Foundation of Curriculum

UNITS Title Page No

Unit-I

Nature of Curriculum

Meaning and Concept of Curriculum Curriculum as a body of socially

organized knowledge Inert and live curriculum Components of Curriculum Foundations of Curriculum

1 to 55

Unit-II

Principles of Curriculum Construction

Students centred Activity centred Community centred Forward looking principle Principles of integration Theories of curriculum development

55 to 82

Unit-III

Determinants of Curriculum

Explosion of knowledge Information vs. Knowledge Nurturing creativity construction Society Social forces Revolutionary change in Society ICT Growth and Development of Learner Nature of Subject matter

Title

83 to 150

Unit-IV

Approaches to Curriculum

Subject centred

Learner centred

Community centred

Curriculum Framework

151 to 161

Unit-V

Types and Areas of Curriculum

Humanistic Curriculum

Characteristic of Humanistic

curriculum

Psychological basis of humanistic

curriculum

Social reconstructionist curriculum

Role of Teacher

162 to 202

 "Because we are on an island, we have to be creative about our curriculum" -Sheri Milburn

“The school of hard knocks is an accelerated curriculum” We try and teach all curriculum areas. 

-Anne Ambroziak

INTRODUCTION:

It is derived from the Latin word ‘currere’ which means “to run”, this definition was produced by Pinar (1974) to highlight the running (or lived experience). Indeed, for many students, the school curriculum is a race to be run, a series of obstacles or hurdles (subjects) to be passed. It is the “what” of teaching. A dynamic process. All the activities going on the school or outside of the school is called curriculum. It is basic to the intellectual, physical, moral and emotional development of the child.

CURRICULUM:

Curriculum comprises all the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually inside or outside of the school.

- Kerr

Curriculum is the totality of experiences that pupils receive through the manifold activities that go in the school, in the classroom, library, laboratory, workshop, play ground and in the numerous informal contacts between the teachers and pupils. -The Secondary Education Commission (1952-1953)

Curriculum is a tool in the hands of the Artist (Teacher), to mould his/her materials (Students), according to his/her ideals (objectives) in his/her studio (College/ School). -Cunningham.

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Some definitions of curriculum:-

Many writers advocate their own preferred definition of curriculum, which emphasizes other meanings or connotations, particularly those the term has taken on recently.

According to Portelli (1987), more than 120 definitions of the term appear in the professional literature devoted to curriculum, presumably because authors are concerned about either delimiting what the term means or establishing new meanings that have become associated with it.

Hlebowitsh (1993) criticizes commentators in the curriculum field who focus ‘only on certain facets of early curriculum thought while ignoring others’ (p. 2).We need to be watchful, therefore, about definitions that capture only a few of the various characteristics of curriculum (Toombs and Tierney, 1993), especially those that are partisan or biased.

Oliva (1997) also points out that definitions of curriculum can be conceived in narrow orbroad ways. He suggests that differences in the substance of definitions of curriculum are largely due to whether the emphasis is upon:

• purposes of goals of the curriculum (for example a curriculum is to develop reflective thinking);

• contexts within which the curriculum is found (for example a curriculum is to develop the individual learner in all aspects of growth); or

• strategies used throughout the curriculum (for example a curriculum is to develop problem solving processes). 2

The incompleteness of any definition notwithstanding, certain definitions of the term can provide insights about common emphases

and characteristics within the general idea of curriculum. Consider, for example, the following definitions of curriculum:

• Curriculum is the ‘permanent’ subjects that embody essential knowledge.

• Curriculum is those subjects that are most useful for contemporary living.

• Curriculum is all planned learning's for which the school is responsible.

• Curriculum is the totality of learning experiences so that students can attain general skills and knowledge at a variety of learning sites.

• Curriculum is what the students construct from working with the computer and its various networks, such as the Internet.

• Curriculum is the questioning of authority and the searching for complex views of humansituations.

Curriculum is such ‘permanent’ subjects as grammar, reading, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, and the greatest books of the Western world that best embody essential knowledge.

An example is the National Curriculum enacted in the United Kingdom in 1988, which prescribed the curriculum in terms of three core and seven foundational subjects, including specific content and specific goals for student achievement in each subject.

3The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation introduced into the US in 2001 requires tests in reading and maths annually for students in

grades 3–8 and once in high school. This is an unprecedented focus on two traditional subjects, reading and maths. What is not tested are subjects such as history, art, civics, music and physical education and these are deemed by many students as not worth knowing (Guilfoyle, 2006).

Problems posed by the definition;

This definition suggests that the curriculum is limited to only a few academic subjects. It assumes that what is studied is what is learned. It does not address questions such as: does the state of knowledge change? If so, shouldn’t the subjects making up the curriculum also change? What makes learning such subjects essential?

Goodson and Marsh (1996) point out that the National Curriculum in the United Kingdom is simply a reconstitution of the subjects included in the Secondary Regulations of 1904, suggesting that ‘historical amnesia allows curriculum reconstruction to be presented as curriculum revolution’ (p. 157).

Griffith (2000) contends that a knowledge-based curriculum such as the National Curriculum does not exist independently of space and time. It should not be considered a historically, for it is neither neutral, factual nor value free.

Curriculum is those subjects that are most useful for living in contemporary society.

4The subjects that make up this curriculum are usually chosen in terms of major present-day issues and problems within society, but the

definition itself does not preclude individual students from making their own choices about which subjects are most useful.

According to Rothstein, Wilder and Jacobsen (2007) a balanced curriculum should be concerned about contemporary living skills such as critical thinking, project-based learning and social skills.

Wilson (2002) argues that curriculum must include higher-order skills such as teaching students to think critically and to communicate complex ideas clearly.

The curriculum is the plans made for guiding learning in the schools, usually represented in retrievable documents of several levels of generality, and the actualization of those plans in the classroom, as experienced by the learners and as recorded by an observer; those experiences take place in a learning environment that also influences.

MAJOR DEFECTS IN THE PRESENT CURRICULUM:

Examination oriented Text Book based examinations Emphasis on theory not practical Heavy syllabus Rote learning is encouraged Not to life oriented Not helpful to vocation Not developing the whole personality

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CONCEPTS OF CURRICULUM:

Walker (2003) argues that the fundamental concepts of curriculum include:

Purpose,

Organization,

Content.

CONTENT: Which may be depicted in terms of concept maps, topics and themes, all of which are abstractions which people have invested and named;

PURPOSE: Usually categorized as intellectual, social and personal; often divided into super ordinate purposes; stated purposes are not always reliable indicators of actions;

ORGANIZATION: Planning is based upon scope and sequence (order of presence over time); and can be tightly organized or relatively open-ended.

Curriculum is actually defined in two ways:

In a sense, the task of defining the concept of curriculum is perhaps the most difficult of all, for the term curriculum has been used with quite different meanings ever since the field took form. Curriculum, however, can be defined as prescriptive, descriptive, or both.

Prescriptive, Descriptive.

In prescriptive definitions, they provide us with what ‘ought’ to happen, and they more often than not take the form of a plan, an intended program, or some kind of expert opinion about what needs to take place in the course of study” (Ellis, 2004)

In descriptive definition, they beyond the prescriptive terms as they force thought about the curriculum, “not merely in terms of how things ought to be... but how things are in real classrooms” (Ellis, 2004). Another term that could be used to define the descriptive curriculum is experience. The experienced curriculum provides “glimpses” of the curriculum in action.

Prescriptive [curriculum]

Prescriptive definitions provide us with what “ought” to happen, and they more often than not take the form of a plan, an intended program, or some kind of expert opinion about what needs to take place in the course of study. (Ellis,2004,)

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Descriptive Definitions of Curriculum:

The descriptive definitions of curriculum displayed in Exhibit 1.2 go beyond the pre- scriptive terms as they force thought about the curriculum “not merely in terms of how things ought to be . . . but how things are in real classrooms” (Ellis, 2004).

Another term that could be used to define the descriptive curriculum is experience. The experienced curriculum provides “glimpses” of the curriculum in action. Several examples, in chrono- logical order, of descriptive definitions of curriculum are listed.

The definitions provided for prescriptive and descriptive curricula vary primarily in their breadth and emphasis. It would seem that a useful definition of curriculum should meet two criteria:

It should reflect the general understanding of the term as

used by educa- tors, and it should be useful to educators in making operational distinctions.

9Date Author Definition

1935 Hollis Caswell & Doak Campbell

All the experiences children have under the guidance of teachers.

1941 Thomas Hopkins Those learning's each child selects, accepts, and incorporates into himself to act with, on, and upon, in subsequent experiences.

1960 W. B. Ragan All experiences of the child for which the school accepts responsibility.

1987 Glen Hass The set of actual experiences and perceptions of the experiences that each individual learner has of his or her program of education.

1995

Daniel Tanner & Laurel Tanner

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The reconstruction of knowledge and experience that enables the learner to grow in exercising intelligent control of subsequent knowledge and experience.

2006 D. F. Brown All student school experiences relating to the improvement of skills and strategies in thinking critically and creatively, solving problems, working collaboratively with others, communicating well, writing more effectively, reading more analytically, and conducting research to solve problems.

2009 E. Silva An emphasis on what students can do with knowledge, rather than what units of knowledge they have, is the essence of 21st-century skills.

11CONCEPTIONS OF CURRICULUM:

Longstreet and Shane (1993) refer to four major conceptions of curriculum:

society-oriented curriculum: the purpose of schooling is to serve society;

student-centred curriculum: the student is the crucial source of all curriculum;

knowledge-centred curriculum: knowledge is the heart of curriculum;

eclectic curriculum: various compromises are possible, including mindless eclecticism!

The conceptions or orientations of curriculum produced by Eisner and Vallance (1974) are often cited in literature, namely:

o A cognitive process orientation: cognitive skills

applicable to a wide range of intellectual problems;

o Technological orientation: to develop means to

achieve pre-specified ends;

o Self-actualization orientation: individual students

discover and develop their unique identities;

o Social reconstructionist orientation: schools must be

an agency of social change;

o Academic rationalist orientation: to use and

appreciate the ideas and works of the various disciplines. 12

It is interesting to note that Vallance (1986) modified these orientations twelve years later by deleting ‘self-actualization’ and adding ‘personal success’ (pursuing a specific, practical end) and a ‘curriculum for personal commitment’ (pursuing learning for its inherent rewards).

These conceptions of curriculum are useful to the extent that they remind educators of some value orientations that they may be following, whether directly or indirectly. Yet others, such as Pinar et al. (1995), argue that these conceptions are stereotypes and are of little value.

Who is involved in curriculum?

Curriculum workers are many and include school-based personnel such as

o Teachers,

o Principals,

o Parents,

o University-Based Specialists,

o Industry And Community

Groups,o Government Agencies And

Politicians.

A large number of those working in the curriculum field are involved in serving the daily and technical needs of those who work in schools. This has been the traditional role over the decades where the focus has been upon curriculum development for school contexts.

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We make sense of our world and go about our daily lives by engaging in concept building. We acquire and develop concepts so that we can gain meaning about persons and events and in turn communicate these meaning to others.Some concepts are clearly of more importance than others. The key concepts provide us with the power to explore a variety of situations and events and to make significant connections.Other concepts may be meaningful in more limited situations but play a part in connecting unrelated facts.Every field of study contains a number of key concepts and lesser concepts which relate to substantive and methodological issues unique to that discipline/ field of study. Notunexpectedly, scholars differ over their respective lists of key concepts, but there is, nevertheless, considerable agreement (see, for example, Hayes, 2006). With regard to the curriculum field there is a moderate degree of agreement over key concepts.

Searching for key concepts:

To be able to provide any commentary on key concepts in curriculum assumes of course that we have access to sources of information that enable us to make definitive statements.

A wide range of personnel are involved in making curriculum, including school personnel, researchers, academics, administrators, politicians and various interest groups. They go about their tasks in various ways such as via planning meetings, informal discussions, writing reports, papers, handbooks, textbooks, giving talks, lectures, workshops, etc.

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To ensure that a list of key concepts is comprehensive and representative of all these sources would be an extremely daunting task. A proxy often used by researchers is to examine textbooks, especially synoptic textbooks (those books which provide comprehensive accounts and summaries of a wide range of concepts, topics and issues in curriculum).

Schubert et al. (2002) undertook a detailed analysis of textbooks over the period 1861–2000 and this volume provides a valuable overview of curriculum thought over major historical periods.

Marsh and Stafford (1988) provided a similar historical analysis of major curriculum books written by Australian authors over the period 1910–88. Green (2003) undertook a comprehensive review of Australian authors writing in the curriculum field.

Major synoptic texts published in the USA include Doll (1996), Oliva (2004) and Marsh and Willis (2007). All of these are longstanding texts in the USA and have undergone subsequent editions.

Pinar et al.’s (1995) Understanding Curriculum: An Introduction to the Study of Historical and Contemporary Curriculum Discourses, an encyclopaedic volume of diverse discourses, represents a very important but different form of synoptic text.

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In subsequent volumes, Pinar (2004) and Reynolds and Webber (2004) continue with presentations of diverse discourses – a complex, cacophonous chorus from competing theoretical points.

These texts tend to be very comprehensive and cover a number of key concepts within the broad categories of:

conceptions of curriculum/models/approaches;

curriculum history;

curriculum policy and policy-makers, politics of curriculum;

curriculum/ development/ procedures/change/improvement/ planning steps;

issues and trends/problems/future directions;

discourses of gender, race – postmodern, political, historical, phenomenological (especially Pinar et al., 1995).

A text published in the United Kingdom (Ross, 2000), has a major focus upon historical developments in curriculum in that country, but also includes sections on curriculum and reproduction, hidden curriculum, content-driven, objectives-driven and process-drivencurricula.

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In Australia, three major texts focus directly upon curriculum concepts.

Brady and Kennedy (2007) examine social contexts, curriculum planning models, assessment and evaluation, and curriculum change.

Marsh (2008) examines student learning, curriculum planning models, providing for individual differences, assessment and reporting, school culture, standards, innovation, and change.

Smith and Lovat (2003) examine the origins and nature of curriculum, curriculum and ideology, curriculum and the foundational disciplines, critical theory, assessment and evaluation, curriculum change, and curriculum futures.

Taken overall, it is very evident that there are a number of common key concepts that are included in these synoptic texts.Categories of concepts included in this volume After examining a wide range of synoptic curriculum texts, including those described above, a decision was made to include material relating to two sets of categories:

1. Generic issues in curriculum,

2. Alternative perspectives.

By concentrating upon a single concept in each chapter, it is possible, of course, to have many different groupings, and readers are encouraged to explore their own interests and swap around their order of reading chapters. Each chapter focuses upon a key concept in terms of its major characteristics, strengths and weaknesses.

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Generic categories

The generic categories include the following:

curriculum planning and development; curriculum management; teaching perspectives; collaborative involvement in curriculum; curriculum ideology.

Characteristics of curriculumSome curriculum experts, such as Goodlad (1979), contend that an analysis of definitions is a useful starting point for examining the field of curriculum. Other writers argue that there are important concepts or characteristics that need to be considered and which give some insights into how particular value orientations have evolved and why (Westbury, 2007).

Pinar et al. (1995) refer to the ‘shifting domain of curriculum development as

o Politicians,

o Textbook Companies,

o Subject-Matter specialists in the

university, rather thano School practitioners and

university professors of curriculum, exercise leadership and control over curriculum development’.

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In a later publication, Pinar (2004) argues that ‘public schoolteachers have been reduced to domestic workers instructed by politicians’ and that education professors are losing – have lost? – control of the curriculum we teach’.

Reflections and issues

1 There are very divergent views about the nature of curriculum. What definition of curriculum do you support? Justify your choice.

2 Trying to clarify central concepts by proposing definitions for them has been popular in many fields (Portelli, 1987). Have these concepts and definitions proven useful in the field of curriculum?

3 ‘The struggle over the definition of curriculum is a matter of social and political priorities as well as intellectual discourse’ (Goodson, 1988, p. 23). Reflect upon a particular period of time and analyse the initiatives, successes and failures which occurred in terms of curriculum development or policy development.

4 ‘If the curriculum is to be the instrument of change in education, its meanings and operational terms must be clearer than they are currently’ (Toombs and Tierney, 1993,

5 ‘The term “social subjects” rarely occurs in the current formulations of the National Curriculum or the whole curriculum in the United Kingdom; indeed the very word “society” is notable by its infrequency’ (Campbell, 1993, p. 137). This indicate deficiencies in the conceptions of curriculum. 19

The Four Components of Curriculum.. (Cayadong, Lindo )M.

Curriculum plays an important role in an educational system. It is somehow a blueprint which leads the teacher and the learner to reach the desired objectives. As a result, authorities have to design it in such a way that it could lead the teacher and the learner meet the desired learning outcomes.

The four components of the curriculum are :

1. Curriculum Aims, Goals and Objectives,

2. Curriculum Content or Subject Matter,

3. Curriculum Experience,

4. Curriculum Evaluation.

These four components of the curriculum are essential. These are interrelated to each other. Each of these has a connection to one another. Aims, goals, and objectives can be simplified as “what is to be done”, the subject matter/content: what subject matter is to be included, the learning experience” what instructional strategies, resources and activities will be employed, and the evaluation approaches , while curriculum evaluation is“ what methods and instruments will be used to assess the results of the curriculum.The curriculum aims, goals and objectives spell out what is to be done. It tries to capture what goals are to be achieved, the vision, the philosophy, the mission statement and objectives. Further, it clearly defines the purpose and what the curriculum is to be acted upon and try what to drive at. 20

In the same manner, curriculum has a content. In here, it contains information to be learned in school. It is an element or a medium through which the objectives are accomplished. A primordial concern of formal education is primarily to transmit organized knowledge in distilled form to a new generation of young learners.

The traditional sources of what is taught and learned in school is precisely the foundation of knowledge, therefore, the sciences and humanities provide the basis of selecting the content of school learning.In organizing the learning contents, balance, articulation, sequence, integration, and continuity form a sound content.

For the third component, the curriculum experience, instructional strategies and methods are the core of the curriculum. These instructional strategies and methods will put into action the goals and use of the content in order to produce an outcome. These would convert the written curriculum to instruction. Moreover, mastery is the function of the teacher direction and student activity with the teacher supervision.

For the fourth component, the curriculum evaluation is an element of an effective curriculum. It identifies the quality, effectiveness of the program, process and product of the curriculum. In summary, the components of a curriculum are distinct but interrelated to each other. These four components should be always present in a curriculum. I could say that these are essential ingredients to have an effective curriculum.

For example, in a curriculum, evaluation is also important so one could assess whether the objectives and aims have been meet or if not, he could employ another strategy which will really work out.

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Curriculum experience could not be effective if the content is not clearly defined. The aims, goals and directions serve as the anchor of the learning journey, the content or subject matter serve as the meat of the educational journey, curriculum experience serves as the hands –on exposure to the real spectrum of learning and finally the curriculum evaluation serves as the barometer as to how far had the learners understood on the educational journey.

Key Components of a Curriculum Plan:

Objectives, Content, Learning Experiences.

Curriculum developers must always be concerned about what should be included in the curriculum and how to present and arrange what is selected. In other words, they must first deal with content or subject matter and then learning experiences.

These tasks are preceded by formulating behavioural objectives, which act as a road map for the curriculum development and implementation process.

Regardless of the curriculum approach or development model used, curriculum leaders cannot ignore these three components. Committees charged with curriculum planning have options in selection of content and experiences—to be determined in part by the philosophical and psychological views of the committee members, the school, and the school district.

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Unquestionably, there is much content and a variety of learning experiences to include.

Committee members must decide not only what content and learning experiences to include, but also, and more importantly, the relationship of objectives and content as well as the relationship of objectives to learning experiences. Relationship of Objectives and Content Objectives are usually stated in terms of expected outcomes.

For example, a high school science teacher might develop a chronological list of topics to be covered in a high school biological science course: functions of human organisms, use of plant and animal resources, evolution and development, and the like (Williams, 2011).

This type of list shows what the science teacher intends to teach but not what the expected outcomes of instruction will be. The content outline is useful for the teacher in planning and guiding instruction, but it is insufficient for the statement of behavioural objectives. To be useful in teaching, behavioural objectives must be linked to content.

The real contribution of stating objectives for learning is to think of how each objective can be achieved by students through the content or subject matter they learn.

Ralph Tyler (1949) in his now classic text, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, has devised a two-dimensional chart for specifying varied types of objectives according to the subject-matter content and the behavioural aspects of the objectives Relationship of Objectives to Learning Experiences.

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In his classic text on curriculum, Tyler defined the term learning experiences as follows:

The term “learning experience” is not the same as the content with which a course deals nor the activities performed by the teacher.

The term “learning experience” refers to the interaction between the learner and the external conditions in the environment to which he/she can react.

Learning takes place through the active behaviour of the student. (p. 63) Tyler argues that the teacher’s problem is to select learning experiences that will foster active involvement in the learning process in order to accomplish the expected learning outcomes.

Tyler outlined five general principles in selecting learning experiences:

1. The learning experience must give students the opportunity to practice the desired behaviour. If the objective is to develop problem-solving skills, the students should have ample opportunity to solve problems.

2. The learning experience must give the students satisfaction. Students need satisfying experiences to develop and maintain interest in learning; unsatisfying experiences hinder their learning.

3. The learning experience must “fit” the students’ needs and abilities. This infers that the teacher must begin where the student is ability-wise and that prior knowledge is the starting point for new knowledge.

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4. Multiple learning experiences can achieve the same objective. There are many ways of learning the same thing. A wide range of experiences is more effective for learning than a limited range.

5. The learning experience should accomplish several learning outcomes. While students are acquiring knowledge of one subject or concept, they are able to integrate schooling that knowledge in several related fields and satisfy more than one objective (Tyler, 1949).

Four Major Foundations of Curriculum and their Importance in Education

The Influence of Philosophy to Curriculum

Educators, curriculum makers and teachers must have espoused a philosophy or philosophies that are deemed necessary for planning, implementing, and evaluating a school curriculum. The philosophy that they have embraced will help them define the purpose of the school, the important subjects to be taught, the kind of learning students must have and how they can acquire them, the instructional materials, methods and strategies to be used, and how students will be evaluated.

Likewise, philosophy offers solutions to problems by helping the administrators, curriculum planners, and teachers make sound decisions. A person’s philosophy reflects his/her life experiences, social and economic background, common beliefs, and education. When John Dewey proposed that “education is a way of life”, his philosophy is realized when put into practice. Now, particularly in the Philippines, Dewey’s philosophy served as anchor to the country’s educational system.

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History and Its Influence to Curriculum

The history of one’s country can affect its educational system and the kind of curriculum it has. If we are going to trace the formal beginning of curriculum, we get back in time to Franklin Bobbit’s book entitled, “The Curriculum” which was published in 1918.

From the time of Bobbit to Tyler, many developments in the purposes, principles and contents of the curriculum took place.

The Influence of Psychology to Curriculum

Curriculum is influenced by psychology. Psychology provides information about the teaching and learning process. It also seeks answers as to how a curriculum be organized in order to achieve students’ learning at the optimum level, and as to what amount of information they can absorb in learning the various contents of the curriculum.

The following are some psychological theories in learning that influenced curriculum development:

1. Behaviourism

Education in the 20th century was dominated by behaviourism. The mastery of the subject matter is given more emphasis. So, learning is organized in a step-by-step process. The use of drills and repetition are common.

For this reason, many educational psychologists viewed it mechanical and routine. Though many are sceptical about this theory, we can’t deny the fact the influences it had in our educational system.

