teachers to follow. I suppose in my ideal
world a good curriculum would provide just the right amount of structure so
that teachers understand what is expected to be taught in his or her classroom,
but also provides a teacher the freedom to focus on parts of the curriculum
that are of particular interest to the students in the class.
I
feel that there are aspects of a curriculum that cannot be standardized due to
the cultural diversity that exists within our country and many others. I think
that it is extremely important to incorporate cultural awareness into a curriculum,
and this may look slightly different depending on your geographic location. To
me, the “real life” scenarios that teachers use in their lessons as ways of
connecting new information with something already known, is also dependent on
location. It is hard to say what this may look like across the country, but I
feel that currently, too much time is spent on teaching to a test, that in my
opinion has absolutely no relevance in the real world, and not enough time is
spent teaching and providing children with the tools necessary to become
functioning members not only of their society, but members of what is becoming
a global society. This, to me, is not something that should wait until college.
As we know all too well, many students don’t make it to college, so why are we
waiting to teach them how to survive and function after the fact? Clearly this
technique does not fit into my ideal curriculum!
Lauren, I could not agree with you more about what you said about a global society. That is one of the reasons that I do not believe in having a regulated curriculum that teachers MUST follow. I do think the standards are helpful in guiding us on what topics need to be covered throughout the year but teachers have that special knack for teaching things that we know are important and not necessarily included in standardized curriculum. I too feel that teachers should be allowed to supplement and develop a more engaging, fruitful curriculum.
ReplyDeleteHello Lauren,
ReplyDeleteI also think that there is core information that all students have to know in order to function in their environment. However, I understand "standard" to mean the majority. That is, not all the kids at a given grade level are ready to process the required information at the standard rate ( may be because of lack of background knowledge, etc). So, this is one place where I think the teacher needs freedom to engage students in learning experiences appropriate to their necessities. certainly this is not the only place.
Lauren: I too agree that it is very important to have flexibility in curriculum to be able to teach to the needs of the students while incorporating the "core" subjects. I also agree that there is not s single curriculum that can be fit to all because of the diversity of each school and that is why teachers need freedom to fit the curricula to best fit each class.
ReplyDeleteLauren, great ideas. I especially
ReplyDeleteInked the portion on cultural diversity being Integrated into a curriculum. That is very important and should be left up to the teacher due to geographic location. I also agree with your comment on college prep which should be taught since middle school. Hopefully if given a little wiggle room we can focus on these skills in our future classrooms.