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2. Cognitivism

Cognitive theorists focus on how individuals process information, monitor and manage their thinking. The basic questions that cognitive psychologists zero in on are:

How do learners process and store information? How do they retrieve data and generate conclusions? How much information can they absorb?

 With their beliefs, they promote the development of problem-solving and thinking skills and popularize the use of reflective thinking, creative thinking, intuitive thinking, discovery learning, among others.

3. Humanism

Humanism is taken from the theory of Gestalt, Abraham Maslow’s theory and Carl Rogers’ theory. This group of psychologists is concerned with the development of human potential.

In this theory, curriculum is after the process, not the product; focuses on personal needs, not on the subject matter; and clarifying psychological meanings and environmental situations. In short, curriculum views founded on humanism posits that learners are human beings who are affected by their biology, culture, and environment. They are neither machines nor animals.

A more advanced, more comprehensive curriculum that promotes human potential must be crafted along this line. Teachers don’t only educate the minds, but the hearts as well.

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4. Sociology and Curriculum

There is a mutual and encompassing relationship between society and curriculum because the school exists within the societal context.

Though schools are formal institutions that educate the people, there are other units of society that educate or influence the way people think, such as families and friends as well as communities.

Since the society is dynamic, there are many developments which are difficult to cope with and to adjust to. But the schools are made to address and understand the changes not only in one’s country but in the world as well.

Therefore, schools must be relevant by making its curriculum more innovative and interdisciplinary.

A curriculum that can address the diversities of global learners, the explosion of knowledge through the internet, and the educational reforms and policies recommended or mandated by the United Nations.

However, it is also imperative that a country must have maintained a curriculum that reflects and preserves its culture and aspirations for national identity.

No matter how far people go, it is the country’s responsibility to ensure that the school serves its purpose of educating the citizenry.

Now, it is your time to reflect. Can you think of your experiences in which the major foundation of curriculum can explain it?

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Curriculum can be ordered into a procedure:

Step 1: Diagnosis of needs,

Step 2: Formulation of objectives,

Step 3: Selection of content,

Step 4: Organization of content,

Step 5: Selection of learning experiences,

Step 6: Organization of learning experiences,

Step 7: Determination of what to evaluate and of the ways and means of doing it, Curriculum has numerous definitions, which can be slightly confusing.

In its broadest sense a curriculum may refer to all courses offered at a school, explicit. The intended curriculum, which the students learn through the culture of the school, implicit. The curriculum that is specifically excluded, like racism. Plus, the extracurricular activities like sports, and clubs. . This is particularly true of schools at the university level, where the diversity of a curriculum might be an attractive point to a potential student. A curriculum may also refer to a defined and prescribed course of studies, which students must fulfil in order to pass a certain level of education. For example, an elementary school might discuss how its curriculum, or its entire sum of lessons and teachings, is designed to improve national testing scores or help students learn the basics. An individual teacher might also refer to his or her curriculum, meaning all the subjects that will be taught during a school year.

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On the other hand, a high school might refer to a curriculum as the courses required in order to receive one’s diploma. They might also refer to curriculum in exactly the same way as the elementary school, and use curriculum to mean both individual courses needed to pass, and the overall offering of courses, which help prepare a student for life after high school.

Curriculum can be envisaged from different perspectives. What societies envisage as important teaching and learning constitutes the "intended" curriculum. Since it is usually presented in official documents, it may be also called the "written" and/or "official" curriculum. However, at classroom level this intended curriculum may be altered through a range of complex classroom interactions, and what is actually delivered can be considered the "implemented" curriculum. What learners really learn (i.e. what can be assessed and can be demonstrated as learning outcomes/learner competencies) constitutes the "achieved" or "learned" curriculum. In addition, curriculum theory points to a "hidden" curriculum (i.e. the unintended development of personal values and beliefs of learners, teachers and communities; unexpected impact of a curriculum; unforeseen aspects of a learning process).

Those who develop the intended curriculum should have all these different dimensions of the curriculum in view. While the "written" curriculum does not exhaust the meaning of curriculum, it is important because it represents the vision of the society. The "written" curriculum is usually expressed in comprehensive and user-friendly documents, such as curriculum frameworks; subject curricula/syllabuses, and in relevant and helpful learning materials, such as textbooks; teacher guides; assessment guides.

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In some cases, people see the curriculum entirely in terms of the subjects that are taught, and as set out within the set of textbooks, and forget the wider goals of competencies and personal development. This is why a curriculum framework is important. It sets the subjects within this wider context, and shows how learning experiences within the subjects need to contribute to the attainment of the wider goals.

There are many common misconceptions of what curriculum is and one of the most common is that curriculum only entails a syllabus. Smith (1996,2000) says that, "A syllabus will not generally indicate the relative importance of its topics or the order in which they are to be studied. Where people still equate curriculum with a syllabus they are likely to limit their planning to a consideration of the content or the body of knowledge that they wish to transmit". Regardless of the definition of curriculum, one thing is certain. The quality of any educational experience will always depend to a large extent on the individual teacher responsible for it (Kelly, 2009).

Curriculum is almost always defined with relation to schooling. According to some, it is the major division between formal and informal education. However, under some circumstances it may also be applied to informal education or free-choice learning settings. For instance, a science museum may have a "curriculum" of what topics or exhibits it wishes to cover. Many after-school programs in the US have tried to apply the concept; this typically has more success when not rigidly clinging to the definition of curriculum as a product or as a body of knowledge to be transferred. Rather, informal education and free-choice learning settings are more suited to the model of curriculum as practice or praxis.

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Primary and secondary education:

A curriculum may be partly or entirely determined by an external, authoritative body (e.g., the National Curriculum for England in English schools).

Crucial to the curriculum is the definition of the course objectives that usually are expressed as learning outcomes and normally include the program's assessment strategy.

These outcomes and assessments are grouped as units (or modules), and, therefore, the curriculum comprises a collection of such units, each, in turn, comprising a specialised, specific part of the curriculum. So, a typical curriculum includes communications, numeracy, information technology, and social skills units, with specific, specialized teaching of each.

Core curricula are often instituted, at the primary and secondary levels, by school boards, Departments of Education, or other administrative agencies charged with overseeing education.

A core curriculum is a curriculum, or course of study, which is deemed central and usually made mandatory for all students of a school or school system.

However, even when core requirements exist, they do not necessarily involve a requirement for students to engage in one particular class or activity.

For example, a school might mandate a music appreciation class, but students may opt out if they take a performing musical class, such as orchestra, band, chorus, etc

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Implication on classroom practice:

When reviewing the meaning of curriculum proposed by different scholars, I think of the role teachers should take in classrooms. From the news article about pro-home schooling, supporters criticize that school curriculum is negative because it contributes nothing but modification of the behaviour of student (Kelly, 1999). Personally I do not agree with the claim.

Curriculum itself is a “planned outcome” (Morris and Adamson,2010) , it will not brainwash unless all the textbook are published under surveillance and censorship or teachers convey messages in class inappropriately. Teachers should try to be open-minded and objective.

Teachers are not responsible for teaching them absolute right or wrong, but the skills of judging whether the issue is appropriate or inappropriate. If teachers and schools always open for discussion, students will have low possibility to be brainwashed. Apart from obtaining knowledge in received curriculum, students can learn outside classroom. In the case of Hong Kong, the high transparency and information flow enables students to learn more about the society and the world by themselves.

Regarding the meaning of the term “curriculum” as suggested by the Hong Kong Yearbook in 2006, the meaning tends to urge students improving the society instead of accommodate social needs.

According to the questions raised by Marsh (2009), curriculum should not be used to accommodate social needs, instead, it should function as a guidance for students to have further improvement. I, as a student teacher, should not follow the curriculum blindly.

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Instead of fulfilling the requirement or finishing the syllabus set by the EDB and schools, teachers can spend longer time discussing the topic with students in selective basis if possible. By transferring personal beliefs to students, they can learn more than simply subject knowledge.

Nature of curriculum: Kelly(1999) identifies three kinds of the nature of curriculum:

Planned Curriculum , Received Curriculum, Hidden Curriculum.

Planned curriculum means what is laid down in the syllabus.

Received curriculum refers to the reality of students’ experiences.

Hidden curriculum is knowledge that implicit knowledge students learn in school.

Regarding classification, Morris and Adamson (2010) raise the idea of null curriculum and outside curriculum on top of the three concepts stated by Kelly (1999) above.

Null curriculum means topic excluded in the curriculum. Outside curriculum means knowledge students learn outside classroom and school.

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Foundations of Curriculum

Foundations are the forces that influence the minds of curriculum developers.In this way they affect the content and structure of the curriculum.

The curriculum reflects the society and culture of a country and this is the desire of a society that their children should learn the habits, ideas, attitudes and skills of the adult society and culture and educational institutional are the proper way to impart these skill. This duty of teacher and school to discipline the young of the society and provide them the set of experiences in the form of curriculum. The needs, knowledge and information of the society provide foundation in the formation of curriculum

Philosophical/ ideological foundation

It is concerned with beliefs.

What is real --- ONTOLOGY What is true --- EPISTEMOLOGY What is good – AXIOLOGY

                                                                                                               Philosophy means the love of wisdom, it search for truth, not simple truth, It search for eternal truth, reality and general principles of life. Curriculum help in the practical use of knowledge in real life situations and understanding realities and ideas of life and this world that why curriculum is called the dynamic side of philosophy.                                                                                                                              

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Curriculum is used for the modification of the behaviour of the students and philosophy help in the process of finding new ways and basis for teachers and curriculum planner to modify their behaviour. Philosophy also helps in the exploring new methods of teaching and how to apply in the classroom situation for better achievement of the teaching learning process. It also provides new ways and methods for the evaluation of student’s achievement and evaluation of curriculum.

Philosophers of the past have made major influence in clarifying the association in the nature of knowledge and curriculum development process and also provide a foundation for curriculum; Plato presented a curriculum in his book “republic” at that times and it is still the core of the curriculum of today. Knowledge is given the high role in human life.Today world economics and societies are changing very rapidly; it needs depth in every discipline of education in this high time.                    

Today the world emphasis on finding new ways through which man develops new concepts of reality and knowledge and to form a new structure of knowledge in this dynamic and changing time therefore a high value is given to discovery, invention and restructuring of knowledge  and curriculum in new patterns. Now the new curriculum is open to new experiences, logical and critical thinking, and to bring about the concept of knowledge out of interpreted experience. Philosophy and ideology of education provide rules and principles which lead the in decision-making regarding educational practices and polices planning. It Guides the curriculum planner on the basses of the philosophical and ideological belief of the society in the constructing of subject matter keeping in view the future demands and needs of the schools and help in the promoting of human life through social change in the behaviour of the students.

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Philosophy and ideology has direct effect in curriculum planning because it guides the curriculum planner in the selection of the objectives and. As it provides guidelines in the selection of objectives, Learning experiences and content of the curriculum, and how to evaluate the curriculum, learning experiences and achievements of the students.

Some justification provided for the implications of curriculum given by different researcher are as under (Rud Yard K. Bent and Urruh, )

 Various customs values, traditions and knowledge need to be preserved by transfer them to the next generation.

The students also needed the knowledge of past and present in which they live, it help them in the process of adaptation and adjusting their self to new changes and new situation in life.

All those content of a subject who helps in intellectual development rather than practical value. It teaches student how to reason, develops mental ability to solve the problems in practical life situations. It helps in using different methods for search of eternal truth and how to analyze the knowledge and methods of inquiry.

The Secondary school curriculum should designed for developing maximum potentialities  of the students by including variety of leaning activities to educate each students to its highest.

Schools should be a tool and leader in directing new changes in the curriculum rather than maintainers of curriculum.

Students need skills and for that purpose some subject matter must be included in the curriculum to help them in acquiring these skills like experimentation and the use of laboratory techniques so they advance the knowledge.

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 Psychological foundations:

Psychological foundation is based on the individual differences, every student has its own unique personality and they have differences in their leering and skills.

They are different in nature so they can’t be treated alike in teaching learning process, some may be fast learner while other slow.

Therefore the curriculum should be based on the above facts, and it should be design to support the capacity and potentialities of all the students.

Psychology play a vital role in the teaching learning process it is the foundation for all type of educational related programmed.

The methods of teaching, the selection of content of subject and the methods and theories of learning, the overall development of the students and to inculcate the norms of the society in the students.

Psychology helps in all the processes above in the development process of the curriculum.

In the past curriculum for child development and learning was developed in traditional ways without keeping in view the psychological implication in the development of curriculum.

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Today psychology is the core and foundation element of all the learning processes; curriculum development, Child mental development, teaching methods, learning theories, administration of education system and planning, character building of the students,  attitude of students and teacher, the society, the use of different technologies.

Today the researchers and Scholars using experimental approach to find new ways of teaching learning process, how students learn under different conditions.

They are finding new ways and materials from the analysis of teaching learning problem and formulating new approaches for teaching and learning process.

Psychology helps in all fields of education, it not just add to knowledge, psychology is applied in practical class room situation as well as in the curriculum development process by defining teaching methods and origination of theIn the process of using psychology in curriculum development process some positive concepts or ideas about teaching learning process emerged, it is reflected in the work produced by different authors.

The traditional readiness concept for a difficult subject which require children maturity has been rejected by the modern researchers, now the researchers formed a new principle that the child can teach any subject on the condition that it provided keeping in view the principle of from simple to complex and that the students have the previous experience. 38

When the importance is given to basic concepts and the process of inquiry for teaching learning and curriculum development process the transfer of learning and future learning are improved.

The guided discovery of  the relationships in the student learning outcomes, subject matter and in teaching methods play a very important role in the teaching learning process compare to those approaches in which the curriculum planner used the views and conclusions of other for  developing curriculum.

The Interest and motivation  level of the students may be generated using the discovery method within the subject itself, the content of the subject should be interesting and appealing to generate curiosity  in the students to find more. In this way the student engage in finding the relationships in the subject matter presented to him, and engage the students in the process of inquiry.

Meaningful conversation involves the students in the organizing or structuring of facts into conceptual system which help the students to generate new ideas, make new interpretations and raise new questions.

The researchers prefer the use of inductive methods because it helps in the discovery through inquiry and help in the formulating of hypotheses and interpretation of information.

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To study a topic in depth or more helpful in the discovering the relationships between them than try to cover the whole material in once.

The Depth of learning could be attained by applying different ideas, processes, theories, and models.

o Learning is improved when there is relationship order in the

continuity of unit to unit from simple to complex in the instruction programme.

o The solving of problems helps the students in acquiring the

concept development, and how to use different principles which lead the students to a higher level of mental development.

o  It put emphasis on the organizing of ideas which helps the

students to develop the skills to identify the relationships, improves their skills, remembers and retrieves old ideas;

o It provides a foundation for generating new ideas and

concepts, and helps in the transfer of learning.

Therefore it is said that the impact of psychological sources on the foundations of curriculum is more than significant and still on the rise.

The scope of the psychology for applying in curriculum construction and its principles, concepts, processes.

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The role of psychology in the development of curriculum is vast and with each day it is becoming increasingly more meaningful and unavoidable.

The purpose of psychology and psychologist is the study of human behaviour, the study of living being. Investigate and explain the behaviour of animate creatures. Therefore, curriculum needs educational psychology to provide information particularly in FOUR areas:

Prepare objectives of education.

   Characteristics of the students.

   The leaning processes.

   The methods of Teaching.

Socio Cultural Foundation:

According to Murray print (1993). The society and culture exercise massive powers on the formation curriculum and the reason behind that it was society who created schooling to safeguard the survival of their cultural heritage, and survival of their species.

The purpose of curriculum planner and developers to translate traditional norms, philosophies, ethics, knowledge and attitudes in the objectives of curriculum, the content, learning processes and the evaluation of  elements of the curriculum.

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Sociological factors have highest impact on the content of curriculum and that is the reason that curriculum developers and planner both reflect and transfer their own culture in curriculum.

Therefore a curriculum without the reflection of culture is not possible for that reason one should consider what characteristic of the culture should be the part of curriculum and what not.

The social and cultural inspirations that affect curriculum designers consciously and unconsciously are apparent from the curriculum and their influence is deep.

For example in Pakistan the curriculum is more reflective of the society and curriculum is design in a way that leads society to change. The society manifest through the curriculum and education, and the outcomes of the curriculum developers display the role of both of the above in curriculum development.

Because curriculum developers are the part of the society therefore they indirectly effected by the society and culture.  Their cultural standards, attitudes and beliefs leave deep impact on the individuals because the curriculum designers influence the selection of objectives, subject matter, teaching learning methods and the process of evaluation.

Example: A group of teacher formulated a new course for teaching in schools to enhance the quality of the subject in curriculum. After the completion of the subject matter when analyze again one could not determine some lesson were eliminated and some were included in the course, how the old content was evaluated even the teacher who constructed the curriculum for the subject was unable to clearly say what was the basis of their decisions. 42

If story reading was a component of the revised curriculum, what proportion would be real reading? And Why? And what would be the method for the assessment of that lesson? What stories were selected and why these are questions need to be asked from the curriculum developers on the other hand, may be curriculum developers are well aware of society needs and they have planned intention to incorporate all those things in the curricula which the society need in the curriculum but the question is that the curriculum should student centred or society. Curriculum should be a tool for guiding the student’s potentialities in directions or to develop those potentialities without any restrictions.Some Social values, changes and conditions are included into some extent in some of the curriculum projects in the context of current social issues and problems, such as rapid growth of population, democratic values, urbanization, and management problems could be found in proposed program. Some vital problems and topics are considered in relation to concepts and key ideas drawn from the disciplines.

In another way in which the social situation is used as a source of content and information for the curriculum formulation may be found in the present-day situations that are selected to light up the concepts and main ideas from the selected disciplines e.g.  In mathematics program there may be some problems of social significance, for which student may use mathematical concepts to solve the problem. Or in others societal science program, socially important situations may be used to encompass and expand concepts and generalizations.

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Therefore it can be concluded, that social and cultural forces have deep effect upon the curriculum.

To find how much and to which degree the society and culture affect the education system of that society is controversial issue.

Curriculum developer are the part of that society and culture therefore they should keep in mind that there decision could affect their culture and society.

Therefore their decision should be culturally related to the society need and values Guideline given by Rud Yard (1969) related to curriculum planning decision-making, it derived from societal needs and goals.

The goals of education emerge from the needs  and wishes of the society

When a society urge a need or a goal it becomes an educational objective and the school accepted that demand and they attempt to attain that goal by putting it into school objectives.

And when a societal goal become an educational objective then the school, teacher and student must make their efforts to achieve it and for that purpose appropriate educational facilities and methods must be planned.

If there is a conflict between the objectives and aims of majority and minority groups, the aims of larger group is accepted.

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Educational aims are based on the study of sociological and political condition of the society and the main purpose of the curriculum is preservation and advancement of the that society.

Historical Foundations

It includes1. Role of curriculum in achievements of nations.

2. Guides future plans

3. Factors that influence development of nation e.g. unity

4. Eliminates the useless traditions.

Role of the History of curriculum in the development of curriculum

History of the curriculum plays a very important role in the development of the nation. It takes long and tedious time to formulate a good curriculum which represents the need of the society and the experiences of the past.

The history of the curriculum tell the curriculum planner how to develop and modify the curriculum, what to teach and what should be the core material of the subjects, what objectives they want to achieve through the curriculum.

History also tell them how the teacher should teach, what are the best practices they need to incorporate in curriculum teaching and what kind of teaching need to be avoid.                                                                                                                               The history of the curriculum also explains the teacher psychology at different time and how to improve their teaching styles.

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The history also provides a detail about the learner behaviour at different times. It also provides information about the psychology of the students, how they learn and what they want to learn.

In times curriculum changed its shapes and patterns from teacher centre curriculum to learner centre curriculum due to the long history of the curriculum development process from Plato to modern curriculum.

The history of the curriculum also changed the teaching methods, now every researcher are finding new ways to teach and it is also becoming the part of curriculum an history.

Today majority of the develop countries are those countries who have a long history of freedom and proper education system. They achieved their successes through education and implementation of time needed curriculum.

They modified their curriculum according to the need of time. Some of newly born countries also achieved that status because they adopted successful model of other developed countries and modified according to their own needs and culture.

History Guides future plans:

The history of the curriculum guides the future plans because curriculum is always based on the future demands of the country and the lesson learned through history, tell the curriculum developer not to repeat the mistake of the past and develop a curriculum which is based on the future need of the society and international demands. History is the profile of past successes and failures. 

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   History helps in the eliminations of useless traditions:

The history of education tells the curriculum developer what not to include in the curriculum. What of lessons can bring no good to the curriculum and what type of contents material are good for the teaching learning process, so history of the curriculum eliminate all those useless traditions from the modern curriculum and help the developer to incorporate what is needed for the curriculum.

A short history of the curriculum and curriculum development processPlato was the earliest most important Greek Philosopher and educational thinker. Plato thinks education as a key for a society and he stress on education, for this purpose he want to go to the extreme level even removing children from their mothers and rise them by the state, he want to identify the skills of the children and give them proper education for that particular skill which they have so they could be become a suitable member of the society and fulfil their duty in society.

 Plato describes different stages of education in his republic. According to Plato the education of child should be start at the age of seven year and before this stage the child should stay with their mother or elders and learn moral education from them.

After the age of six years both girls and boys should be separated and boys should play with boys and girls with girls and they should be taught the use of different arms to both sexes. This stage goes up to the age of seventeen years. During these years they should teach them music and early education. After the age of seventeen years the youth should be brought to battle field to learn real life experiences.

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The fourth stage start at the age of twenty five to thirty years and in this age they get the training of Mathematical calculation and last for another ten years, after the completion the selected one’s are admitted in the study of dialect. During fifth stage they study dialect for another five years and after that, at the sixth stage one is ready to become a ruler and philosopher and the one enter in practical life.

The 11th century was a dark era for education. Few people in Western Europe were receiving any kind of schooling and across the globe; contributions were being made to the future of education.  

In China, printing by movable type was invented in 1045, and proved to be one of the most powerful inventions of this era which affect the curriculum development process and bring huge change in the improvement of curriculum and contents of the curriculum around the world. With future educational systems focusing on the written word, the invention of type printing set the path for future publications.

The first paper mill was built in France in 1338. Paper was a Chinese invention (c. 600 AD), brought to Europe by the Arabs in the 11th century.

The great educator of Islam, Imam Ghazali was born in 1059 AD near Tus in Khurasan, a part of the then Persia.

His educational philosophy based on his personal experience. The philosophy, which he formulated over a period of 10 years, resembles to the Philosophy of Plato. He used his personal experience and concluded the reasons.

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According to Ghazali, there are four categories of Knowledge; 1.  Prophetic 2.  Rulers 3.  Philosophers/scholars     4. Preachers

 Curriculum:

 Ghazali strongly criticizes the curriculum of his time. He raises the basic question of criteria for selection of subject matter for curriculum. He studied the various curriculums in his times and reached the following conclusions:

More time is spent on religious education and worldly education is completely ignores,

 Worldly education is equally important,

While teaching religious education, a great number of differences arise among the teachers, which result in mudslinging on each other,

There is no Prioritization and it is only left to the interest and opinions of the teachers to concentrate on certain subjects, while ignore others,

  No place for character building in curriculum,

Ghazali included industrial education, textile, agriculture, tailoring and hair cutting in the curriculum.

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Methods of Teaching and Techniques:

Ghazali has recommended the following teaching methods and techniques, which are based on psychological principles. These methods and techniques are widely used and educators all over the world agree with their usefulness and today they are the foundation of curriculum development process.

• Teaching of lessons to be based on previous knowledge and experience of the students.

• Teachers should simplify the difficult concepts by stories, tales etc. otherwise his teaching will not be effective

 Move from simple to complex.

 This is a very important principle of today curriculum which was presented by Ghazali at those times. History of curriculum laid down the basic foundation of curriculum development

Proper planning:

 Ghazali stresses the importance of planning and advises that teachers should do his preparation before teaching to make it effective

Abilities of students:

 Ghazali stresses that while teaching the abilities of students should be kept in mind. Concepts, which are above the mental level of the students, will not make the teaching effective.

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Today in modern curriculum teachers are asked to keep in mind the individual differences. In the era of colonist, the colonist came to indo-pack and they set up schools exactly like the ones they knew in Europe. The curriculum was centered on the learning of letters, numbers, and prayers. Their strict learning environment did not allow for crafts nor recess breaks, and only one out of ten children attended school.

There were common characteristics shared by these colonies:

Religious Education; its major aim was personal salvation    Education was centred on social class, dual system or class

system. The children of workers should have minimal primary education, they learned the 4 R's (reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion

With the exception of few Schools, education was only for boys

Most children in colonial times received their education through informal means such as the family, the farm, and the shop.

Changes in educational philosophy and curriculum came about in this era as well.  

In 1901, John Dewey wrote The Child and the Curriculum, and later Democracy and Education, in which he shows concern for the relationship between society and education. Dewey was a philosopher, psychologist, and educator.

His philosophy of education focused on learning by doing rather than rote memorization. He criticized the old education system which keeps students busy. 

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Economical Foundations:It focuses on:

o Job or market oriented curriculum

o Skill learning

The economical foundation of curriculum gives importance to the vocational aspect of the curriculum. The economic  condition of a nation or a society guide the curriculum of the country, because the stakeholder of the education wants to employ such a curriculum which help them to build their economy and the people have better jobs when they finish their schooling.

In this kind of situations the curriculum become job or market oriented. In this curriculum the curriculum developer gives importance to skills acquisition which is the demands of the time. Undeveloped nations try to prepare skill work force and send it to other countries for jobs.

Here are some economical factor which influence the curriculum development process.

Economic Factors:Allocation of funds

The financial condition of a country reflects its curriculum because without proper funding one can’t achieve the outcome of a good curriculum. It is the financial aspect of a country which guide them to adopt which type of curriculum, for example activity base or learner centre curriculum need more money in the process of the implementation of the curriculum then subject matter curriculum.

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   Because activity base and learner centre curriculum need more space and money then subject matter, for that reason in Pakistan we adopted subject base curriculum because we have shortage of schools, classrooms in schools, trained teachers.

Schools lack physical facilities including buildings, classrooms, furniture, Hostel, Play grounds, mats and even very basic necessities like blackboard, chalk, and charts. Lack of other resources water, Fan, Electricity.

 Lack of skilled manpower:

The lack of skilled manpower due to financial restrains, without proper financial support it is hard to train the people to support the teaching learning process. Only through proper funding and the establishment of training institutions for teachers and support staff.

Teachers are the core of education system and without proper training one can’t implement a curriculum and to support the curriculum one need to train the entire teacher on that style of curriculum. So the skills of the teachers also guide the direction of the curriculum, and to develop these skills in the teachers need funds.

Lack of labs due to financial problems:

The lack of labs and libraries also affect the curriculum development process because without proper computer labs in cities and villages one can’t implement computer education curriculum all over the country.

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Curriculum from Different Points of View

From these two ways, the definition of “curriculum” is viewed in two perspectives. In the first perspective they are prescriptive, while in the second perspective are descriptive

1. Traditional Points of View

This point of view is also referred to as the Essentialists’ View.

Curriculum is a body of subjects or subject matter prepared by the teachers for the students to learn”. It was synonymous to the “course of study” and “syllabus”Curriculum is viewed as a field of study which is made up of its foundations, domains of knowledge as well as research theories and principles.Curriculum is viewed as written documents or a plan of action in accomplishing goals.

As viewed by many essentialists…Curriculum as “permanent studies” where the rule of grammar, reading, rhetoric and logic and mathematics for basic education are emphasized. -Robert M. Hutchins

The mission of the school should be intellectual training/learning, hence curriculum should focus on the fundamental intellectual disciplines of grammar, literature and writing. It should also include mathematics, science, history and foreign language- Arthur Bestor

“Discipline is the sole source of curriculum.”- Joseph Schwab 54

2. Progressive Points of View

To a progressivist, a listing of school, subjects, syllabi, course of study, and list of courses or specific discipline do not make a curriculum. These can only be called curriculum if the written materials are actualized by the learner.

As viewed by many progressivists…

Curriculum is defined as the total learning experiences of the individual.- John DeweyCurriculum is all the experiences children have under the guidance of teachers-Caswell & CampbellCurriculum as a sequence of potential experiences set up in the schools for the purpose of disciplining children and youth in group ways of thinking and acting.- Smith, Stanley and ShoresCurriculum as all the experiences in the classroom which are planned and enacted by the teacher, and also learned by the students.- Marsh & WillisThe learning experiences and intended outcomes formulated through systematic reconstruction of knowledge and experiences, under the auspices of the school for the learner’s continuous and willful growth in persona-social competence; the cumulative tradition of organized knowledge -Tanner D. & Tanner, L.

Other definitions:

Curriculum is a plan for learning.- Hilda TabaA course of study on a specific topic includes all the learning experiences of the students as planned and directed by the school to attain its educational goals (Tyler).

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UNIT-II

THE MAIN PRINCIPLES OF CURRICULUM CONSTRUCTION

Beane (2001) produce principles of curriculum but they are more value oriented and less generic.

For example, he lists five major principles about curriculum:

Concern with the experiences of learners;

Making decisions about both content and process;

Making decisions about a variety of issues and topics;

Involving many groups;

Decision-making at many levels.

It is evident that these authors have a particular conception of curriculum; perhaps a combination of student- and society-centred.

Inevitably, if specific principles are given a high priority, then a particular conception of curriculum emerges.

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1. Principle of Child Centeredness.

As modern education is child-centered the curriculum should also be child-centered. It should be based on the child's needs, interests, abilities, aptitude, age level and circumstances. The child should be central figure in any scheme of curriculum construction. In fact, curriculum is meant to bring about the development of the child in the desired direction so that he is able to adjust well in life.

Highlights

Principles of Curriculum Construction are:

1. Principles of Child Centeredness ;

2. Principle of Community Centeredness ;

3. Principle of Activity Centeredness ;

4. Principle of Variety ;

5. Principle of Co-ordinations and Integration;

6. Principle of Conservation;

7. Principle of Creativity;

8. Principle of Forward. Looking;

9. Principle of Flexibility;

10. Principle of Balance;

11. Principle of Utility.

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2. Principle of Community Centeredness.

Though the child's development and growth is the main consideration of curriculum construction, yet his social behavior is also to be suitably developed, both the individual development and the social development of the child deserve equal attention. He is to live in and for the society.

Therefore, his needs and desires must be in conformity with the needs and desires of the society in which he is to live. The values, attitudes and skills that are prevailing in the community must be reflected in the curriculum. However, the society is not static. ]

It is dynamic. Its needs and requirements are changing with the rapid developments taking place in all fields. While working for the development, this factor cannot be ignored.

3. Principle of Activity Centeredness.

The curriculum should centre round the multifarious activities of pupils. It should provide well selected activities according to the general interests and developmental stages of children.

It should provide constructive, creative and project activities. For small children, play activities should also be provided.!

The purposeful activities both in the class-room and outside the class-room should be provided.

It is through a net work of activities that the desired experiences can be provided and consequently desirable behavioral changes can be brought about in children.

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4. Principle of Variety.

The curriculum should be broad-based so as to accommodate the needs of varied categories of pupils, so that they are able to take up subjects and participate in activities according their capacities and interests.

The needs of pupils also change from place to place. For example, the pupils in rural areas, urban areas, and hilly areas will have different needs.

The needs of boys and girls are also different. So these considerations should be reflected in the curriculum.

5. Principle of Co-ordination and Integration.

Of course, the pupils are to be provided with selected experiences through various subjects and activities but these must be well integrated.

Various subjects and activities have to serve the same ultimate purpose, the achievement of the aims of education. The activities and subjects should not be put in after-tight compartments but these should be inter-related and well integrated so as to develop the whole child.

6. Principles of Conservation.

One of the main functions of education is to preserve and transmit our cultural heritage. This is essential for human progress. Culture consists of traditions, customs, attitudes, skills, conduct, values and knowledge.

However, the curriculum framers must make a suitable selection of the elements of culture, keeping n view their educational value and the developmental stage of pupils.

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7. Principle of Creativity.

The conservation of culture helps to sustain the society. The culture should not be simply transmitted but also enriched. There should be provision in the curriculum to develop he creative powers of the child so that he becomes a contributory member society. Raymont says, "In curriculum that is suited to the needs of today and of the future, there must be definitely creative subjects."

8. Principle of Forward Looking.

Education is to enable the child to lead a successful social life. So the curriculum should not cater to the present needs of the child alone. The needs of his future life should also be considered.

The curriculum should also include knowledge, skills, experiences, influences etc. which will develop in the child abilities and power to make effective adjustments in the later life.

9. Principle of Flexibility.

In our age, rapid developments are taking place in various fields. Consequently the needs of society are hanging. The content of curriculum cannot be same for all times to come.

It should not be static. It must be dynamic and change with the changing times. It should reflect the latest trends in the field of education and psychology.

10. Principle of Balance.

The curriculum must maintain a balance between subjects and activities, between direct and indirect experiences, between academic and vocational education, between compulsory and optional subjects, between formal and informal education, between individual and social aims of education etc.

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11. Principle of Utility.

Curriculum should be useful rather than ornamental. It should not only include subjects which owe their place in it to tradition. The curriculum must have practical utility for students. So there should be some provision for technical and vocational education in the curriculum.

The various principles of curriculum construction should be kept in mind. Various regional and national conditions should also be considered. It fact, all considerations which will help in achieving the aims of education should be given due consideration.

Theories of Curriculum Development:

Kerr defines curriculum as, ‘All the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the school. (quoted in Kelly 1983: 10; see also, Kelly 1999).

This gives us some basis to move on – and for the moment all we need to do is highlight two of the key features:

Learning is planned and guided. We have to specify in advance what we are seeking to achieve and how we are to go about it.

The definition refers to schooling. We should recognize that our current appreciation of curriculum theory and practice emerged in the school and in relation to other schooling ideas such as subject and lesson.

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In what follows we are going to look at four ways of approaching curriculum theory and practice:

1. Curriculum as a body of knowledge to be transmitted.

2. Curriculum as an attempt to achieve certain ends in students – product.

3. Curriculum as process.

4. Curriculum as praxis.

It is helpful to consider these ways of approaching curriculum theory and practice in the light of Aristotle’s influential categorization of knowledge into three disciplines: the theoretical, the productive and the practical.

Here we can see some clear links – the body of knowledge to be transmitted in the first is that classically valued as ‘the canon’; the process and praxis models come close to practical deliberation; and the technical concerns of the outcome or product model mirror elements of Aristotle’s characterization of the productive. More this will be revealed as we examine the theory underpinning individual models.

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Curriculum as a syllabus to be transmitted:

Many people still equate a curriculum with a syllabus. Syllabus, naturally, originates from the Greek (although there was some confusion in its usage due to early misprints). Basically it means a concise statement or table of the heads of a discourse, the contents of a treatise, the subjects of a series of lectures.

In the form that many of us will have been familiar with it is connected with courses leading to examinations – teachers talk of the syllabus associated with, say, the Cambridge Board  French GSCE exam. What we can see in such documents is a series of headings with some additional notes which set out the areas that may be examined.

A syllabus will not generally indicate the relative importance of its topics or the order in which they are to be studied. In some cases as Curzon (1985) points out, those who compile a syllabus tend to follow the traditional textbook approach of an ‘order of contents’, or a pattern prescribed by a ‘logical’ approach to the subject, or  – consciously or unconsciously – a the shape of a university course in which they may have participated.

Thus, an approach to curriculum theory and practice which focuses on syllabus is only really concerned with content. Curriculum is a body of knowledge-content and/or subjects. Education in this sense, is the process by which these are transmitted or ‘delivered’ to students by the most effective methods that can be devised (Blenkin et al 1992: 23).

Where people still equate curriculum with a syllabus they are likely to limit their planning to a consideration of the content or the body of knowledge that they wish to transmit. ‘It is also because this view of curriculum has been adopted that many teachers in primary schools’, Kelly (1985: 7) claims, ‘have regarded issues of curriculum as of no concern to them, since they have not regarded their task as being to transmit bodies of knowledge in this manner’.

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Curriculum as product:

The dominant modes of describing and managing education are today couched in the productive form.  Education is most often seen as a technical exercise. 

Objectives are set, a plan drawn up, then applied, and the outcomes (products) measured.  It is a way of thinking about education that has grown in influence in the United Kingdom since the late 1970s with the rise of vocationalism and the concern with competencies. 

Thus, in the late 1980s and the 1990s many of the debates about the National Curriculum for schools did not so much concern how the curriculum was thought about as to what its objectives and content might be.

It is the work of two American writers Franklin Bobbitt (1918; 1928) and Ralph W. Tyler (1949) that dominate theory and practice within this tradition.  In The Curriculum  Bobbitt writes as follows:

The central theory [of curriculum] is simple.  Human life, however varied, consists in the performance of specific activities.  Education that prepares for life is one that prepares definitely and adequately for these specific activities. 

However numerous and diverse they may be for any social class they can be discovered.  This requires only that one go out into the world of affairs and discover the particulars of which their affairs consist.  These will show the abilities, attitudes, habits, appreciations and forms of knowledge that men need. 

These will be the objectives of the curriculum.  They will be numerous, definite and particularized.  The curriculum will then be that series of experiences which children and youth must have by way of obtaining those objectives.  (1918: 42)

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This way of thinking about curriculum theory and practice was heavily influenced by the development of management thinking and practice.  The rise of ‘scientific management’ is often associated with the name of its main advocate F. W. Taylor. 

Basically what he proposed was greater division of labour with jobs being simplified; an extension of managerial control over all elements of the workplace; and cost accounting based on systematic time-and-motion study. 

All three elements were involved in this conception of curriculum theory and practice.  For example, one of the attractions of this approach to curriculum theory was that it involved detailed attention to what people needed to know in order to work, live their lives and so on. 

A familiar, and more restricted, example of this approach can be found in many training programmes, where particular tasks or jobs have been analyzed – broken down into their component elements – and lists of competencies drawn up. 

In other words, the curriculum was not to be the result of ‘armchair speculation’ but the product of systematic study.  Bobbitt’s work and theory met with mixed responses. 

One telling criticism that was made, and can continue to be made, of such approaches is that there is no social vision or programme to guide the process of curriculum construction. 

As it stands it is a technical exercise.  However, it wasn’t criticisms such as this which initially limited the impact of such curriculum theory in the late 1920s and 1930s. 

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Rather, the growing influence of ‘progressive’, child-centred approaches shifted the ground to more romantic notions of education.  Bobbitt’s long lists of objectives and his emphasis on order and structure hardly sat comfortably with such forms.

The Progressive movement lost much of its momentum in the late 1940s in the United States and from that period the work of Ralph W.

Tyler, in particular, has made a lasting impression on curriculum theory and practice.  He shared Bobbitt’s emphasis on rationality and relative simplicity. 

His theory was based on four fundamental questions:

1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?

2. What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes?

3. How can these educational experiences be effectively organized?

4. How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?  (Tyler 1949: 1)

Like Bobbitt he also placed an emphasis on the formulation of behavioural objectives.

Since the real purpose of education is not to have the instructor perform certain activities but to bring about significant changes in the students’ pattern of behaviour, it becomes important to recognize that any statements of objectives of the school should be a statement of changes to take place in the students.  (Tyler 1949)

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We can see how these concerns translate into a nicely-ordered procedure:  one that is very similar to the technical or productive thinking set out below.

Step 1: Diagnosis of need

Step 2: Formulation of objectives

Step 3: Selection of content

Step 4: Organization of content

Step 5: Selection of learning experiences

Step 6: Organization of learning experiences

Step 7: Determination of what to evaluate and of the ways and means of doing it. (Taba 1962)

The attraction of this way of approaching curriculum theory and practice is that it is systematic and has considerable organizing power.  Central to the approach is the formulation of behavioural objectives – providing a clear notion of outcome so that content and method may be organized and the results evaluated.

There are a number of issues with this approach to curriculum theory and practice. The first is that the plan or programme assumes great importance.  For example, we might look at a more recent definition of curriculum as: ‘A programme of activities (by teachers and pupils) designed so that pupils will attain so far as possible certain educational and other schooling ends or objectives (Grundy 1987:

The problem here is that such programmes inevitably exist prior to and outside the learning experiences.  This takes much away from learners.  They can end up with little or no voice.  They are told what they must learn and how they will do it. 

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The success or failure of both the programme and the individual learners is judged on the basis of whether pre-specified changes occur in the behaviour and person of the learner (the meeting of behavioural objectives).  If the plan is tightly adhered to, there can only be limited opportunity for educators to make use of the interactions that occur. It also can deskill educators in another way.

  For example, a number of curriculum programmes, particularly in the USA, have attempted to make the student experience ‘teacher proof’.  The logic of this approach is for the curriculum to be designed outside of the classroom or school, as is the case with the National Curriculum in the UK.  Educators then apply programmes and are judged by the products of their actions.  It turns educators into technicians.

Second, there are questions around the nature of objectives.  This model is hot on measurability.  It implies that behaviour can be objectively, mechanistically measured.  There are obvious dangers here – there always has to be some uncertainty about what is being measured.  We only have to reflect on questions of success in our work.  It is often very difficult to judge what the impact of particular experiences has been.  Sometimes it is years after the event that we come to appreciate something of what has happened. 

For example, most informal educators who have been around a few years will have had the experience of an ex-participant telling them in great detail about how some forgotten event (forgotten to the worker that is) brought about some fundamental change.  Yet there is something more. In order to measure, things have to be broken down into smaller and smaller units.  The result, as many of you will have experienced, can be long lists of often trivial skills or competencies.  This can lead to a focus in this approach to curriculum theory and practice on the parts rather than the whole; on the trivial, rather than the significant.  It can lead to an approach to education and assessment which resembles a shopping list.  When all the items are ticked, the person has passed the course or has learnt something. 

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Third, there is a real problem when we come to examine what educators actually do in the classroom, for example.  Much of the research concerning teacher thinking and classroom interaction, and curriculum innovation has pointed to the lack of impact on actual pedagogic practice of objectives (see Stenhouse 1974; and Cornbleth 1990, for example). 

  One way of viewing this is that teachers simply get it wrong – they ought to work with objectives.  I think we need to take this problem very seriously and not dismiss it in this way.  The difficulties that educators experience with objectives in the classroom may point to something inherently wrong with the approach – that it is not grounded in the study of educational exchanges.  It is a model of curriculum theory and practice largely imported from technological and industrial settings.

Fourth, there is the problem of unanticipated results.  The focus on pre-specified goals may lead both educators and learners to overlook learning that is occurring as a result of their interactions, but which is not listed as an objective.

The apparent simplicity and rationality of this approach to curriculum theory and practice, and the way in which it mimics industrial management have been powerful factors in its success.  A further appeal has been the ability of academics to use the model to attack teachers:

I believe there is a tendency, recurrent enough to suggest that it may be endemic in the approach, for academics in education to use the objectives model as a stick with which to beat teachers.  ‘What are your objectives?’ is more often asked in a tone of challenge than one of interested and helpful inquiry.  The demand for objectives is a demand for justification rather than a description of ends… It is not about curriculum design, but rather an expression of irritation in the problems of accountability in education.  (Stenhouse 1974: 77)

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Curriculum as process

We have seen that the curriculum as product model is heavily dependent on the setting of behavioural objectives.  The curriculum, essentially, is a set of documents for implementation.  Another way of looking at curriculum theory and practice is via process.  In this sense curriculum is not a physical thing, but rather the interaction of teachers, students and knowledge. 

In other words, curriculum is what actually happens in the classroom and what people do to prepare and evaluate.  What we have in this model is a number of elements in constant interaction.   It is an active process and links with the practical form of reasoning set out by Aristotle.

Curriculum as process

Teachers enter particular schooling and situations with an ability to think critically, -in-action an understanding of their role and the expectations others have of them, and a proposal for action which sets out essential principles and features of the educational encounter.

Guided by these, they encourage conversations between, and with, people in the situation out of which may come thinking and action. They continually evaluate the process and what they can see of outcomes.

Perhaps the two major things that set this apart from the model for informal education are first, the context in which the process occurs (‘particular schooling situations’); and second, the fact that teachers enter the classroom or any other formal educational setting with a more fully worked-through idea of what is about to happen. 

Here I have described that as entering the situation with ‘a proposal for action which sets out essential principles and features of the educational encounter’.

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This form of words echoes those of Lawrence Stenhouse (1975) who produced one of the best-known explorations of a process model of curriculum theory and practice. He defined curriculum tentatively: ‘A curriculum is an attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice’. He suggests that a curriculum is rather like a recipe in cookery.

It can be criticized on nutritional or gastronomic grounds – does it nourish the students and does it taste good? – and it can be criticized on the grounds of practicality – we can’t get hold of six dozen larks’ tongues and the grocer can’t find any ground unicorn horn!  A curriculum, like the recipe for a dish, is first imagined as a possibility, then the subject of experiment.  The recipe offered publicly is in a sense a report on the experiment.  Similarly, a curriculum should be grounded in practice. 

It is an attempt to describe the work observed in classrooms that it is adequately communicated to teachers and others.  Finally, within limits, a recipe can varied according to taste.  So can a curriculum.  (Stenhouse 1975: 4-5)

Stenhouse shifted the ground a little bit here.  He was not saying that curriculum is the process, but rather the means by which the experience of attempting to put an educational proposal into practice is made available. 

The reason why he did this, I suspect, is that otherwise there is a danger of widening the meaning of the term so much that it embraces almost everything and hence means very little.  For example, in a discussion of the so-called ‘youth work curriculum’ (Newman & Ingram 1989), the following definition was taken as a starting point: ‘those processes which enhance or, if they go wrong, inhibit a person’s learning’.

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This was then developed and a curriculum became: ‘an organic process by which learning is offered, accepted and internalized’ (Newman & Ingram 1989: 1). The problem with this sort of definition, as Robin Barrow (1984) points out, is that what this does is to widen the meaning of the term to such an extent that it just about becomes interchangeable with ‘education’ itself.More specifically, if curriculum is process then the word curriculum is redundant because process would do very nicely!   The simple equation of curriculum with process is a very slap-happy basis on which to proceed.We also need to reflect on why curriculum theory and practice came into use by educators (as against policy-makers).  It was essentially as a way of helping them to think about their work before, during and after interventions; as a means of enabling educators to make judgments about the direction their work was taking.  This is what Stenhouse was picking up on.

Stenhouse on curriculum

As a minimum, a curriculum should provide a basis for planning a course, studying it empirically and considering the grounds of its justification.  It should offer:

A. In planning:

1. Principle for the selection of content – what is to be learned and taught

2. Principles for the development of a teaching strategy – how it is to be learned and taught.

3. Principles for the making of decisions about sequence.

4. Principles on which to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of individual students and differentiate the general principles 1, 2 and 3 above, to meet individual cases.

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B. In empirical study:

1. Principles on which to study and evaluate the progress of students.

2. Principles on which to study and evaluate the progress of teachers.

3. Guidance as to the feasibility of implementing the curriculum in varying school contexts, pupil contexts, environments and peer-group situations.

4. Information about the variability of effects in differing contexts and on different pupils and an understanding of the causes of the variation.

C. In relation to justification:

A formulation of the intention or aim of the curriculum which is accessible to critical scrutiny.

Stenhouse 1975: 5

There are a number of contrasts in this model of curriculum theory and practice as compared with the product model.  First, where the product model appeals to the workshop for a model, this process model looks to the world of experimentation.

The idea is that of an educational science in which each classroom is a laboratory, each teacher a member of the scientific community…  The crucial point is that the proposal is not to be regarded as an unqualified recommendation but rather as a provisional specification claiming no more than to be worth putting to the test of practice,  Such proposals claim to be intelligent rather than correct.  (Stenhouse 1975: 142)

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Thus, in this sense, a curriculum is a particular form of specification about the practice of teaching.  It is not a package of materials or a syllabus of ground to be covered.  ‘It is a way of translating any educational idea into a hypothesis testable in practice.  It invites critical testing rather than acceptance’ (Stenhouse 1975: 142).

Second, and associated with the above, given the uniqueness of each classroom setting, it means that any proposal, even at school level, needs to be tested, and verified by each teacher in his/her classroom (ibid: 143).  It is not like a curriculum package which is designed to be delivered almost anywhere.

Third, outcomes are no longer the central and defining feature.  Rather than tightly specifying behavioural objectives and methods in advance, what happens in this model of curriculum theory and practice is that content and means develop as teachers and students work together.

Fourth, the learners in this model are not objects to be acted upon.  They have a clear voice in the way that the sessions evolve.  The focus is on interactions.  This can mean that attention shifts from teaching to learning.  The product model, by having a pre-specified plan or programme, tends to direct attention to teaching.  For example, how can this information be got over?  A process approach to curriculum theory and practice, it is argued by writers like Grundy (1987), tends towards making the process of learning the central concern of the teacher.  This is because this way of thinking emphasizes interpretation and meaning-making.  As we have seen each classroom and each exchange is different and has to be made sense of.

However, when we come to think about this way of approaching curriculum in practice, a number of possible problems do arise.  The first is a problem for those who want some greater degree of uniformity in what is taught. 

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This approach to the theory of curriculum, because it places meaning-making and thinking at its core and treats learners as subjects rather than objects, can lead to very different means being employed in classrooms and a high degree of variety in content.   As Stenhouse comments, the process model is essentially a critical model, not a marking model.

It can never be directed towards an examination as an objective without loss of quality, since the standards of the examination then override the standards immanent in the subject.  This does not mean that students taught on the process model cannot be examined, but it does mean that the examinations must be taken in their stride as they pursue other aspirations.  And if the examination is a by-product there is an implication that the quality the student shows in it must be an under-estimate of his real quality.  It is hence rather difficult to get the weak student through an examination using a process model.  Crammers cannot use it, since it depends upon a commitment to educational aims.  (Stenhouse 1975: 95)

To some extent variation is limited by factors such as public examinations.  The exchange between students and teachers does not float free of the context in which it arises.  At the end of the day many students and their families place a high premium on exam or subject success and this inevitably enters into the classroom.  This highlights a second problem with the model we have just outlined – that it may not pay enough attention to the context in which learning takes place (more of this later).

Third, there is the ‘problem’ of teachers.   The major weakness and, indeed, strength of the process model is that it rests upon the quality of teachers.  If they are not up to much then there is no safety net in the form of prescribed curriculum materials.  The approach is dependent upon the cultivation of wisdom and meaning-making in the classroom.  If the teacher is not up to this, then there will be severe limitations on what can happen educationally. 

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There have been some attempts to overcome this problem by developing materials and curriculum packages which focus more closely on the ‘process of discovery’ or ‘problem-solving’, for example in science. 

But there is a danger in this approach.  Processes become reduced to sets of skills – for example, how to light a bunsen burner.  When students are able to demonstrate certain skills, they are deemed to have completed the process.  As Grundy comments, the actions have become the ends; the processes have become the product.  Whether or not students are able to apply the skills to make sense of the world around them is somehow overlooked (Grundy 1987: 77).

Fourth, we need to look back at our process model of curriculum theory and practice and what we have subsequently discussed, and return to Aristotle and to Freire.  The model we have looked at here does not fully reflect the process explored earlier.  In particular, it does not make explicit the commitments associated with phronesis.  And it is to that we will now turn.

Curriculum as praxis

Curriculum as praxis is, in many respects, a development of the process model.  While the process model is driven by general principles and places an emphasis on judgment and meaning making, it does not make explicit statements about the interests it serves.  

It may, for example, be used in such a way that does not make continual reference to collective human well-being and to the emancipation of the human spirit. 

The praxis model of curriculum theory and practice brings these to the centre of the process and makes an explicit commitment to emancipation.   Thus action is not simply informed, it is also committed.  It is praxis.

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Critical pedagogy goes beyond situating the learning experience within the experience of the learner: it is a process which takes the experiences of both the learner and the teacher and, through dialogue and negotiation, recognizes them both as problematic…  [It] allows, indeed encourages, students and teachers together to confront the real problems of their existence and relationships… When students confront the real problems of their existence they will soon also be faced with their own oppression. (Grundy 1987: 105)

We can amend our ‘curriculum as process’ model to take account of these concerns.

Curriculum as praxis:

Teachers enter particular schooling and situations with a personal, but shared idea of the good and a commitment to human emancipation, an ability to think critically, -in-action an understanding of their role and the expectations others have of them, and a proposal for action which sets out essential principles and features of the educational encounter. Guided by these, they encourage conversations between, and with, people in the situation out of which may come informed and committed action. They continually evaluate the process and what they can see of outcomes.

In this approach the curriculum itself develops through the dynamic interaction of action and reflection. ‘That is, the curriculum is not simply a set of plans to be implemented, but rather is constituted through an active process in which planning, acting and evaluating are all reciprocally related and integrated into the process’ (Grundy 1987: 115). At its centre is praxis: informed, committed action.

How might we recognize this? First, I think we should be looking for practice which does not focus exclusively on individuals, but pays careful attention to collective understandings and practices and to structural questions. 

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For example, in sessions which seek to explore the experiences of different cultural and racial groups in society, we could be looking to see whether the direction of the work took people beyond a focus on individual attitudes.  Are participants confronting the material conditions through which those attitudes are constituted, for example?

Second, we could be looking for a commitment expressed in action to the exploration of educators’ values and their practice.  Are they, for example, able to say in a coherent way what they think makes for human well-being and link this with their practice?  We could also be looking for certain values – especially an emphasis on human emancipation.

Third, we could expect practitioners committed to praxis to be exploring their practice with their peers.  They would be able to say how their actions with respect to particular interventions reflected their ideas about what makes for the good, and to say what theories were involved.

Curriculum in context

To round off this discussion of curriculum we do need to pay further attention  to the social context in which it is created.  One criticism that has been made of the praxis model (especially as it is set out by Grundy) is that it does not place a strong enough emphasis upon context.  This is a criticism that can also be laid at the door of the other approaches. 

In this respect the work of Catherine Cornbleth (1990) is of some use.  She sees curriculum as a particular type of process.  Curriculum for her is what actually happens in classrooms, that is, ‘an ongoing social process comprised of the interactions of students, teachers, knowledge and milieu’ (1990: 5).  In contrast, Stenhouse defines curriculum as the attempt to describe what happens in classrooms rather than what actually occurs. 

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Cornbleth further contends that curriculum as practice cannot be understood adequately or changed substantially without attention to its setting or context.  Curriculum is contextually shaped.   While I may quibble about the simple equation of curriculum with process, what Cornbleth does by focusing on the interaction is to bring out the significance of context.

First, by introducing the notion of milieu into the discussion of curriculum she again draws attention to the impact of some factors that we have already noted.  Of special significance here are examinations and the social relationships of the school – the nature of the teacher-student relationship, the organization of classes, streaming and so on.  These elements are what are sometimes known as the hidden curriculum.  This was a term credited to Philip W. Jackson (1968) but it had been present as an acknowledged element in education for some time before. 

For example, John Dewey in Experience and Education referred to the ‘collateral learning’ of attitudes that occur in schools, and that may well be of more long-range importance than the explicit school curriculum (1938: 48).  A fairly standard (product) definition of the ‘hidden curriculum’ is given by Vic Kelly. 

He argues it is those things which students learn, ‘because of the way in which the work of the school is planned and organized but which are not in themselves overtly included in the planning or even in the consciousness of those responsible for the school arrangements (1988: The learning associated with the ‘hidden curriculum’ is most often treated in a negative way. 

It is learning that is smuggled in and serves the interests of the status quo.  The emphasis on regimentation, on bells and time management, and on streaming are sometimes seen as preparing young people for the world of capitalist production.  What we do need to recognize is that such ‘hidden’ learning is not all negative and can be potentially liberating.

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 ‘In so far as they enable students to develop socially valued knowledge and skills… or to form their own peer groups and subcultures, they may contribute to personal and collective autonomy and to possible critique and challenge of existing norms and institutions’  (Cornbleth 1990: 50). What we also need to recognize is that by treating curriculum as a contextualized social process, the notion of hidden curriculum becomes rather redundant.  If we need to stay in touch with milieu as we build curriculum then it is not hidden but becomes a central part of our processes.

Second, by paying attention to milieu, we can begin to get a better grasp of the impact of structural and socio-cultural process on teachers and students.  As Cornbleth argues, economic and gender relations, for example, do not simply bypass the systemic or structural context of curriculum and enter directly into classroom practice.  They are mediated by intervening layers of the education system (Cornbleth 1990: 7).  Thus, the impact of these factors may be quite different to that expected.

Third, if curriculum theory and practice is inextricably linked to milieu then it becomes clear why there have been problems about introducing it into non-schooling contexts like youth work; and it is to this area which we will now turn.

Curriculum as the boundary between formal and informal education

Jeffs and Smith (1990; 1999) have argued that the notion of curriculum provides a central dividing line between formal and informal education.  They contend that curriculum theory and practice was formed within the schooling context and that there are major problems when it is introduced into informal forms of pedagogy.

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The adoption of curriculum theory and practice by some informal educators appears to have arisen from a desire to be clear about content.  Yet there are crucial difficulties with the notion of curriculum in this context.

These centre around the extent to which it is possible to have a clear idea, in advance (and even during the process), of the activities and topics that will be involved in a particular piece of work.

At any one time, outcomes may not be marked by a high degree of specificity.  In a similar way, the nature of the activities used often cannot be predicted.  It may be that we can say something about how the informal educator will work. 

However, knowing in advance about broad processes and ethos isn’t the same as having a knowledge of the programme.  We must, thus, conclude that approaches to the curriculum which focus on objectives and detailed programmes appear to be incompatible with informal education. (Jeffs & Smith 1990: 15)

In other words, they are arguing that a product model of curriculum is not compatible with the emphasis on process and praxis within informal education.

However, process and praxis models of curriculum also present problems in the context of informal education.  If you look back at at our models of process and compare them with the model of informal education presented above then it is clear that we can have a similar problem with pre-specification. 

One of the key feature that differentiates the two is that the curriculum model has the teacher entering the situation with a proposal for action which sets out the essential principles and features of the educational encounter.

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Informal educators do not have, and do not need, this element.  They do not enter with a clear proposal for action.  Rather, they have an idea of what makes for human well-being, and an appreciation of their overall role and strategy (strategy here being some idea about target group and broad method e.g. detached work). 

They then develop their aims and interventions in interaction.  And what is this element we have been discussing?  It is nothing more nor less than what Stenhouse considers to be a curriculum!

The other key difference is context.  Even if we were to go the whole hog and define curriculum as process there remain substantive problems.  As Cornbleth (1990), and Jeffs and Smith (1990, 1999) have argued, curriculum cannot be taken out of context, and the context in which it was formed was the school.  Curriculum theory and practice only makes sense when considered alongside notions like class, teacher, course, lesson and so on.  You only have to look at the language that has been used by our main proponents: Tyler, Stenhouse, Cornbleth and Grundy, to see this. 

It is not a concept that stands on its own.  It developed in relation to teaching and within particular organizational relationships and expectations.  Alter the context and the nature of the process alters .  We then need different ways of describing what is going on.  Thus, it is no surprise that when curriculum theory and practice are introduced into what are essentially informal forms of working such as youth work and community work, their main impact is to formalize significant aspects of the work. 

  One of the main outcome of curriculum experiments within youth work has been work, for example in the field of health promotion, which involve pre-specified activities, visiting workers, regular meetings and so on.   Within the language of youth work these are most often called programmes or projects (Foreman 1990).  Within a school they would be called a course.

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UNIT-III DETERMINANTS OF CURRICULUM

The Explosion of Knowledge:The knowledge explosion has created enormous difficulties for researchers to be aware of, access, and process the volume of new literature. Electronic literature retrieval systems and specialization on narrow topics have been strategies used to cope with these problems.

In this study, the authors examined the additional effects of the knowledge explosion on researchers’ writing, referencing, and citing. Counts of references within sampled empirical journal articles in sociology, physics, biology, and experimental and social psychology revealed impacts of the knowledge explosion in all disciplines but the greatest effects within psychology. Detailed analyses indicated that substantial changes in the numbers of references and citationsand in their format and use within the research article are psychology’s unique response to the knowledge explosion.

The knowledge explosion has generated four problems for researchers who must monitor published articles for incremental new knowledge as the basis for their original research. The first problem is how a researcher is to maintain awareness of all the relevant new literature. This was soon addressed by electronic databases that indexed the published literature by bibliographic reference and citations (Garfield, 1955). Access to the literature became the second problem for researchers as libraries limited in space and funds could no longer maintain holdings of all new journals. This problem is being addressed by libraries pooling resources and by increasing electronic availability of full-text journal articles.

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The third problem that researchers have had to face is reading and processing all of the new information. Within psychology, Thorngate (1990) predicted researchers would choose to read narrowly within their research interest, summaries rather than in-depth or complete works, current literature to the exclusion of theolder classics, and primarily writings by famous persons or articles with catchy titles. Indeed, specialization has become commonplace in both teaching and research(Moghaddam, 1997).

The fourth problem is how researchers can cope with the large volume of literature within their own writing. The prospect of a literature explosion leading to changes in the nature of research reports, especially in the number and form of cited references, has yet to be addressed. Two sets of data collected for entirely different purposes have provided preliminary evidence of changes in published psychological research.

KNOWLEDGE vs. INFORMATION:

Knowledge has widely been acknowledged as one of the most important factors for corporate competitiveness, and we have witnessed an explosion of IS/IT solutions claiming to provide support for knowledge management . A relevant question to ask, though, is how systems and technology intended for information such as the intranet can be able to assist in the managing of knowledge. To understand this, we must examine the relationship between information and knowledge. Building on Polanyi’s theories, I argue that all knowledge is tacit, and what can be articulated and made tangible outside the human mind is merely information. However, information and knowledge affect one another.

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By adopting a multi-perspective of the intranet where information, awareness, and communication are all considered, this interaction can best be supported and the intranet can become a useful and people-inclusive KM environment.

1. From philosophy to IT

Ever since the ancient Greek period, philosophers have discussed what knowledge is. Early thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle where followed by Hobbes and Locke, Kant and Hegel, and into the 20th century by the likes of Wittgenstein, Popper, and Kuhn, to name but a few of the more prominent western philosophers.

In recent years, we have witnessed a booming interest in knowledge also from other disciplines; organisation theorists, information system developers, and economists have all been swept away by the knowledge management avalanche. It seems, though, that the interest is particularly strong within the IS/IT community, where new opportunities to develop computer systems are welcomed. A plausible question to ask then is how knowledge relates to information technology (IT). Can IT at all be used to handle knowledge, and if so, what sort of knowledge? What sorts of knowledge are there? What is knowledge?

It seems we have little choice but to return to these eternal questions, but belonging to the IS/IT community, we should not approach knowledge from a philosophical perspective.

As observed by Alavi and Leidner, the knowledge-based theory of the firm was never built on a universal truth of what knowledge really is but on a pragmatic interest in being able to manage organisational knowledge

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The discussion in this paper shall therefore be aimed at addressing knowledge from an IS/IT perspective, trying to answer two overarching questions: “What does the relationship between information and knowledge look like?” and “What role does an intranet have in this relationship?” The purpose is to critically review the contemporary KM literature in order to clarify the relationships between information and knowledge that commonly and implicitly are assumed within the IS/IT community.

Epistemologically, this paper shall address the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge by accounting for some of the views more commonly found in the KM literature. Some of these views shall also be questioned, and the prevailing assumption that tacit and explicit are two forms of knowledge shall be criticised by returning to Polanyi’s original work. My interest in the tacit side of knowledge, i.e. the aspects of knowledge that is omnipresent, taken for granted, and affecting our understanding without us being aware of it, has strongly influenced the content of this paper.

Ontology wise, knowledge may be seen to exist on different levels, i.e. individual, group, organisation and inter-organisational [23]. Here, my primary interest is on the group and organisational levels. However, these two levels are obviously made up of individuals and we are thus bound to examine the personal aspects of knowledge as well, though be it from a macro perspective.2. Opposite traditions – and a middle way?

When examining the knowledge literature, two separate tracks can be identified: the commodity view and the community view [35]. The commodity view of or the objective approach to knowledge as some absolute and universal truth has since long been the dominating view within science.

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Rooted in the positivism of the mid -19th century, the commodity view is still especially strong in the natural sciences. Disciples of this tradition understand knowledge as an artefact that can be handled in discrete units and that people may possess.

Knowledge is a thing for which we can gain evidence, and knowledge as such is separated from the knower . Metaphors such as drilling, mining, and harvesting are used to describe how knowledge is being managed.

There is also another tradition that can be labelled the community view or the constructivist approach. This tradition can be traced back to Locke and Hume but is in its modern form rooted in the critique of the established quantitative approach to science that emerged primarily amongst social scientists during the 1960’s, and resulted in the publication of books by Garfinkel, Bourdieu, Habermas, Berger and Luckmann, and Glaser and Strauss. These authors argued that reality (and hence also knowledge) should be understood as socially constructed. According to this tradition, it is impossible to define knowledge universally; it can only be defined in practice, in the activities of and interactions between individuals.

Thus, some understand knowledge to be universal and context -independent while others conceive it as situated and based on individual experiences. Maybe it is a little bit of both. A concerto pianist has the knowledge – i.e. the ability – to play the piano, something the Metropolitan opera audience is able to appreciate. This pianist, given a suitable instrument, would be able to express his or her knowledge equally well in some other location with a completely new audience. Thus, knowing how to play resides within the pianist and is, in this sense, context - independent.

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However, should the same pianist be stranded in the middle of the Amazon jungle and picked up by some unknown Indian tribe, her knowledge cannot be manifested. Even if a piano would be available, the Indians would not be able to recognise (and possibly not even appreciate) a classic masterpiece. To make sense, the piano-playing knowledge of the pianist requires the context of a knowledgeable audience.

Thus, knowing how to play is meaningless in the wrong tradition or environment. There are thus aspects of knowledge that are held by the individual and others that are more socially constructed. This inter-relationship between individual knowledge and tradition is dealt with by Polanyi when he speaks of personal knowledge as something not entirely subjective and yet not fully objective [26]. We shall return to this topic in section six, but first, let us deal with some definitions.

3. Data, information, and knowledge

Not many would question the fact that information can be made tangible and represented as objects outside of the human mind. Knowledge, on the other hand, is a much more elusive entity. Add data, and we have a both intricate and challenging situation of intertwined and interrelated concepts. It has often been pointed out that data, information, and knowledge are not the same, but despite efforts to define them, many researchers use the terms very casually, as is evident from Table 1. In particular, the terms knowledge and information are often used interchangeably. Kogut and Zander, for example, define information as “knowledge which can be transmitted without loss of integrity” , thus implying that information is a form of knowledge.

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Author(s) Data Information Knowledge

Wiig -Facts organised to describe a

T ruths and beliefs, perspectives

situation or condition

and concepts, judgements andexpectations, methodologies andknow.how

Nonaka and Takeuchi -

A flow of meaningful messages

Commitments and beliefscreated from these messages

Spek and Spijkervet -

Not yet interpreted symbols

Data with meaning

The ability to asing meaning

Davenport Simple observations

Data with relevance and purpose

Valuable information from thehuman mind

Davenport and Prusak

A set of descrete facts

A message meant to change the

Experiences, values, insights,

receiver’s perception

and contextual information

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Quigley and Debons

Text that does not answer

Text that answers the questions

T ext that answers the questions

questions to a particular problem

who, when, what, or where why and how

Choo et al.Facts and messages

Data vested with meaning

Justified, true beliefs

Not only are the definitions of the three entities vague and imprecise: the relationships between them, although non-trivial, are not sufficiently dealt with. It is unwise trying to define these entities in terms of each other since such definitions seem to further confuse the picture. Figure 1 depicts a view that is commonly found, in variants, in the literature; see e.g.. The problem with the oversimplified figure is that it holds three tacitly understood assumptions, which all can be questioned.

Knowledge

Information

Data

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Figure 1. An oversimplified image of the relationship between data, information, and knowledge.

Firstly, the image suggests that the relationship between data, information, and knowledge is linear. The distance between data and information is the same as the distance between information and knowledge, implying that the effort required moving from one entity to another is the same. Though it may not be possible to correctly state the true relationship between these entities, there is nothing that indicates that is should be linear.

Secondly, the image implies that the relationship is asymmetrical, suggesting that data may be transformed into information, which may

be transformed into knowledge, but it does not seem to be possible to go the other way. This assumption can be noticed also in Table 1, where several commentators define information in terms of data and knowledge in terms of information. Obviously, this is incorrect, since we all on several occasions have used our knowledge to derive information, and to create data out of information. Thirdly, it connotes the appraisement that knowledge is more valuable than information, which in turn is superior to data. This, too, has been challenged. Tuomi [38] argues that data emerges as a result of adding value to information, which in turn is knowledge that has been structured and verbalised. According to his view, there is no “raw” data, since every measurable or collectable piece of fact has already been affected by the very knowledge process that made it measurable and collectable in the first place. Knowledge, embedded in our minds, is thus a prerequisite. We can instantiate some of this knowledge as information, which is explicit and process able. By examining the structure of this information, we may finally codify it into pure data.

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Since only data can effectively be processed by computers, data is from an IS/IT perspective the most valuable of the three, and the value hierarchy in Figure 1 should thus be turned upside-down .

4. Adding an IS/IT perspective

When analysing the data/information/knowledge relationship discussed above from an IS/IT perspective, it is obvious that computers are very good at handling and processing data. The transformation of data management into information management also went rather smoothly since computers lend themselves well also to information systems. However, when we now try to cross the

border and go into knowledge management things become more complicated. Whereas most people agree that data and information may exist outside humans, supporters of the community view of knowledge would argue that knowledge can never be separated from the knower and thus never stored digitally . Computer support for knowledge management is thus, in a sense, impossible. Those who subscribe to the commodity view of knowledge would claim that knowledge can be explicated and turned into information, which can be handled by computer. Since we already have information systems, computer support for knowledge management would thus not be necessary. However, Alavi and Leidner suggest that although information systems and knowledge systems are not radically different, there is a subtle but important difference in the attitude towards and the purpose of the systems. Whereas an information system processes information without engaging the users, a system for KM must be geared towards helping the users to understand and assign meaning to the information, thereby including the user perspective.

92By taking an interest in the user perspective, we acknowledge that

though a document may be seen to carry its own information representation, the user wraps this content in an interpretative envelope, thereby giving the information a subjective meaning. It is argued that this combination of content and interpretation is what the user finds valuable . The value of any given piece of information does thus reside in the relationship between the information and the user’s knowledge. On its own, the information is useless. Consequently, the same objective information may result in different subjective meanings and values. An IS researcher with a user perspective would thus not only examine the information itself but also the user’s cognitive and psychological needs and preferences . This means that design of KM -systems must be based on an understanding not only

of information architecture and structure, but also of the situation where the user develops the information need, and analysis of the usage of the same information once it has been obtained and interpreted by the user.

Supporters of the community view of knowledge may thus understand KM “systems” not as an IT artefact but as an environment of people, organisational processes, business strategies, and IT, where the objective is to leverage and advance the knowledge of those people . Advocators of the commodity view may think of KM systems as computer applications used by knowledgeable humans. Hence, regardless of knowledge perspective, IT may successfully be used to facilitate KM as long as the user perspective is included.

5. Different aspects of knowledge

The division of philosophy that investigates the origin and nature of knowledge is called epistemology, and its objective is to establish the foundations upon which human knowledge rests.

93By examining and justifying different aspects of knowledge and

make explicit the relationships and interactions between them, we can develop knowledge systems or schemata capable of answering to questions about the outcome of such interactions . Following a constructivist approach, there will be several such knowledge schemata. Spender speaks in favour of a pluralist epistemology, acknowledging that no single reference system is capable of establishing the “universal truth” . Referring to Rescher, Spender further argues that in a world of bounded rationality and imperfect knowledge, where personal experiences is our principal source of learning, dissensus is a natural state. Attempts to arrive at a view shared by all humans are bound to fail. What we can do is to reflect upon our own beliefs and state these so that others may appreciate

from where our different understandings stem. It also seems plausible that different knowledge schemata are applicable in different situations and it is therefore important to ask how a certain perspective is useful in a specific situation. A pluralist epistemology is thus inherently pragmatic and situated .

Tsoukas [37] acknowledges that the dichotomy between tacit and explicit knowledge and the taxonomies derived from this duality by several authors have advanced our understanding of organisational knowledge by showing its multifaceted nature. However, such typologies also limit our understanding by the inherent formalism that accompanies them. Building on Pepper, Tsoukas observes that “[t]he conceptual categories along which the phenomena are classified must be assumed to be discrete, separate, and stable. The problem is that they hardly ever are” [37: 14]. Latterly, the discourse within the European Knowledge Management field seem to move away from the tacit -explicit distinction, possibly because it is not perceived to add to the debate anymore. The KM community seems to think that the topic has been exhausted and that it is time to move on.

94However, giving up the distinction between tacit and explicit

knowledge is maybe not the best option, especially so since mo st analytic work on KM has been organisational theory informed research and not IT related studies. The point made here is that some things in organisations are tacitly expressed, but therefore not outside the reach of IT support [34]. We should therefore look deeper into the tacit side of knowledge.

6. Knowledge as a tacit background

The notion of tacit knowledge was introduced by Polanyi, a philosopher made known to a larger audience by being quoted in the writings of Kuhn in 1962 [20] and which since has had a renaissance

due to the writing of Nonaka [21] and Nonaka and Takeuchi [23]. As Polanyi observed, “we can know more than we can tell” [27: 136]. Unfortunately, Nonaka uses Polanyi’s term somewhat differently from what did Polanyi himself.

Due to the strong influence of Nonaka’s writings on the knowledge management discourse, this misconception has been widely adopted. While Polanyi speaks of tacit knowledge as a backdrop against which all actions are understood, Nonaka uses the term to denote particular knowledge that is difficult to express. There had perhaps been less of confusion had Nonaka used the term implicit knowledge instead of tacit knowledge.

Whilst referring to and building on the arguments of Polanyi, different scholars come to contradictory conclusions. Cook and Brown argue, in what they claim is in agreement with Polanyi, that “explicit and tacit are two knowledge is always tacit. The question, then, is what the phrase “explicit knowledge” is supposed to mean.

957. Knowledge in action

When Schön elaborates on the relationship between the tacitly implied and the reflected, he admits that we often cannot say what we know . When we try, we end up with descriptions that are obviously inappropriate, and there must always be such a gap between the description and the reality to which it refers. A practitioner’s tacit knowledge is always richer in information than any description of it, and her knowledge is implicitly found in the patterns of his actions. According to Schön, our knowledge is in our actions .

Although actions in themselves are rather ephemeral in character, they often leave a tangible result, such as when building a house,

making a sculpture, or implementing a software system. There are also actions that do not result in new artefacts but yet change the state of things, such as driving a car from A to B, and actions that are totally ephemeral, such as the playing of an instrument. Regardless of which, actions are the only way through which knowledge can manifest itself. This does not mean, however, that knowledge must result in action in order to exist. The ability to take action is sufficient, but as long as the knowledge remains inactive, it is of no organisational value.

One action often seen in offices is the creation of information artefacts such as text, for example in the form of documents, email, or web pages. In a corporate setting, not only information creation but also information seeking and information interpretation are actions that describe the interaction between knowledge and information. By monitoring these actions, the organisation can learn where certain kinds of knowledge reside and thereby leveraging the tacit knowledge of its members.

96Individuals benefit both by being able to find knowledgeable

colleagues and by being themselves identified as knowledgeable .

As discussed above, texts are not understood equally by all. Baumard comments that when the search for knowledge takes place in the territorial waters of the organisation it becomes far more contextual than a search for some absolute or universal truth. In organisations, knowledge is generated by those beliefs to which the members are most committed . Commitment and beliefs vary from organisation to organisation, and even within the same tradition, organisations have their own culture, their own vocabulary, and their own (tacit) assumptions. As we have seen, this means that organisational members in general can share knowledge more easily

among themselves than with people outside the organisation. However, in large organisations where it is impossible to know every fellow employee, people tend to gravitate towards those who are similar in a professional sense.

Such groupings may occur on two levels. One level is the loosely coupled network of employees sharing a practice but yet being unknown to each other. These networks of practice may reach far but have little reciprocity, since the members do not interact to any significant degree . Within these networks of practice, there is also a second level of tighter clusters, referred to as communities of practice. In these latter subgroups, people typically know each other and work together, at least occasionally. When reciprocity dominates reach, as it does in communities of practice, an environment with enough coherence to allow perspective making emerges , and by sharing war stories, i.e. narratives that to an outsider might seem commonplace and banal, these members exchange knowledge tacitly understood only within the community.

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Nurturing Creativity in Early learning and development:

This paper provides a more detailed review of the research literature and uses the principles as lenses to highlight important messages which inform contemporary thinking about how children learn and develop. The headings used to guide the discussion are:

Equality And Diversity

Active Learning And Meaning Making

Relationships

Communication And Language

The Environment

Play

The Whole Child In Context

Early Childhood Curriculum.

One of the oldest and most central theoretical debates within psychology and philosophy concerns whether children’s learning and development is as a result of their genetic inheritance (nature) or the influence of the environment in which they find themselves (nurture). What is clear is that both genetic and environmental factors play vital roles in a child’s life chances (French and Murphy, 2005).

98 Children’s experiences in their early years have a profound impact on their later social, emotional and cognitive development (Home-Start International, 2002).

Socio-cultural learning and development:

Early childhood care and education has been challenged by a theoretical sea change that has seen individualistic developmental explanations for learning and development replaced by theories that foreground the cultural and socially constructed nature of learning (Anning, Cullen and Fleer, 2004, p. 1). Current thinking atteststo the importance if not the domination of social and cultural processes (Rogoff, 1990; Bruner, 1996). From this perspective, the

separate and distinct processes of learning and development (see Glossary, pp. 4-5) are inextricably intertwined and are embedded in the context of social relationships (Rogoff, 1990, p. 8).

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System’s Theory (1989) provides a framework which situates individual development in the context in which it occurs. Therefore, the child develops not in isolation but through relationships within the family, neighbourhood, community, and society. This socio-cultural understanding of learning and development underpins this research paper.

How should we conceptualise the child?Any exploration of how children learn and develop is informed by a particular view of the child. The NCCA’s consultative document, Towards a Framework for Early Learning (NCCA, 2004) is premised on the understanding of the child as rich in potential, strong, powerful, competent and most of all connected to adults and to other children (Malaguzzi, 1993a, p. 10).

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Dahlberg, Moss and Pence (1999) enhanced this view of an intelligent child, a co-constructor of knowledge; a researcher actively seeking to make meaning of the world. This understanding of children challenges Locke’s child as one of knowledge and culture reproducer.

This child was considered to be a tabula rasa or empty vessel needing to be filled with knowledge, skills and dominant cultural values and to be made ready to learn and for school (Krogh and Slentz, 2001). In addition the innocence of Rousseau’s child is challenged—the image of the child enjoying a golden age of life, uncorrupted by the world (Seefeldt, 1999).

Finally, the child as an essential being of universal properties and inherent capabilities whose development is innate, biologically determined and follows general laws is also challenged (Dahlberg et al, 1999, p. 46). Reggio Emilia chose to move from this perspective to understanding the child as an individual with rights (Philips, 2001). These past understandings of the child as a learner create an image of the needy child. Furthermore they negate the current conception of the child as a young citizen (Dunne, 2005).

New understandings of children New ways of conceptualising children arise from the sociology of childhood (Connell, 1987; James and Prout, 1990; Prout and James 1997). Childhood and all social objects (class, gender, race, and ethnicity) are seen as being interpreted, debated, and defined in processes in social action. Corsaro (1987) suggests that, children and adults alike are seen as active participants in the social construction of childhood and in the reproduction of their shared culture.

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Children are seen as having agency and power within their own right, not just in relation to the social constructions assigned to them by adults (Prout and James, 1997).

Traditional theories viewed children as consumers of the culture established by adults. This new construction of childhood is oriented towards the child’s present rather than the future.

The image of the child-developing-in-context (Rogoff, 1990) provides for a more dynamic conception of learning and development and opens the lens through which we observe children. The child’s participation in multiple socio-cultural contexts of the family, the community and society at large is recognised. In doing so, we can

choose to see the child as having surprising and extraordinary strengths and capabilities (Malaguzzi, 1993b, p. 73). Gardner’s (1993) theory of multiple intelligences (linguistic, musical, logico-mathematical, bodily–kinaesthetic, among others) celebrates the variety of human capabilities and expression. Collectively, these views give rise to the principles underpinning the consultative document (NCCA, 2004) and ultimately the Framework for Early Learning. Equality and diversity

All children are individuals, unique in their abilities, from a rich diversity of backgrounds, beliefs and cultures. All children have the right to be treated with respect, positive regard and dignity. Articles 29 and 30 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) state clearly that respect and recognition for the child’s own cultural identity, values and language (and that of others), should be part of his/her education. This section explores the importance of attending to diversity issues when working and learning with children.

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Towards inclusive practice:

There is clear evidence that children’s positive concepts of ethnic identity are related to self-esteem, reduced levels of depression and optimism (Martinez and Dukes, 1997; Roberts, Phinney, Masses, Chen, Roberts, and Romero, 1999). It is also known that biases can develop very early in young children (Krogh and Slentz, 2001). Through participating in everyday activities/routines and play, children absorb messages from people and the environment regarding their identity and social values. Bonel and Lindon (1993) noted that practitioners should be aware of and respect areas of difference such as gender, faith/no faith or family structure. These form part of a child’s home experience and individual identity. Difference in this sense should be respected in every aspect of early childhood work. By

exploring our own and other cultural daily practices/routines,

we gain appreciation of our common humanity as well as providing the optimal environment for children’s cognitive, emotional and social growth (Lave and Wenger, 1992).

Murray and O’Doherty (2001) strongly advocate the anti-bias approach for diversity education, which is relevant for all children in Ireland including ethnic minority children and dominant culture children. This approach goes beyond cultural issues and also addresses class, language, faith, gender, and disability (Derman-Sparks, 1989). All forms of bias are challenged, and children are supported in developing empathy and thus recognising and resisting bias or discrimination. The underlying intent of an anti-bias approach to learning is to support children and adults in becoming critical thinkers and becoming active in building a more caring, just society for all. However, the anti-bias approach although important, may not be sufficient.

102Tobin (2006) suggests that to better serve children from newly arrived international families there is a need to shift from an anti-bias to a cultural negotiation paradigm. Cultural negotiation involves listening deeply to and engaging with families and subsequently modifying settings based on their requirements.

Active learning and meaning making:

Early childhood is a time of tremendous opportunity for active exploration and for interpreting this experience(NCCA, 2004, p. 32). Active learning mediated through first hand experiences engages the baby, toddler and young child in following their personal interests and goals, individually, in pairs, in groups, in families, and community contexts in making sense of their world.

Child learning as an individual:

Piaget (cited in Wood, 1998) believed that all children pass through a series of developmental stages before they construct the ability to perceive, reason and understand in mature rational terms. Piaget and Inhelder (1969) claimed that the essential nature of human beings was their power to construct knowledge through adaptation to the environment. Thus, through assimilation and accommodation the child is in a continual process of cognitive self-correction. The goal of this activity is a better sense of equilibrium. Equilibration is fundamental to learning (Krogh and Slentz, 2001). Piaget’s key contribution to child development is his teaching that learning is a continual process of meaning making. It is not a linear input/output process as favoured by behavioural theorists (Pavlov, Skinner). Information is not simply absorbed into a memory bank but must be worked on by the child in order for it to make sense in terms of the learner’s existing frame of reference.

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Child learning with others:

Dewey (I959, p. 27) also viewed learning as a continuing reconstruction of experience. Thus the optimal education should be both active and constructive. This kind of education has a social direction through a joint activity within which people consciously refer to each other’s use of materials, tools, ideas, capacities, and applications (Dewey, 1966, p. 39). Dewey placed greater emphasis on interaction, than did Piaget. His focus was on designing a curriculum to reflect the circumstances children faced as members of a community living in the modern world. Fostering democracy, independence and real experiences in the classroom were major goals for Dewey. True collaborative exploration takes place where all participants influence the direction, timing, and outcome of the

investigation. In such a social setting, according to Rinaldi (1992, p. 5), doubt and amazement are welcome factors in a deductive method similar to the one used by a detective ... where the probable and the possible are assigned a place.

Vygotsky also stressed children’s active role in human development (1978). Unlike Piaget, he believed that children’s development arises from the child’s attempts to deal with everyday problems. Furthermore, in dealing with these problems, the child always develops strategies collectively—that is, in interaction with others. According to Vygotsky (1978, p. 57), every function in the child’s development appears twice: first on the social level and later on the individual level. A significant proportion of children’s everyday activities take place in what Vygotsky (1978, p. 86) calls the zone of proximal development. Modern day theorists (Rogoff, Bruner, Bronfennbrenner, Egan, Lave and Wenger) further developed Vygotsky’s views.

104 Wood et al, (1976) stressed the importance of the role of the adult and capable peers and identified that the key challenge

for adults then becomes one of defining the limits of the zone, matching or tuning the adult support, or scaffolding the learning to a point beyond the child’s current capabilities. Bronfenbrenner’s work concurs, although he placed an even greater emphasis on the relationship between adult and child:

Learning and development are facilitated by the participation of the developing person in progressively more complex patterns of reciprocal activity with someone with whom that person has developed a strong and enduring emotional attachment and when the balance of power gradually shifts in favour of the developing

person (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 60).

Brain research:

Research on brain development (although in its infancy) has suggested that direct action - physical and intellectual engagement with experiences - in addition to problem-solving and repetition, ensures that the synapses or neural pathways become stronger (Bruce, 2004). According to French and Murphy (2005), this is particularly true of children aged from birth to three years as early experience determines how the neural circuits in the brain are connected (Bertenthal and Campos, 1987). Children who are played with, spoken to, and allowed to explore stimulating surroundings are more likely to develop improved neural connections which aid later learning (Karr-Morse and Wiley, 1997). The stimulation babies, toddlers and young children receive determines which synapses form in the brain, that is, which pathways become hardwired.

105Through repetition these brain connections become permanent. Conversely, a connection that is not used at all or often enough is unlikely to survive. Children who learn actively have positive dispositions to learning. These children are interested in what they are doing, experience enjoyment and, with repetition, experience the probability of success. They develop competence and, as a result, confidence and are intrinsically motivated to learn (Hohmann and Weikart, 1995).

Cycle of active learning

The role of active learning in supporting children’s well-being and early learning and development is illustrated in Figure 1: the active learning cycle (Marshall 2005).

Figure 1: Active learning cycle

1.Play: simulation of 2. Pleasure: enjoymentbrain connections

6. Well-being: takes risks, 3.Repeat activity: learningmakes choices becomes ‘hardwired’

4. Mastery: sense ofcompetence

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The adult has a responsibility to provide rich environments where children are able to explore, touch, manipulate and experiment with different materials (Smith, Cowie and Blades, 2005,) and where children can ask questions, make hypothesis and form new concepts. Children have to construct learning for themselves, with the focus of learning on the reasoning processes rather than on the end products. This requires time for children to engage in their explorations.

Relationships

5.

Security: all is wellwith the world

A child’s well-being is an essential foundation for early learning, and all subsequent learning. It is nurtured within the context of warm and supportive relationships with others … their emotional well-being is directly related to the quality of early attachments (NCCA, 2004, ). Mirroring Bronfenbrenner’s systems model (1979; 1989), this section examines the role of different relationships in supporting the child’s learning and development.

The individual child

All babies are born with universal aspects to their development such as automatic reflexes or muscles that always develop from the head down. There are also fundamental variations. All babies cry, but some cry more than others. These differences can be ascribed to the individual temperament of the child. Temperament has been defined as the inbuilt predispositions that form the foundations of personality (Bee and Boyd, 2004, ).

107Thomas and Chess (1977) identified that from birth, babies have been found to be different from each other in nine ways: activity level, adaptability, approach/withdrawal to novelty, attention span, distractibility, intensity of reaction, mood, regularity, and sensitivity threshold. These traits are shaped, strengthened or counteracted by the child’s relationships and experiences. Children with more challenging temperaments may find it more difficult to deal with life’s stresses. Supportive, responsive adults in a low stress, accepting environment reduce this potential difficulty (Fish, Stifter and Belsky, 1991). In these environments, relationships enhance and enrich learning and development supporting many children to move through childhood with relative ease.

The building blocks of human relationships:

When children from birth are treated with warmth, respect and interest from responsive adults they are confident to learn and develop through sensory–motor exploration. Hohmann and Weikart (1995) building on the work of Erikson, identified five building blocks of human relationships. Thus, trust is a confident belief in oneself and in others that allows a young child to explore the unknown knowing that the people on whom s/he depends will provide needed support and encouragement.Autonomy is the capacity for independence, identity, exploration and thinking that prompts a child to make such statements as; I wonder what is around the corner and let me do it. Initiative is the capacity for children to begin and then follow through on a task - to take stock of a situation, make a decision and act on what they have come to understand. Empathy is the capacity that allows children to understand others’ feelings by relating them to feelings that they themselves have had. Empathy helps children form relationships and develop a sense of belonging.

108Self-confidence is the capacity to believe in one’s own ability to accomplish tasks, communicate and contribute positively to society.

These five capacities provide the foundation for much of the socialisation that occurs as children develop and blossom in an environment that supports the growth of positive social relationships. These capacities are fundamentally linked to the Framework for Early Learning’s themes of Well-being,

Identity and Belonging, Communicating, Exploring and Thinking Socio-cultural theory emphasises

how intellectual capacity is intimately connected to social activity. Trevarthen (1998,) argues that the motivation, medium and outcome of learning is inter subjectivity which is a continual process of meaning making; the construction and reconstruction of joint purposes between a child as innate companion and co-participant. Relationships are therefore vital for a sense of identity and of separateness. Trevarthen (2001) describes human reciprocal relationships as developing companionships

The child and family:The crucial role of the family as the natural and primary educator of the child (Article 42.1 of the Constitution [1937]) with rights and duties to active participation in the child’s education, is reflected in legislation and policy in Ireland. This role necessitates the development of strong working relationships between parents/family and practitioners/childminders based on a shared sense of purpose and mutual respect in order to create environments for children to support their optimal learning and development.

109 The evidence strongly suggests that participation of parents in their child’s care and education improves children’s cognitive and social development and motivation and leads to higher adult expectations and increased parental confidence and aspirations (Schweinhart, Montie, Xiang, Barnett, Belfield and Nores,

2004; Taggart, 2007). The National Early Years Network’s (1997) research in the US revealed that greater involvement by parents in their children’s care and education leads to:

more sharing of information between parents and practitioners/childminders

parents spending more time in the setting

parents improving their knowledge of parenting and child development generally

family values and beliefs being understood and taken account of by the practitioner/childminder

a more emotionally secure environment for the child

parents being viewed as valuable resources bringing added value to the setting

parents feeling more confident about engaging in dialogue regarding their children’s later education.

Guided by the collective purpose of supporting the child, parents and practitioners/childminders bring different but important and complementary skills to caring for and educating children.

110Supportive and trusting relationships between parents and practitioners/childminders are therefore critical in supporting children’s learning and development.

The child and practitioner/childminder relationships:

Adults’ development of supportive relationships with babies, toddlers and young children is especially significant for children’s emotional and social development. The importance of babies’ attachment to their parents (mothers and fathers) has long been acknowledged (Bowlby, 1988). The part of the brain that deals with memories and coincides with the child’s growing awareness of and attachment to caregivers, develops between the age of six and eight months. The

experience young babies have of forming relationships at this time influences all future relationships (Perry, 1995; Karr-Morse and Wiley, 1997). Attachments between children and adults are critical in assuring the baby he/she will be taken care of, building in him/her a basic trust in others and giving the baby the sense that s/he is worth caring for. As articulated by Goldschmied and Jackson (1994, p. 37)

The young children with whom we work, and who do not yet have language to express what they are experiencing, need to have these special relationships too, and deeply need to have them in a very immediate and concrete way. … We can never remind ourselves too often that a child, particularly a very young and almost totally dependent one, is the only person in the nursery who cannot understand why he is there. He can only explain it as abandonment, and unless he is helped in a positive and affectionate way, this will mean levels of anxiety greater than he can tolerate.

In general, babies depend on adults to meet their needs, and cope with little discomfort or distress.

111Toddlers rapidly acquire physical, social, reasoning, and language skills, but these skills still need a lot of practice. Through the development of positive relationships and problem-solving skills, young children begin to understand how to respect the needs/rights of others while meeting their own needs/rights (Gartrell and King, 2004). They also begin to see that there is not always a right side to the argument, that the feelings of others are important and that it is possible to solve conflicts in such a way that both parties can be satisfied. Corsaro (1997) noted that developmental psychologists have long stressed the importance of conflict and challenges for creating new cognitive structures and skills. When adults facilitate problem-solving children learn to collaborate, discuss details of problems (number; space; time) and discover there are many possible

solutions to problems (Evans, 2002).

Collaborative and shared learning

The adult role and collaborative teamwork are fundamental to developing positive relationships with children and their families (Bruner, 1996). Hohmann and Weikart (1995, p. 43) declare a supportive interpersonal climate is essential for learning. Both Dewey (1966) and Vygotsky (1978) proposed that learning is a reciprocal and collaborative process between adult and child. This involves active listening and reflection,in order to create a pedagogy of listening (Rinaldi, 2005) and a pedagogy of relationships (Malaguzzi, 1993b). This approach sees the adult as a teacher-researcher, a resource and guide to children; a catalyst to provoke, co-construct, and stimulate children’s thinking and their collaboration with peers (Dewey, 1966). Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development, Rogoff’s (1990) model of guided participation and Trevarthen’s (1998) inter subjectivity have helped adults to realise that children learn as social beings in daily interactions, with the support of others.

112The Primary School Curriculum (Department of Education and Science, 1999b) is premised on the principle that collaborative learning provides many advantages such as children are stimulated by hearing the ideas and opinions of others, and by having the opportunity to react to them. Collaborative work exposes children to the individual perceptions that others may have of a problem or a situation (Introduction, 1999b, p. 17).

The Primary School Curriculum also emphasises the importance of the teacher using information he/she gathers about the child, to ensure that the learning opportunities and activities are effective in advancing the child’s learning.

Attention to the emotional state of babies and a capacity to slow down and tune into young children’s ways of experiencing the world demands key worker systems especially for babies (Anning and Edwards, 1999, p. 64). This new understanding requires adults to take a more active participatory role as opposed to a didactic role in supporting children’s learning.

The child and community:

Socio-cultural theory has been influential in guiding the early childhood profession towards a more community-spirited approach to children’s learning and development (Cowie and Carr, 2004).

Socio-cultural theory supports a view of learning as work in progress. Rogoff (2003, ) suggests that in socio-cultural research children are observed within a dynamic and evolving cultural context. ... we see a glimpse of a moving picture involving the history of the activities and the transformations towards the future in which people and their communities engage.

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The child and society:

Bourdieu (1977) offers the concept of the habitus to portray how members of society, through their continual and routine involvement in their social worlds, acquire a set of predispositions (habits) to behave and to perceive in a certain way. This set of predispositions is infused in early socialisation and plays itself out through the tendency of the child and all society members to maintain their sense of self and place in the world (Bourdieu, 1993).

The ‘mind’ emerges through joint mediated activity and co-construction of learning and this activity is played out in society (Cole, 1996; Rogoff, 1990). Douglas (2004, ) proposed that every

human being is part of a much larger, integrated system with a multitude of feedback loops. Vygotsky’s focus was on the nature, evolution and transmission of culture, which is learned by the child mainly through language and is considered in the next section. Drawing on his work, contemporary theory suggests that children’s experiences of society can be the focus of the curriculum (Egan, 1997).

Communication and language:

Most children are naturally disposed to communicate. This enables them to establish and maintain social relationships with others, to express and share their thoughts and feelings, to represent and to understand the world around them (NCCA, 2004, p. 29). As the Primary School Curriculum (Department of Education and Science, 1999b) notes, language has a vital role to play in children’s development. Much learning takes place through the interaction of language and experience .

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Language as a cultural tool:

Children’s development of both receptive and expressive language impacts on other domains of development (MacWhinney and Bornstein, 2003) particularly intellectual functioning and later literacy. According to Wood (1998), Vygotsky emphasised activity in learning but placed language and communication (and hence instruction) at the heart of personal and intellectual development. A key principle in Vygotsky’s view was the individual’s internalisation or appropriation of culture.

Especially important to this process is language, which both encodes culture and is a tool for participating in culture. Vygotsky argued that

language and other sign systems (for example, writing, film, and so on), like tool systems (for example, material objects like machines) are created by societies over the course of history and change with cultural development. Thus, argued Vygotsky, children, through their acquisition and use of language, come to reproduce a culture that contains the knowledge of generations.

Bruner (1990), like Piaget, emphasised the importance of biological and evolutionary constraints on human development. However, in keeping with Vygotsky he also stressed the way culture forms and transforms the child’s development. Social interaction, language and instruction are central in forming the mind. He used the language of information processing in formulating his ideas grounded in a theory of culture and growth. Through language, the child reflects on his or her actions, integrates new experiences into an existing knowledge base, and seeks the co-operation of others in his/her activities (Hohmann, Banet and Weikart, 1979).

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Learning and developing using communication and language: In order to provide appropriate scaffolding for the child in learning and developing, a shared context of meaning and experience must be established. This is especially important in the first years of life, and is particularly relevant to children who do not speak Gaeilge or English as their first language or who have a specific language delay. In the early years the child’s ability to communicate is not fully developed and the adult often needs to interpret or expand on the child’s utterances or gestures. Through shared experiences, the child gradually makes sense of the world and of adult meaning. The adult provides the bridge between the familiar and known to the unfamiliar and yet to be known, and responsibility

is gradually transferred to the child (Smith, 1999, p. 96). This process requires a close and nurturing relationship between adult and child.

Egan (1997) offers a summary of the human formation of language and the kind of understanding of the world and experience that stimulation and development of language capacities entail. Some level of language development occurs naturally by children being brought up in a language-using environment, but fuller development of language and its associated intellectual capacities requires deliberate teaching. Egan (1997, p. 68) has suggested that the most important, dramatic, and vivid stories of our world and of human experience can provide an appropriate curriculum for the earliest years. The issue of language development is critically linked to important educational questions of teaching (how much adult direction versus child initiation) and the consequences of literacy for participation in society (Wood, 1998). As advocated by the Primary School Curriculum (Department of Education and Science, 1999b), Wood (1998) suggests that, oracy (verbal expression by children) should be an important part of the curriculum.

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The environment:

Outdoor and indoor learning environments should be motivating and inviting to all children, so that they are encouraged and helped to explore and to use all the possibilities offered for fun, adventure, challenge and creativity (NCCA, 2004, ). McMillan (cited in Smith et al, 2005) believed in the importance of first hand experiences and active learning. Convinced of the value of play she ensured there were ample materials available to stimulate children’s imaginations. This section provides a general overview of supportive physical environments.

Characteristics of a supportive environment:

The physical environment, both indoors and outdoors, encourages positive growth and development for children through opportunities to explore and learn (Finch, 1996). Safe, clean, spacious, bright, welcoming, warm, and accessible environments for children and adults, including those with additional needs, should afford opportunities to rest and play. Babies, toddlers and young children need fresh air and outdoor play space is essential if children are to have a balanced, healthy day. Learning is constrained and may be

damaged if young children are required to sit still indoors, where adults do most of the talking and require children to follow their lead (Bruce, 2004). The environment should offer children opportunities to: actively explore, make decisions and follow through with their ideas; engage in co-operative, symbolic, dramatic or pretend play; move, dance and increase control over their bodies (Hohmann and Weikart, 1995).

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Socio-cultural theory is concerned with children’s learning in context. Children respond to the reality they see around them and what they learn reflects that reality (Penn, 2005). Environments can reflect the lives and activities of the children/families in the service to establish positive identities. In addition, environments can have resources to counteract stereotypical and discriminatory attitudes (French, 2003).

The same principles apply whether organising indoor or outdoor areas. In fact many of the activities babies, toddlers and young children enjoy indoors can be achieved outdoors and with greater freedom. If in group care, careful consideration of the organising of

rooms for different age groups is necessary. Babies and toddlers need a room or home base where they can relate for part of the day with a small group of children and adults, where they can feel secure and build relationships. Older children need more space (French, 2003).

Creating the supportive environment:

Montessori (cited in Smith et al, 2005) advocated that the learning environment should be carefully planned to meet children’s needs by providing them with the optimum opportunities to work independently, to make choices, decisions and solve problems, to engage in real experiences, and to experience success. The High/Scope Educational Research Foundation (2001) suggested the space should be inviting for children and organised into well-defined areas of interest to encourage distinctive types of play. Hohmann and Weikart (1995, p. 113) noted that the interest areas are arranged to promote visibility and easy movement between areas and are flexible to accommodate … children’s changing interests.

118Steiner promoted a variety of easily accessible, open-ended, natural, found, real life materials which can be used in creative and purposeful ways and reflect children’s family lives (Curtis and O’Hagan, 2004). Materials are stored so that children can find, use and return materials they need. The most effective learning comes from simple but versatile materials and environments which extend the child’s imagination and can be adapted by children to suit their learning needs and level of understanding. Dowling (2000, p. 10) referred to this as an informational environment which supports children’s ability to make and learn from mistakes, discover the best way of doing things and learn how to make decisions.

Play:

The NCCA’s consultative document (2004) identified play as one of the key contexts for children’s early learning and development. Play and its role in learning and development have focussed the attention of theorists from diverse perspectives and for a considerable period of time. A consistent feature of contemporary early childhood curriculum models such as those from New Zealand, Australia, the United States (US), and Reggio Emilia, is that learning through play is channelled through complex reciprocal and responsive relationships and is situated in activities that are socially constructed and mediated (Wood, 2004, p. 20).

These models (stemming from socio-cultural theory) share Froebel’s view that play is too important to be left to chance (Curtis and O’Hagan, 2003). Like Froebel, Montessori saw the value of self-initiated activity under adult guidance. However, she placed importance on learning about real life and therefore on constructive play materials which supported sensory discrimination.

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Supporting and enabling learning and development:

Wood (2004, ) advocated that through play children demonstrate improved verbal communication, high levels of social and interaction skills, creative use of play materials, imaginative and divergent thinking skills and problem-solving capacities. Curtis and O’Hagan (2003) stressed that if play is to be seen as a process that will promote learning and development, it must be of high quality. This quality is nurtured by adults providing a rich environment and guiding children so they can develop their confidence as players and learners. As outlined by Anning et al, (2004, ) the maxim that children learn through play constitutes a pedagogical given in early years settings that has been influenced by developmental, play-

based curriculum philosophies. From this perspective, they reported, the adult facilitates children’s development and manages the learning environment, and less frequently acts as educator.

The whole child in context:

Young children learn from the range of experiences they have in their everyday lives. They don’t naturally compartmentalise this learning. Children’s holistic approach involves them intricately interweaving domains of social, emotional, personal, physical (sensory and motor), cognitive, linguistic, creative, aesthetic, moral, and spiritual development, and the whole system of learning processes all of which influence each other in highly complex and sophisticated ways (NCCA, 2004, p. 21).Bruce, (2004, p. XV) reported how the basic processes of movement, play, communication, self-esteem, and understanding of self and others, as well as the symbolic layering's in development (leading to dances, reading, writing, mathematical and musical notations, drawing and model making) support children’s learning and development.

120Erikson (1950) theorised that children from birth to approximately five years negotiate three stages of social and emotional development: trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, and initiative versus guilt (see also Appendix 1).

SOCIETY:

A human society is a group of people involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent

members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups.

Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap.

A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology.

More broadly, and especially within structuralism thought, a society may be illustrated as an economic, social, industrial or cultural infrastructure, made up of, yet distinct from, a varied collection of individuals. In this regard society can mean the objective relationships people have with the material world and with other people, rather than "other people" beyond the individual and their familiar social environment.

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Social forces:

Social forces and trends are continually changing. They are also effecting schools’ curriculum and planning. Here are some of areas of social forces:

1) Social goals2) Conceptions of culture3) the Tension between cultural uniformity and diversity4) Social pressures5) Social change6) Future planning

When building a curriculum or instruction, these ten social forces should be taken into consideration:

1) Increasing Ethnic and Cultural Diversity- an educator should emphasize the “salad bowl” theory over the “melting pot” and preserve and share cultural diversity, as the population of schools continues to be more and more diverse.

2) The Environment- curriculum should address important environmental issues such as pollution and overpopulation to raise awareness and prevent further damage.

3) Changing Values and Morality- there has been an inconsistent cycle of frugality versus overconsumption and elders transmitting values to the next generations seems somewhat lost. Increasing drug and alcohol abuse as well as a high divorce rate are evidence. Students admitted to a much higher level of cheating on tests or stealing from a store.

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4) Family- Family dynamic is changing now more than ever: single-parent families, grand-parents as guardians, same-sex parents, and stepparent families are more common than ever. Families are not as close as before, not closely tied to community, mothers are working more, family can be spread over a large geographical area. The roles of mothers, fathers, and families overall have changed.

5) Microelectronics Revolution- technology is more important now than ever and ever-changing, with a vast array of available educational aids. Computers, software, programs, and other technologies have changed the way people learn- as well as the time and place! Computer literacy should be included and students who are

not familiar with technologies available should be exposed in a structured and nonthreatening way.

6) Changing World of Work- the boom in technology has greatly changed the job market and will continue to do so, again reinforcing the importance of technological education for all students. Teachers should encourage and enable students to become self-directed life-long learners.

7) Equal rights- women and minority groups have had success in seeking equal rights and creating more equality. However, with N.C.L.B. there is again more inequality because of the uniform standards applied globally. Students with learning difficulties or language barriers are getting left behind, and some students with no handicaps are being placed in special education classes. Schools try to promote social change and equal opportunity, but somehow end up often furthering the existing problems.

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8 ) Crime & Violence- there is much more school vandalism, more violence including armed robberies, burglaries, aggravated assaults, and rapes at schools. Violence and gangs create unsafe neighborhoods, and the issues in school are ever-more complicated with too many instances of school shootings.

9) Lack of Purpose & Meaning- changes in family dynamics, rampant corruption and violence, poverty, fluctuation in economy, rapid changes in technology increasing disparities, crime, the lack of adult guidance, and injustice leave many students feeling a lack of purpose or meaning. Resulting concerns include: depression, eating disorders, violent and criminal behavior, alcohol and drug abuse,

academic failure or drop-out, suicide, and teenage pregnancies and STDs.

10) Global Interdependence- international relations are extremely important and continue to be more and more so; educators must help students understand others cultures and values, economics, and way of life so they can participate in a global community.

Revolutionary change in Society:

 Within the literature on curricular revision, three major premises were identified.  First, the society and culture served by an educational community dictate the needs, obligations, and responsibilities expected of the educational program.  Second, society perpetuates itself with educational programming, i.e. the content and methodology of instruction referenced as educational curriculum.   Third, systemic change, as in the form of transitioning educational curriculum, is often difficult at best and controversial at worst.   124These three elements combine to offer a strong foundation from which educators can begin to address what is taught at all levels, the needs of a respondent society, and the changing roles of classroom practitioners.             As noted above, the society and culture served by an educational community dictate the needs, obligations, and responsibilities expected of the educational program.  A traditionally accepted view of educational curriculum states that it (curriculum) is the information which should be taught with the underlying purpose of “standardizing” the behaviors of the society by educating the young in the traditions and rituals of that culture (Beyer & Liston, l996; Borrowman, l989; Glatthorn, l987; Tanner & Tanner, l995).  Likewise, Glatthorn (l987) offered that beliefs and behaviors

of each ethnic group or geographical area were developed in order to foster and teach children specific skills necessary for the transition from childhood to adulthood, thereby sustaining or advancing the convictions of that culture. In the same vein, but addressing the need for change, Purpel (l972) proposed that the primary responsibility for the child’s learning was historically determined by the parent, but as society became more complex, the needs for specialized training grew, necessitating more formal training.  It is obvious, therefore, that the curriculum must meet the needs and current demands of the culture, the society, and the expectations of the population being served.  To this end, the educational reform process is still undergoing review, revision, and constant change.

Also noted above, society perpetuates itself with educational programming, i.e. the content and methodology of instruction referenced as educational curriculum.  Borrowman (l989) stated that education is the process by which individuals gain knowledge, skills, values, habits, and attitudes.

125  Societal mores, cultural norms, and practical needs compel

the incorporation of various components of learning and information.  Hence, the educational curriculum is vitally important to a society’s success and may become extremely controversial when conflicting views emerge.

Finally, as noted earlier, systemic change, as in the form of transitioning educational curriculum, is often a challenge to all concerned and in some cases, may even create a negative, divisive environment.   It is an accepted fact that without acceptance and buy-in by all major constituencies, long-lasting systemic change cannot occur. Cited by Beyer and Liston (l996), James B. MacDonald (l975) suggested that “ . . . in many ways, all curriculum design and development is political in nature. . . . ” Continuing in that line of reasoning, Olson and Rothman (l993) offered that while the last

decade has been one of challenge and excitement for American education, the fragmented and isolationist manner in which many of the reform efforts have been implemented brought about no lasting change. Substantiating this view that change was necessary despite overt resistance, various authors (Henderson & Hawthorne, l995; Jelinek, l978; Kallen, l996; Patterson, l997; Toch & Daniel, l996, Wagner, l998) presented strong arguments that outdated strategies (the implementation of curriculum) had to be discarded and ineffectual methodology eliminated.  Concurring with these views that change was not only necessary but imminent, Scott (l994) declared that curriculum revision projects of the past twenty years had in reality been dismal failures with a high cost to taxpayers, students, and educators.Monson and Monson (l993) presented the need for collaborative, sanctioned revision by all stakeholders with an emphasis on the performance of teacher leaders. It has been suggested that the educational community must include those not usually considered to be at the leading edge of school reform initiatives.

126  Hargreaves (l995) and Kyriakides (l997) both emphasized

the importance of creating coordinated efforts that supported a modification of teachers’ roles in policy revision as it related to curriculum review and revision.  Despite the fact that the emergent view of teachers’ roles are often in conflict with the traditional view of teachers’ performance (Monson & Monson, l993; Hargreaves, l995; Scott, l994), the leadership roles of teachers are becoming more prevalent, more dominant, and more demanding.  Questions facing the educational community, therefore, revolve around what reforms will be implemented, what process will be used, and how to make the revisions effective and sustaining. 

Accepting that changing an educational curriculum can be a challenge, the involvement of all stakeholders, especially individuals who are directly involved in student instruction, is an especially vital piece in successful curriculum revision.  The review of literature

substantiated the concern that until the parameters of curriculum revision are defined and understood, the process will suffer from confusion and failure for decades to come.  

These determinants are directly related to the purposes of education. The purposes can be cultural transmission, environmental adaptation, and total personality development. Transmission leads to adaptation and adaptation to personality fulfillment. Conversely, the cause of adaptation is enhanced by personality fulfillment and it later enhances the cause of transmission. However, the objective of total personality fulfillment is debatable. The values that a culture live by help in establishing a curriculum. Education's future course will be decided by the decision that the culture renders on the current value debate. Humanism for all versus humanism for some and the cognitive man versus the mentally-healthy man are the two emotion-arousing issues which are included in the debate.

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ICT: "ICT" is the Information and Communication Technologies. "ICT in Education" means "Teaching and Learning with ICT".

The present curricula for ICT in Education aims at realising the goals of the National Policy of ICT in Schools Education and the National Curriculum Framework.

Given the dynamic nature of ICT, the curricula, emphasising the core educational purposes, is generic in design and focuses on a broad exposure to technologies, together aimed at enhancing creativity and imagination of the learners.

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For the teacher, it is an initiation into:

Exploring educational possibilities of technology, Learning to make right choices of hardware, software and ICT

interactions, and Growing to become a critical user of ICT.

For the student, it is an initiation into:

Creativity and problem solving, An introduction to the world of information and technologies,

and  An opportunity to shape career pursuits.

 Teachers who are already proficient in ICT can fast track through the course.

Based on availability of infrastructure and access, students can begin as early as grade 6, in any case, completing the course before they leave school.

 

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1‧ Through ICT, images can easily be used in teaching and improving the retentive memory of students.

2‧ Through ICT, teachers can easily explain complex instructions and ensure students' comprehension.

3‧ Through ICT, teachers are able to create interactive classes and make the lessons more enjoyable, which could improve student attendance and concentration.

 

3 MAIN DISADVANTAGES OF ICT TOOLS FOR EDUCATION

1‧ Setting up the devices can be very troublesome.

2‧ Too expensive to afford

3‧ Hard for teachers to use with a lack of experience using ICT tools

ICT has become an integral and accepted part of everyday life for many people. ICT is increasing in importance in people’s lives and it is expected that this trend will continue, to the extent that ICT literacy will become a functional requirement for people’s work, social, and personal lives.

ICT includes the range of hardware and software devices and programmes such as personal computers, assistive technology, scanners, digital cameras, multimedia programmes, image editing software, database and spreadsheet programmes. It also includes the communications equipment through which people seek and access information including the Internet, email and video conferencing.

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The use of ICT in appropriate contexts in education can add value in teaching and learning, by enhancing the effectiveness of learning, or by adding a dimension to learning that was not previously available.

3 MAIN ADVANTAGES OF ICT TOOLS FOR EDUCATION

ICT may also be a significant motivational factor in students’ learning, and can support students’ engagement with collaborative learning.

Change in Value System:

Values and character education development usually occurs over a number of years and within a number of environments. Since family members are the first individuals with whom one comes into contact the influence of the family continues to be extremely important to a child's character and values development. This fact is particularly appropriate in the preschools and early school years.

As students progress through public schools, it is important that their education provide instructional opportunities, explicit and implicit that help them develop their beliefs about what is right and good.

The following definitions are intended to guide schools in providing the basis for the teaching of values and character education in the public schools.

Values: hold in high esteem; regard highly

Values Concepts: ideas, beliefs or understandings one has that guide and are reflected in one's behavior

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Values Education: the process of providing opportunities for the continuous development in all students of the knowledge, skills and attitudes related

to certain values which lead to behavior exhibiting those values

Character: attributes or features that make up and distinguish the individual; the complex of mental and ethical traits making a person, group or nation

Character Concepts: actions, attitudes and practice that characterize a person. Acting honorably under all circumstances, even when it is to the disadvantage of the self

Character Education: the proem by which positive personality traits are developed, encouraged and reinforced through example, study (history and biography of the great and good) and practice (emulation of what has been observed and learned)

RESPECT FOR OTHERS Altruism: concern for and motivation to act for the welfare of others

Civility and cheerfulness: courtesy and politeness in action or speech

Compassion, kindness and generosity: concern for suffering or distress of others and response to their feelings and needs

Courtesy and cooperation: recognition of mutual interdependence with others resulting in polite treatment and respect for them

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Integrity: confirmed virtue and uprightness of character, freedom from hypocrisy

Honesty: truthfulness and sincerity Truth: freedom from deceit or falseness; based on fact or

reality Trustworthiness: worthy of confidence Fairness and good sportsmanship: freedom from

favouritism, self-interest or indulgence of one's likes and dislikes; Patience: not being hasty or impetuous

RESPECT FOR SELF: Accountability: responsibility for one's actions and their consequences

Commitment: being emotionally, physically or intellectually bound to something

Perseverance and diligence: adherence to actions and their consequences

Self control and virtue: exercising authority over one's emotions and actions

Frugality: effective use of resources; thrift

Self-Esteem: pride and belief in oneself and in achievement of one's potential

■ Knowledge: learning, understanding, awareness■ Moderation: avoidance of unreasonably extreme views or

measures■ Respect for physical, mental and fiscal health: awareness of

the importance of and conscious activity toward maintaining fitness in these areas

■ Cleanliness: good habits of personal hygiene and grooming

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Work Ethic: belief that work is good and that everyone who can, should work

Punctuality: being on time for attendance and tasks

Accomplishment: appreciation for completing a task

Cooperation: working with others for mutual benefit

Dependability: reliability; trustworthiness

Diligence: attentiveness; persistence; perseverance

Pride: dignity; self-respect; doing one's best

Productivity: supporting one's self, contributing to society

Creativity: exhibiting an entrepreneurial spirit inventiveness;

originality; not bound by the norm

School pride: playing a contributing role in maintaining and

improving all aspects of a school's environment, programs and

activities within the context of contributing to the betterment

of the city, county and state.

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Curriculum Localization:

:

 As an answer to these questions posed, many nations in the developing and developed world have decided to “hand over” a portion of their national school curricula to local districts and local communities, in order to tie local realities into the learning process.

This “local curriculum” commonly comprises approximately 20% of the national school curriculum in many of the countries that have begun such implementation. While the process of implementation varies across nations, the basic premise holds: a significant percentage of instructional design has been handed over to localized input from national governments and national ministries of education in the hopes of achieving the mentioned goals of localization. Local regions and communities are tasked with identifying topics of local importance and incorporating these into the school plan (Dhorsan and Chachualo, 2008; 200).

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As noted by Ruiz de Forsburg and Borges Mansson, “The LC (local curriculum) introduces content that is relevant at the local level to meet local learning needs and develop life skills, attitudes, and values” (10), in addition to “acquiring those life skills, attitudes, and values that enable full participation in the political, social, and cultural life of their communities...”Tightly bound into the theme of curriculum localization and its related increases in autonomy both at the individual teacher level and at the broader school level, is the issue of additional responsibility being transferred from the traditionally centralized educational hierarchy to these local levels, reversing situations in which there is “...usually little freedom for schools or local education authorities to adapt this curriculum to local conditions” (Taylor, 2004; ).

Globalization and privatization:

Globalization and privatization are two of the most important and interesting phenomena in current world economic and political relations. While much research has been done on each topic and on its impact on other aspects of the world economy, no one has examined the interaction governing these two seemingly symbiotic subjects. To our knowledge, ours is the first multinational empirical study of the potential link between privatization and globalization. The processes of globalization and privatization appear to be reinforcing each other. But what do we really know about the relations between these two processes? We seek to provide evidence of a bi-directional causality between two reinforcing phenomena, privatization and globalization. Thus, we investigate whether privatization is a determinant of globalization, and whether globalization enhanced and contributed to the sustainability of the privatization process.

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Three broad groups of indicators are investigated: economic indicators, such as international trade; technological indicators, such as research and development, and lastly privatization indicators, such as the number of privatization transactions per year. The use of international data from developed and developing economies allows us to provide new evidence and to draw several novel insights and policy implications.

GROWTH AND DEVEVELOPMENT OF LEARNER:

Child development refers to the biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the end of adolescence, as the individual progresses from dependency to increasing autonomy. It is a continuous process with a predictable sequence yet having a unique course for every child.

It does not progress at the same rate and each stage is affected by the preceding types of development. Because these developmental changes may be strongly influenced by genetic factors and events during prenatal life, genetics and prenatal development are usually included as part of the study of child development. Related terms include developmental, referring to development throughout the lifespan, and pediatrics, the branch of medicine relating to the care of children.

Developmental change may occur as a result of genetically-controlled processes known as maturation,[1] or as a result of environmental factors and learning, but most commonly involves an interaction between the two. It may also occur as a result of human nature and our ability to learn from our environment. There are various definitions of periods in a child's development, since each period is a continuum with individual differences regarding start and ending.

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Some age-related development periods and examples of defined intervals are:

 Newborn (Ages 0–4 Weeks),  Infant (Ages 4 Weeks – 1 Year),  Toddler (Ages 1–3 Years), Preschooler(Ages 4–6 Years),  School-Aged Child (Ages 6–13 Years),  Adolescent (Ages 13–19).

 However, organizations like Zero to Three and the World Association for Infant Mental Health use the term infant as a broad category, including children from birth to age 3.

Promoting child development through parental training, among other factors, promotes excellent rates of child development.

 Parents play a large role in a child's life, socialization, and development. Having multiple parents can add stability to the child's life and therefore encourage healthy development.

Another influential factor in a child's development is the quality of their care. Child care programs present a critical opportunity for the promotion of child development.

The optimal development of children is considered vital to society and so it is important to understand the social, cognitive, emotional, and educational development of children. Increased research and interest in this field has resulted in new theories and strategies, with specific regard to practice that promotes development within the school system. In addition there are also some theories that seek to describe a sequence of states that compose child development.

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Sequential skill development in learning to talk:

Child Age in Language Skill

Months

0-3 Vocal play: cry, coo, gurgle, grunt

3- Babble: undifferentiated sounds

6-10 Babble: canonical/reduplicated syllables

9- Imitation

8-18 First words

13-15 Expressive jargon, into national sentences

13-19 10-word vocabulary

14-24 50-word vocabulary

13-27Single-word stage and a few sentences, two-to-three-word combinations, Articles: a/the, Plural: -s

23-24Irregular past: went, modal and verb: can/will, 28 to 436-word vocabulary, 93-265 utterances per hour

25-27 Regular past: -ed, Auxiliary “be”: -‘m, -‘s

23-26Third-person singular: -s, 896 to 1 507-word vocabulary, 1 500 to 1 700 words per hour

Theories of language development

Although the role of adult discourse is important in facilitating the child's learning, there is considerable disagreement among theorists about the extent to which children's early meanings and expressive words arise. Findings about the initial mapping of new words, the ability to decontextualize words, and refine meaning of words are diverse. One hypothesis is known as the syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis which refers to the child's ability to infer meaning from cues, using grammatical information from the structure of sentences. Another is the multi-route model in which it is argued that context-bound words and referential words follow different routes; the first being mapped onto event representations and the latter onto mental representations. In this model, parental input has a critical role but the children ultimately rely on cognitive processing to establish subsequent use of words. However, naturalistic research on language development has indicated that preschoolers' vocabularies are strongly associated with the number of words addressed to them by adults.

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Individual differences:

Delays in language is the most frequent type of developmental delay. According to demographics 1 out of 5 children will learn to talk or use words later than other children their age. Speech/language delay is

three to four times more common in boys than in girls. Some children will also display behavioral problems due to their frustration of not being able to express what they want or need.

Simple speech delays are usually temporary. Most cases are solved on their own or with a little extra attribution from the family. It’s the parent’s duty to encourage their baby to talk to them with gestures or sounds and for them to spend a great amount of time playing with, reading to, and communicating with their baby. In certain circumstances, parents will have to seek professional help, such as a speech therapist.

It is important to take into considerations that sometimes delays can be a warning sign of more serious conditions that could include auditory processing disorders, hearing loss,developmental verbal dyspraxia, developmental delay in other areas, or even an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Environmental causes

There are many environmental causes that are linked to language delays and they include situations such as, the child is having their full attention on other skills, such as walking perfectly, rather than on language. The child may have a twin or a sibling in which their age are relatively close, and may not be receiving the parent’s full attention. Another circumstance could be a child that is in a daycare that provides few adults to be able to administer individual attention. Perhaps the most obvious component would be a child that suffers from psychosocial deprivation such as poverty, malnutrition, poor housing, neglect, inadequate linguistic stimulation, or emotional stress. 141

Neurological causes

Language delay can be caused by a substantial amount of underlying disorders, such as intellectual disability. Intellectual disability takes part for more than 50 percent of language delays. Language delay is

usually more rigorous than other developmental delays in intellectually disabled children, and it is usually the first obvious symptom of intellectual disability. Intellectual disability accounts to global language delay, including delayed auditory comprehension and use of gestures.

NATURE OF SUBJECT MATTER:

Subject Matter of Educator and of Learner. 

So far as the nature of subject matter in principle is concerned, there is nothing to add to what has been said . It consists of the facts observed, recalled, read, and talked about, and the ideas suggested, in course of a development of a situation having a purpose. This statement needs to be rendered more specific by connecting it with the materials of school instruction, the studies which make up the curriculum. What is the significance of our definition in application to reading, writing, mathematics, history, nature study, drawing, singing, physics, chemistry, modern and foreign languages, and so on? Let us recur to two of the points made earlier in our discussion. The educator's part in the enterprise of education is to furnish the environment which stimulates responses and directs the learner's course. In last analysis, all that the educator can do is modify stimuli so that response will as surely as is possible result in the formation of desirable intellectual and emotional dispositions. Obviously studies or the subject matter of the curriculum have intimately to do with this business of supplying an environment.

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The other point is the necessity of a social environment to give meaning to habits formed. In what we have termed informal education, subject matter is carried directly in the matrix of social intercourse. It is what the persons with whom an individual associates

do and say. This fact gives a clew to the understanding of the subject matter of formal or deliberate instruction.

A connecting link is found in the stories, traditions, songs, and liturgies which accompany the doings and rites of a primitive social group. They represent the stock of meanings which have been precipitated out of previous experience, which are so prized by the group as to be identified with their conception of their own collective life. Not being obviously a part of the skill exhibited in the daily occupations of eating, hunting, making war and peace, constructing rugs, pottery, and baskets, etc., they are consciously impressed upon the young; often, as in the initiation ceremonies, with intense emotional fervor. Even more pains are consciously taken to perpetuate the myths, legends, and sacred verbal formulae of the group than to transmit the directly useful customs of the group just because they cannot be picked up, as the latter can be in the ordinary processes of association.

As the social group grows more complex, involving a greater number of acquired skills which are dependent, either in fact or in the belief of the group, upon standard ideas deposited from past experience, the content of social life gets more definitely formulated for purposes of instruction. As we have previously noted, probably the chief motive for consciously dwelling upon the group life, extracting the meanings which are regarded as most important and systematizing them in a coherent arrangement, is just the need of instructing the young so as to perpetuate group life.

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The invention of writing and of printing gives the operation an immense impetus. Finally, the bonds which connect the subject matter of school study with the habits and ideals of the social group are disguised and covered up. The ties are so loosened that it often

appears as if there were none; as if subject matter existed simply as knowledge on its own independent behoof, and as if study were the mere act of mastering it for its own sake, irrespective of any social values. Since it is highly important for practical reasons to counter-act this tendency (See ante, p. 8) the chief purposes of our theoretical discussion are to make clear the connection which is so readily lost from sight, and to show in some detail the social content and function of the chief constituents of the course of study.

The points need to be considered from the standpoint of instructor and of student. To the former, the significance of a knowledge of subject matter, going far beyond the present knowledge of pupils, is to supply definite standards and to reveal to him the possibilities of the crude activities of the immature. (i) The material of school studies translates into concrete and detailed terms the meanings of current social life which it is desirable to transmit. It puts clearly before the instructor the essential ingredients of the culture to be perpetuated, in such an organized form as to protect him from the haphazard efforts he would be likely to indulge in if the meanings had not been standardized. (ii) A knowledge of the ideas which have been achieved in the past as the outcome of activity places the educator in a position to perceive the meaning of the seeming impulsive and aimless reactions of the young, and to provide the stimuli needed to direct them so that they will amount to something. The more the educator knows of music the more he can perceive the possibilities of the inchoate musical impulses of a child.

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The Development of Subject Matter in the Learner. 

It is possible, without doing violence to the facts, to mark off three fairly typical stages in the growth of subject matter in the experience

of the learner. In its first estate, knowledge exists as the content of intelligent ability -- power to do. This kind of subject matter, or known material, is expressed in familiarity or acquaintance with things. Then this material gradually is surcharged and deepened through communicated knowledge or information. Finally, it is enlarged and worked over into rationally or logically organized material -- that of the one who, relatively speaking, is expert in the subject.

The knowledge which comes first to persons, and that remains most deeply ingrained, is knowledge of how to do; how to walk, talk, read, write, skate, ride a bicycle, manage a machine, calculate, drive a horse, sell goods, manage people, and so on indefinitely. The popular tendency to regard instinctive acts which are adapted to an end as a sort of miraculous knowledge, while unjustifiable, is evidence of the strong tendency to identify intelligent control of the means of action with knowledge. When education, under the influence of a scholastic conception of knowledge which ignores everything but scientifically formulated facts and truths, fails to recognize that primary or initial subject matter always exists as matter of an active doing, involving the use of the body and the handling of material, the subject matter of instruction is isolated from the needs and purposes of the learner, and so becomes just a something to be memorized and reproduced upon demand. Recognition of the natural course of development, on the contrary, always sets out with situations which involve learning by doing.

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Arts and occupations form the initial stage of the curriculum, corresponding as they do to knowing how to go about the accomplishment of ends.

Popular terms denoting knowledge have always retained the connection with ability in action lost by academic philosophies. Ken and can are allied words. Attention means caring for a thing, in the sense of both affection and of looking out for its welfare. Mind means carrying out instructions in action -- as a child minds his mother -- and taking care of something -- as a nurse minds the baby. To be thoughtful, considerate, means to heed the claims of others. Apprehension means dread of undesirable consequences, as well as intellectual grasp. To have good sense or judgment is to know the conduct a situation calls for; discernment is not making distinctions for the sake of making them, an exercise reprobated as hair splitting, but is insight into an affair with reference to acting.

Wisdom has never lost its association with the proper direction of life. Only in education, never in the life of farmer, sailor, merchant, physician, or laboratory experimenter, does knowledge mean primarily a store of information aloof from doing. Having to do with things in an intelligent way issues in acquaintance or familiarity. The things we are best acquainted with are the things we put to frequent use -- such things as chairs, tables, pen, paper, clothes, food, knives and forks on the commonplace level, differentiating into more special objects according to a person's occupations in life. Knowledge of things in that intimate and emotional sense suggested by the word acquaintance is a precipitate from our employing them with a purpose. We have acted with or upon the thing so frequently that we can anticipate how it will act and react -- such is the meaning of familiar acquaintance.

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We are ready for a familiar thing; it does not catch us napping, or play unexpected tricks with us. This attitude carries with it a sense of congeniality or friendliness, of ease and illumination; while the things

with which we are not accustomed to deal are strange, foreign, cold, remote, "abstract."

But it is likely that elaborate statements regarding this primary stage of knowledge will darken understanding. It includes practically all of our knowledge which is not the result of deliberate technical study. Modes of purposeful doing include dealings with persons as well as things. Impulses of communication and habits of intercourse have to be adapted to maintaining successful connections with others; a large fund of social knowledge accrues. As a part of this intercommunication one learns much from others. They tell of their experiences and of the experiences which, in turn, have been told them. In so far as one is interested or concerned in these communications, their matter becomes a part of one's own experience.

Active connections with others are such an intimate and vital part of our own concerns that it is impossible to draw sharp lines, such as would enable us to say, "Here my experience ends; there yours begins." In so far as we are partners in common undertakings, the things which others communicate to us as the consequences of their particular share in the enterprise blend at once into the experience resulting from our own special doings. The ear is as much an organ of experience as the eye or hand; the eye is available for reading reports of what happens beyond its horizon. Things remote in space and time affect the issue of our actions quite as much as things which we can smell and handle. They really concern us, and, consequently, any account of them which assists us in dealing with things at hand falls within personal experience.

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Information is the name usually given to this kind of subject matter. The place of communication in personal doing supplies us with a criterion for estimating the value of informational material in school.

Does it grow naturally out of some question with which the student is concerned? Does it fit into his more direct acquaintance so as to increase its efficacy and deepen its meaning? If it meets these two requirements, it is educative. The amount heard or read is of no importance--the more the better, provided the student has a need for it and can apply it in some situation of his own.

Subject Matter as Social. Our next chapters will take up various school activities and studies and discuss them as successive stages in that evolution of knowledge which we have just been discussing. It remains to say a few words upon subject matter as social, since our prior remarks have been mainly concerned with its intellectual aspect. A difference in breadth and depth exists even in vital knowledge; even in the data and ideas which are relevant to real problems and which are motivated by purposes. For there is a difference in the social scope of purposes and the social importance of problems.

With the wide range of possible material to select from, it is important that education (especially in all its phases short of the most specialized) should use a criterion of social worth. All information and systematized scientific subject matter have been worked out under the conditions of social life and have been transmitted by social means. But this does not prove that all is of equal value for the purposes of forming the disposition and supplying the equipment of members of present society. The scheme of a curriculum must take account of the adaptation of studies to the needs of the existing community life; it must select with the intention of improving the life we live in common so that the future shall be better than the past.

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Moreover, the curriculum must be planned with reference to placing essentials first, and refinements second. The things which are socially most fundamental, that is, which have to do with the experiences in

which the widest groups share, are the essentials. The things which represent the needs of specialized groups and technical pursuits are secondary.

There is truth in the saying that education must first be human and only after that professional. But those who utter the saying frequently have in mind in the term human only a highly specialized class: the class of learned men who preserve the classic traditions of the past. They forget that material is humanized in the degree in which it connects with the common interests of men as men.

Democratic society is peculiarly dependent for its maintenance upon the use in forming a course of study of criteria which are broadly human. Democracy cannot flourish where the chief influences in selecting subject matter of instruction are utilitarian ends narrowly conceived for the masses, and, for the higher education of the few, the traditions of a specialized cultivated class. The notion that the "essentials" of elementary education are the three R's mechanically treated, is based upon ignorance of the essentials needed for realization of democratic ideals.

Unconsciously it assumes that these ideals are unrealizable; it assumes that in the future, as in the past, getting a livelihood, "making a living," must signify for most men and women doing things which are not significant, freely chosen, and ennobling to those who do them; doing things which serve ends unrecognized by those engaged in them, carried on under the direction of others for the sake of pecuniary reward.

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IV- UNIT

APPROACHES TO CURRICULUM

SUBJECT CENTERED:

JUNE 19, 2014 DR. DARRIN 1 COMMENT

Curriculum design is about how a person envision what a curriculum should be. There are several standard models of curriculum design. One of the most prominent is the subject-centered design.

The subject-centered designer divides the curriculum into nice and neat subjects such as math, science, history, literature, etc. This structuring of the disciplines is for practical reasons. It organizes the curriculum into basic concepts that are combined based on what they have in common. The essential knowledge of each area is gathered together to be taught to students.

Where the division of the curriculum stops depends on its purpose. Any expert in education knows that subjects overlap and the division is often arbitrary. In addition, every subject can be further divide into smaller parts. For example, English can be broken down into writing, reading, speech, grammar, and more.A major criticism of this design is the lack of integration or horizontal articulation.  The learning is compartmentalized and the students often never see the connections across subjects. In addition, the subject-centered design does not take into account the needs and interest of the students.  The textbook is made by experts in the field who already know what knowledge and even experiences a child requires.

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Despite this, the subject design is by far the most popular approach. It is easy to do and practical. It’s appropriateness needs to be left to the educator who is trying to help their students.

LEARNER-CENTERED:

Learner-centered teaching is an approach to teaching that is increasingly being encouraged in higher education. Learner-centered teachers do not employ a single teaching method. This approach emphasizes a variety of different types of methods that shifts the role of the instructors from givers of information to facilitating student learning.

Traditionally instructors focused on what they did, and not on what the students are learning. This emphasis on what instructors do often leads to students who are passive learners and who did not take responsibility for their own learning. Educators call this traditional method, “instructor-centered teaching.” In contrast, “learner-centered teaching” occurs when instructors focus on student learning.Interactive presentation introducing learner-centered teaching lct intro general plenary Polk.

Learner-centered/ learning-centered teaching or student-centered learning. 

Educators commonly use three phrases with this approach. Learner- centered teaching places the emphasis on the person who is doing the learning (Weimer, 2002). Learning-centered teaching focuses on the process of learning. Both phrases appeal to faculty because these phrases identify their critical role of teaching in the learning process. The phrase student centered learning is also used, but some instructors do not like it because it appears to have a consumer focus, seems to encourage students to be more empowered, and appears to take the teacher out of the critical role (Blumberg, 2004).

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Learner-Centered teaching for general audiences

Intro to learner-centered teaching- teaching so your students will learn more

A general introduction to learner-centered teaching

Becoming a learner-centered teacher

Overcoming myths or misconceptions about learner-centered teaching

Why should instructors use learner-centered approaches in their teaching?

Strong, research evidence exists to support the implementation of learner-centered approaches instead of instructor-centered approaches. Knowledge of this research helps instructors defend their teaching methods to their students and to more traditional faculty peers.

A task force of the American Psychological Association integrated this research into fourteen Learner-Centered Psychological Principles which can be summarized through the following five domains.(Lambert & McCombs, 2000) (Alexander & Murphy, 2000) 

1. The knowledge base. The conclusive result of decades of research on knowledge base is that what a person already knows largely determines what new information he attends to, how he organizes and represents new information, and how he filters new experiences, and even what he determines to be important or relevant. (Alexander & Murphy, 2000)

2. Strategic processing and executive control. The ability to reflect on and regulate one’s thoughts and behaviors is an essential aspect of learning. Successful students are actively involved in their own learning, monitor their thinking, think about their learning, and assume responsibility for their own learning .

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3. Motivation and affect. The benefits of learner-centered education include increased motivation for learning and greater satisfaction with school; both of these outcomes lead to greater achievement (Johnson, 1991; Maxwell, 1998; Slavin, 1990).

Research shows that personal involvement, intrinsic motivation, personal commitment, confidence in one’s abilities to succeed, and a perception of control over learning lead to more learning and higher achievement in school. (Alexander & Murphy, 2000)

4. Development and individual differences. Individuals progress through various common stages of development, influenced by both inherited and environmental factors.

Depending on the context or task, changes in how people think, believe, or behave are dependent on a combination of one’s inherited abilities, stages of development, individual differences, capabilities, experiences, and environmental conditions. (Alexander & Murphy, 2000)

5. Situation or context. Theories of learning that highlight the roles of active engagement and social interaction in the students’ own construction of knowledge (Bruner, 1966; Kafai & Resnick, 1996; Piaget, 1963; Vygotsky, 1978) strongly support this learner-centered paradigm. Learning is a social process.

Many environmental factors including how the instructor teaches, and how actively engaged the student is in the learning process positively or negatively influence how much and what students learn (Lambert & McCombs, 2000). In comparison studies between students in lecture and active learning courses, there are significantly more learning gains in the active learning courses (Springer, Stanne, & Donovan, 1999). 

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4. Advantages of Learner-centered teaching over Instructor-centered teaching

• When the focus becomes student learning, colleges attain higher rates of student retention and have better prepared graduates than those students who were more traditionally trained (Matlin, 2002; Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2002).A Learner-centered teaching model. Weimer (2002) described five learner-centered practice areas that need to change to achieve learner-centered teaching: the Function of Content, the Role of the Instructor, the Responsibility for Learning, the Processes and Purposes of Assessment, and the Balance of Power. • The functions of the content in learner-centered teaching include building a strong knowledge foundation and to develop learning skills and learner self-awareness. • The roles of the instructor should focus on student learning. The roles are facilitative rather than didactic. • The responsibility for learning shifts from the instructor to the students. The instructor creates learning environments that motivate students to accept responsibility for learning.• The processes and purposes of assessment shift from only assigning grades to include constructive feedback and to assist with improvement. Learner-centered teaching uses assessment as a part of the learning process.• The balance of power shifts so that the instructor shares some decisions about the course with the students such that the instructor and the students collaborate on course policies and procedures. While Weimer’s model appeals to faculty, they find that is less pragmatic in describing ways to implement change (Wright, 2006). Since these five practices are broad abstract categories, they do not identify specific learner-centered behaviors for many instructors. To assist faculty, I defined each practice into specific components and incremental steps between instructor-centered and learner-centered teaching. Incremental steps allow instructors to make changes gradually over time.

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These incremental steps define a manageable transition process from instructor-centered to learner-centered teaching. 

Interactive presentations and workshops on one or more specific aspects of leaner-centered teaching

Students takings responsibility for learning How you assess your students will impact how and what they

learn Aligning courses in terms of their objectives, teaching learning

methods and assessments Organizing content to be taught through organizing schemes Implementing Learner-centered approaches in your teaching

4. Rubrics as a learner-centered tool. I organized these incremental steps into rubrics. Rubrics provide concrete, incremental steps between levels. (Rubrics are commonly used to objectively and effectively grade student assignments.) Instead of assessing student performance, these rubrics are a tool to evaluate the status of a course on the continuum from instructor-centered to learner-centered for Weimer’s five learner-centered practices. Instructors can see incremental steps, given on the rubrics, in the transformation process toward learner-centered teaching. This tool explains various ways to change an instructor’s teaching. Specific courses may be at different points in their transition to learner-centered teaching as indicated by different levels on the components of the rubrics.Discussions with faculty developers, instructional designers, instructors, and administrators over four years led to the development of specific components, and the levels on the rubrics. A total of over 250 faculty developers and instructors offered feedback and validation. These individuals represent many different disciplines, and they teach at all levels in higher education. This cycle of seeking feedback and making changes to the components and the levels validated the rubrics and gave me confidence that the specific components and the levels on the rubrics transcend disciplines and

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COMMUNITY CENTERED LEARNING:

The development of Community-Centered Learning (CCL), an approach to using the classroom as a community, is described, with the writer's experiences in using the model in three classes over a semester.

A community is regarded as a group of people who share common goals and traditions, who realize their interdependence, and who strive to care for one another. In CCL the dimensions that structure the organization and operation of the classroom community are roles, rules, and rewards.

The roles described by R. von Oech are expanded to result in classroom roles of conductor, explorer, artist, judge, and crusader. Rules for CCL are built on dialogue, problem solving, and practice. Rewards in CCL are those of the student's own recognition of achievement and growth.

The application of the model in the writer's sophomore, junior, and graduate classrooms is described; and the difficulties are explored. One figure and five tables illustrate the model. (Contains 31 references.) (SLD)

Learner-Centered vs. Curriculum-Centered Teachers: Which Type Are You?

The difference between learner-centered and curriculum-centered classrooms is philosophical. Philosophy drives behavior, so when it comes to your teaching style, it is important to have a deep understanding of your own belief system. Your view of learning, students' roles, and teachers' roles determine the method by which you teach.

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Use this article to place yourself on the pedagogical continuum by considering:

The types of activities you create The layout of your classroom The way students learn with you How you prepare for class How to make the most of your style

hat there will be no academic gaps in what is taught.

Learner-centered classrooms:

Learner-centered classrooms focus primarily on individual students' learning. The teacher's role is to facilitate growth by utilizing the interests and unique needs of students as a guide for meaningful instruction. Student-centered classrooms are by no means characterized by a free-for-all.

These classrooms are goal-based. Students' learning is judged by whether they achieve predetermined, developmentally-oriented objectives.

In essence, everyone can earn an A by mastering the material. Because people learn best when they hear, see, and manipulate variables, the method by which learning occurs is oftentimes experiential.

Learn more about the structure of learner-centered classrooms.

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Curriculum-centered classrooms:

Curriculum-centered classrooms focus essentially on teaching the curriculum. The teacher determines what ought to be taught, when, how, and in what time frame.

The curriculum that must be covered throughout the year takes precedence. These classes often require strict discipline because children's interests are considered only after content requirements are established.

In this framework students are compared with one another. Student success is judged in comparison with how well others do. A fixed standard of achievement is not necessarily in place. In these classrooms grades resemble the familiar bell curve.

Comparison of the two different classrooms:

Many teachers fall somewhere in the middle of this continuum. They are neither strictly learner-centered nor only curriculum-centered. Teachers use what works for them based on their fundamental belief structures.

A curriculum-centered teacher works mostly by himself or herself when he or she is teaching or developing lessons. When teachers do collaborate in team meetings, all involved agree to teach the same lessons. These assignments usually result in a lot of correcting at the end of the day.

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In order to visualize the two different types of classrooms, think about the structure of each:

Learner-centered Curriculum-centered

Child-centered Teacher-centered

Constructivist-driven Standards-driven

Progressive Traditional

Information-age model Factory model

Criterion-based Norm (bell curve) based

Depth Breadth

Thematic integration Single subjects

Process- and product-oriented Product-oriented

Block scheduling Short time periods

Collaboration Isolated teaching and learning

Experiential knowledge Rote knowledge

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How to work within the curriculum Framework:

If you are basically a curriculum-centered teacher, the system is already set up for you – no worries! If you are essentially a learner-centered teacher, you need to enlist support for your teaching style.

Effective ways of gaining credibility include the following:

Initiate collaboration with other educational professionals.

Locate and share research that documents successful learner-centered classrooms (see References below).

Invite fellow teachers to attend conferences and workshops geared toward learner-centered topics.

Ask colleagues to discuss your philosophy of education (and theirs) so that you both may gain a clearer understanding of your principles. At that point, it becomes important to do what you say you do and make no excuses. Some people talk about running a child-centered classroom but actually have not broken from the model they were exposed to as students.

Finally, it is imperative to gain the respect of your students' parents at Back-to-School night, Open House, conferences, and through regular newsletters.

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UNIT -V

Types of curriculum and Areas of Curriculum

Types of curriculum with their definition (Leslie Owen Wilson. )     

Here are multiple definitions of curriculum, from Oliva (1997) (4)

Curriculum is:

That which is taught in schools

A set of subjects.

Content

A program of studies.

A set of materials

A sequence of courses.

A set of performance objectives

A course of study

Is everything that goes on within the school, including extra-

class activities, guidance, and interpersonal relationships.

Everything that is planned by school personnel.

A series of experiences undergone by learners in a school.

That which an individual learner experiences as a result of

schooling.

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What are the different kinds of curriculum?

Obviously the answer to this question is subject to interpretation. Since curriculum reflects the models of instructional delivery chosen and used, some might indicate that curriculum could be categorized according to the common psychological classifications of the four families of learning theories .

Psychological classifications of the four families of learning theories .

Social,

Information Processing,

Personality,

Behavioral.

Longstreet and Shane have dubbed divisions in curricular orientations as:

child-centered,

society-centered,

knowledge-centered,

eclectic.

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Common philosophical orientations of curriculum parallel those beliefs espoused by different philosophical orientations  –

Idealism, Realism, Perennialism, Essentialism, Experimentalism, Existentialism, Constructivism, Reconstructivism and the like.

Whatever classification one gravitates to, the fact remains that at one time or another curriculum in the United States has, at some level, been impacted by all of the above. In essence, American curriculum is hard to pin down because it is multi-layered and highly eclectic.

My personal definition (Wilson, 1990) of curriculum is:

Anything and everything that teaches a lesson, planned or otherwise. Humans are born learning, thus the learned curriculum actually encompasses a combination of all of the following — the hidden, null, written, political and societal etc..

Since students learn all the time through exposure and modeled behaviors, this means that they learn important social and emotional lessons from everyone who inhabits a school — from the janitorial staff, the secretary, the cafeteria workers, their peers, as well as from the deportment, conduct and attitudes expressed and modeled by their teachers. Many educators are unaware of the strong lessons imparted to youth by these everyday contacts.”

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The following represent the many different types of curricula used in schools today

Type of Curriculum

Definition

1. Overt, explicit, or written curriculum

Is simply that which is written as part of formal instruction of schooling experiences. It may refer to a curriculum document, texts, films, and supportive teaching materials that are overtly chosen to support the intentional instructional agenda of a school. Thus, the overt curriculum is usually confined to those written understandings and directions formally designated and reviewed by administrators, curriculum directors and teachers, often collectively. 

2. Societal curriculum (or social curricula)

As defined by Cortes (1981). Cortes defines this curriculum as:…[the] massive, ongoing, informal curriculum of family, peer groups, neighborhoods, churches organizations, occupations, mas, media and other socializing forces that “educate” all of us throughout our lives.

This type of curricula can now be expanded to include the powerful effects of social media (YouTube; Facebook; Twitter; Pinterest, etc) and how it actively helps create new perspectives.

3. The hidden or covert curriculum

That which is implied by the very structure and nature of schools, much of what revolves around daily or established routines.

Longstreet and Shane (1993) offer a commonly accepted definition for this term – the “hidden curriculum,” which refers to the kinds of learnings children derive from the very nature and organizational design of the public school, as well as from the behaviors and attitudes of teachers and administrators…. ”

Examples of the hidden curriculum might include the messages and lessons derived from the mere organization of schools —

the emphasis on:

sequential room arrangements; the cellular, timed segments of formal instruction; an annual schedule that is still arranged to accommodate an agrarian age; disciplined messages where concentration equates to student behaviors were they are sitting up straight and are continually quiet;

students getting in and standing in line silently; students quietly raising their hands to be called on; the endless competition for grades, and so on.

The hidden curriculum may include both positive or negative messages, depending on the models provided and the perspectives of the learner or the observer.

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In what I term floating quotes, popularized quotes that have no direct, cited sources, David P. Gardner is reported to have said: We learn simply by the exposure of living. Much that passes for education is not education at all but ritual. The fact is that we are being educated when we know it least.

4. The null curriculum

That which we do not teach, thus giving students the message that these elements are not important in their educational experiences or in our society. Eisner offers some major points as he concludes his discussion of the null curriculum. The major point I have been trying to make thus far is that schools have consequences not only by virtue of what they do teach, but also by virtue of what they neglect to teach. What students cannot consider, what they don’t processes they are unable to use, have consequences for the kinds of lives they lead. 103

Eisner (1985, 1994) first described and defined aspects of this curriculum. He states: There is something of a paradox involved in writing about a curriculum that does not exist. Yet, if we are concerned with the consequences of school programs and the role of curriculum in shaping those consequences, then it seems to me that we are well advised to consider not only the explicit and implicit curricula of schools but also what schools do not teach. It is my thesis that what schools do not teach may be as important as what they do teach. I argue this position because ignorance is not simply a

neutral void;

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it has important effects on the kinds of options one is able to consider, the alternatives that one can examine, and the perspectives from which one can view a situation or problems.

From Eisner’s perspective the null curriculum is simply that which is not taught in schools. Somehow, somewhere, some people are empowered to make conscious decisions as to what is to be included and what is to be excluded from the overt (written) curriculum. Since it is physically impossible to teach everything in schools, many topics and subject areas must be intentionally excluded from the written curriculum. But Eisner’s position on the “null curriculum” is that when certain subjects or topics are left out of the overt curriculum, school personnel are sending messages to students that certain content and processes are not important enough to study.

5. Phantom curriculum

The messages prevalent in and through exposure to any type of media. These components and messages play a major part in the enculturation of students into the predominant meta-culture, or in acculturating students into narrower or generational subcultures.

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6. Concomitant curriculum

What is taught, or emphasized at home, or those experiences that are part of a family’s experiences, or related experiences sanctioned by the family. (This type of curriculum may be received at church, in the context of religious expression, lessons on values, ethics or morals, molded behaviors, or social experiences based on the family’s preferences.)

7. Rhetorical curriculum

Elements from the rhetorical curriculum are comprised from ideas offered by policymakers, school officials, administrators, or politicians. This curriculum may also come from those professionals involved in concept formation and content changes; or from those educational initiatives resulting from decisions based on national and state reports, public speeches, or from texts critiquing outdated educational practices. The rhetorical curriculum may also come from the publicized works offering updates in pedagogical knowledge.

8. Curriculum-in-use

The formal curriculum (written or overt) comprises those things in textbooks, and content and concepts in the district curriculum guides. However, those “formal” elements are frequently not taught. The curriculum-in-use is the actual curriculum that is

delivered and presented by each teacher.

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Those things that students actually take out of classrooms; those concepts and content that are truly learned and remembered.

10. The internal curriculum

Processes, content, knowledge combined with the experiences and realities of the learner to create new knowledge. While educators should be aware of this curriculum, they have little control over the internal curriculum since it is unique to each student. Educators can explore this curricula by using instructional assessments like “exit slips,” reflective exercises, or debriefing discussions to see what students really remember from a lesson. It is often very enlightening and surprising to find out what has meaning for learners and what does not.

11. The electronic curriculum

Those lessons learned through searching the Internet for information, or through using e-forms of communication. (Wilson, 2004) This type of curriculum may be either formal or informal, and inherent lessons may be overt or covert, good or bad, correct or incorrect depending on ones’ views. Students who use the Internet on a regular basis, both for recreational purposes (as in blogs, wikis, chatrooms, listserves, through instant messenger, on-line conversations, or through personal e-mails and sites like Twitter, Facebook, or Youtube) and for personal online research and information gathering are bombarded with all types of media

and messages.

Much of this information may be factually correct, informative, or even entertaining or inspirational.

But there is also a great deal of other e-information that may be very incorrect, dated, passé, biased, perverse, or even manipulative. The implications of the electronic curriculum for educational practices are that part of the overt curriculum needs to include lessons on how to be wise consumers of information, how to critically appraise the accuracy and correctness of e-information, as well as how to determine the reliability of electronic sources.

 Also, students need to learn how to be artfully discerning about the usefulness and appropriateness of certain types of information. Like other forms of social interaction, students need to know that there are inherent lessons to be learned about appropriate and acceptable “netiquette” and online behaviours, to include the differences between “fair and legal usage,” vs. plagiarism and information piracy.

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Curriculum areas:

The eight curriculum areas are:

Expressive arts

Health and wellbeing

Languages

Mathematics

Religious and moral education

Sciences

Social studies

Technologies

Expressive arts

The inspiration and power of the arts play a vital role in enabling our children and young people to enhance their creative talent and develop their artistic skills.

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Languages

Knowing other languages and understanding other cultures is a 21st century skill set for students as they prepare to live and work in a global society.

Religious and moral education

Support for the religious and moral education experiences and outcomes and National Qualifications.

Social studies

Through social studies, children and young people develop their understanding of the world by learning about other people, societies, their beliefs and values.

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Health and wellbeing

Learning in health and wellbeing ensures that children and young people develop the knowledge, understanding and skills which they need now and in the future.

Mathematics

Mathematics equips us with the skills we need to interpret and analyze information, simplify and solve problems, assess risk and make informed decisions.

Sciences

Science and its practical application in healthcare and industry is central to our economic future, for our health and wellbeing as individuals and as a society.

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Technologies

Technologies form a central part of Scotland's heritage, identity and future. Their importance cannot be overstated whether as an economic necessity, a social influence or a vital educational experience.

Curriculum areas and subjects

The curriculum areas are the organizers for ensuring that learning takes place across a broad range of contexts, and offer a way of grouping experiences and outcomes under recognizable headings.

The experiences and outcomes describe the expectations for learning. Taken together, experiences and outcomes across the curriculum areas sum up national aspirations for every young person: the knowledge and understanding, skills, capabilities and attributes we hope they will develop.

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'Building the Curriculum: ' focuses on the curriculum areas, each of which makes its own unique contribution to developing the four capacities. Each does so both within its own disciplinary contexts and through connections with other areas of learning.

Curriculum areas are not structures for timetabling: establishments and partnerships have the freedom to think imaginatively about how the experiences and outcomes might be organized and planned for in creative ways which encourage deep, sustained learning and which meet the needs of their children and young people.

Subjects are an essential feature of the curriculum, particularly in secondary school. They provide an important and familiar structure for knowledge, offering a context for specialists to inspire, stretch and motivate.

Throughout a young person's learning there will be increasing specialization and greater depth, which will lead to subjects increasingly being the principal means of structuring learning and delivering outcomes.

Experiences and outcomes:

The experiences and outcomes describe the expectations for learning and progression in all areas of the curriculum.

The title 'experiences and outcomes' recognizes the importance of the quality and nature of the learning experience in developing attributes and capabilities and in achieving active engagement, motivation and depth of learning. An outcome represents what is to be achieved.

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They describe learning which has a clear purpose at levels from early to fourth in the acquiring of knowledge and the establishment of understanding. They also support the development of skills and attributes.

Important themes such as enterprise, citizenship, sustainable development, international education and creativity need to be developed in a range of contexts. Learning relating to these themes is therefore built in to the experiences and outcomes across the curriculum areas. This approach reduces the need for other layers of planning across the curriculum.

Principles for curriculum design:

The curriculum should be designed on the basis of the following principles:

Challenge and enjoyment Breadth Progression Depth Personalisation and choice Coherence Relevance.

The principles must be taken into account for all children and young people.

They apply to the curriculum both at an organizational level and in the classroom and in any setting where children and young people are learners.

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The principles will assist teachers and schools in their practice and as a basis for continuing review, evaluation and improvement. They apply to the curriculum at national, education authority, school and individual levels and must be taken into account for all children and young people

Although all should apply at any one stage, the principles will have different emphases as a child or young person learns and develops.

Challenge and enjoyment:

Children and young people should find their learning challenging, engaging and motivating. The curriculum should encourage high aspirations and ambitions for all.

At all stages, learners of all aptitudes and abilities should experience an appropriate level of challenge, to enable each individual to achieve his or her potential.

They should be active in their learning and have opportunities to develop and demonstrate their creativity. There should be support to enable children and young people to sustain their effort.

Breadth:

All children and young people should have opportunities for a broad, suitably weighted range of experiences.

The curriculum should be organized so that they will learn and develop through a variety of contexts within both the classroom and other aspects of school life.

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Progression;

Children and young people should experience continuous progression in their learning from 3 to 18 within a single curriculum framework.

Each stage should build upon earlier knowledge and achievements. Children should be able to progress at a rate which meets their needs and aptitudes, and keep options open so that routes are not closed off too early.

Progression in the experiences and outcomes

Depth

There should be opportunities for children to develop their full capacity for different types of thinking and learning. As they progress, they should develop and apply increasing intellectual rigor, drawing different strands of learning together, and exploring and achieving more advanced levels of understanding.

Personalisation and choice

The curriculum should respond to individual needs and support particular aptitudes and talents. It should give each child and young person increasing opportunities for exercising responsible personal choice as they move through their school career.

Once they have achieved suitable levels of attainment across a wide range of areas of learning, the choice should become as open as possible. There should be safeguards to ensure that choices are soundly based and lead to successful outcomes.

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Coherence

Taken as a whole, children and young people's learning activities should combine to form a coherent experience. There should be clear links between the different aspects of children and young people's learning, including opportunities for extended activities which draw different strands of learning together.

Relevance

Children and young people should understand the purposes of their activities. They should see the value of what they are learning and its relevance to their lives, present and future.

The Humanistic Curriculum:

Humanistic education (also called person-centered education) is an approach to education based on the work of humanistic psychologists, most notably Maslow and Carl Rogers.

Carl Rogers has been called the "Father of Humanistic Psychology" and devoted much of his efforts toward applying the results of his psychological research to person-centered teaching where empathy, caring about students, and genuineness on the part of the learning facilitator were found to be the key traits of the most effective teachers.

He edited a series of books dealing with humanistic education in his "Studies of the Person Series," which included his book, Freedom to Learn and Learning to Feel - Feeling to Learn.

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Humanistic Education for the Whole Man, by Harold C. Lyon, Jr, In the 1970s the term "humanistic education" became less popular after conservative groups equated it with "Secular Humanism" and attacked the writings of Harold Lyon as being anti-Christian. That began a successful effort by Aspy, Lyon, Rogers, and others to re-label it "person-centered teaching", replacing the term "humanistic education." In a more general sense the term includes the work of other humanistic pedagogues, such as Rudolf Steiner, and Maria Montessori.

All of these approaches seek to engage the "whole person "the intellect, feeling life social capacities, and artistic and practical skills are all important focuses for growth and development. Important objectives include developing children's self-esteem, their ability to set and achieve appropriate goals, and their development toward full autonomy

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Cognitive-children learn from responses to problems:

Affective-children handle challenges on an emotional level and see failure as a learning experience

Social- provides training with cooperative and competitive groups as well as assertiveness and role training

Moral-conflicts in the class and community create learning experiences

Ego Development-self-respect and self-confidence develop without regard to ability or maturity II. Evan Keislar’s Curriculum Model for Self-Development The Four Humanistic Responses to Depersonalization of the Curriculum to Focus on Basic Skills I. Self-Directed Learning:

Achievement Motivation-hope of success motivates the learner if the task is of appropriate difficulty; fear of failure inhibits the learner if the task is either too difficult or easy.

Attributive Theory-learners see themselves as the reason for their success

Children’s Interests-self selected study of high interest topic results in focused effort Humanistic Curriculum “The humanistic Curriculum supports the American ideal of individualism, helping students discover who they are, not just shaping them into a form that has been designated in advance.”

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John D. McNeil Self-actualization:

Individualism

Self discovery

Creativity

Problem-solving skills

Innovation

Relevant learning What is humanism all about? Characteristics ofthe Humanistic Curriculum Purpose

Provide the learner with rewarding experiences that contribute to:

Personal growthIntegrityAutonomy Role of the Teacher

Listen fully to student’s views

Respect each student

Exhibit no false pretence or appearance Humanistic Curriculum took two Forms Confluence Curriculum Consciousness Curriculum Combines affective domain and cognitive domain-Starts with content and then emotional aspect is added to personal connection to what is learned.

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Students acquire skills and discover self Shapiro’s elements of a confluent curriculum:

Participation-all participants are equal

Integration-thinking, feeling and action

Relevance-meaningful emotionally and intellectually

Self-the center of the learning

Goal-social purpose to develop a self-actualized individual within the larger society Mysticism

Goes beyond affective and cognitive domains to intuitive receptive (guided fantasy and mediation).

Transcendence beyond thought to arrive at the source of the thought.

Has religious implications

Puts emotional and intellectual needs of the student above that of the institution Transpersonal Techniques

BiofeedbackDeep hypnosisYogaDream analysis Ready to go deeper? III. Finding the Personal in the Academic-Recognizing the limits of academic knowledge and the relevance of other forms of knowledge and internalizing or finding personal meaning of academic knowledge.

PHILOSOPHICAL ROOTS OF THE HUMANISTIC APPROACH

Philosophical roots of the humanistic approach pre-date Socrates and can be seen throughout history. The Greeks envisioned education as a way to develop a well-balanced and harmonious person. This vision developed into what is commonly referred to as the “humanities or the humanistic approach.” Abraham Maslow is a key figure in the development of third force psychology.

“For Maslow, the peak experiences of awe, mystery, and wonder are both the end and the beginning of learning.”Cognitive and personal growth should take place simultaneously. -Exhorts students to develop complexity in their consciousness, and to acquire multiple interests and abilities.

-Complexity is made up of two closely linked processes: differentiation and integration. Differentiation: when individuals feel free to pursue individual goals and to become as different as they can be from each other.

Integration: when individuals become aware of the goals of others and help them to realize their goals. Other contributing ideas to the humanistic curriculum Criticisms of the Humanistic Curriculum Carl Rogers, a third force psychologist, offered a framework for the humanistic curriculum.

Believed everyone has a natural ability to learn and wants to continue learning as long as the experience is positive.

Emphasized learning how to learn. Carl Rogers -Important to listen to an individual's perception rather than assume the cause for another’s behaviour.

-Humanistic models center on motivation and emotions, including strategies for boosting self-confidence or self-efficacy.

1) Humanists fail to appropriately assess their methods and techniques in terms of consequences for learners.

2) Humanists are not concerned enough about the experience of the individual (many humanist programs enforce strict conformity practices).

3) Humanists give undue attention to the individual. Critics would like humanists to be more responsible to the needs of society as a whole. Fascinating video of Carl Rogers discussing one of his most famous interviews in "Gloria."

SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Social reconstructionism as an approach to teaching also places a focus on the use of the products and applications derived from the most current advances in technology. The intent is to prepare students to use these tools effectively in their everyday lives and careers in a modern and technology-based society. Community-based learning and students' personal experiences are integrated into the classroom environment as a means of developing a practical understanding of everyday societal functions and issues.Curriculum is much more than the mere passing of information or standardized content from the teacher to the student.

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It is the teacher’s role to prepare students not only by sharing valuable knowledge, but by guiding them to be healthy, active citizens in their communities. Acknowledging this encompassing and inclusive function of educators, it is important to adopt a curriculum that shares those intentions. Embedding a social reconstruction approach to teaching within a social studies curriculum is a good place for teachers to start when addressing the need for an education system that emphasizes the education of the whole child.

In the 1920s, George Counts began to closely examine curriculum, with specific note taken on the social disparities apparent within it. Not only was the curriculum not imitative of the real world and the problems the students would face upon completion of school, but it actually worked to continue those very problems. This realization caused Counts to advocate for a curriculum that taught students to take part in social reform. He believed that although the world in its current condition was in essence doomed, there was hope for improvement. A strong curriculum with a focus on social reform was the answer. Because of the social and economic state of the country during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Counts’ ideas began to gain support, though they were never adopted completely in very many schools (Kleibard, 2004). 

Social reconstructionists believe the purpose of school is to help students become active citizens in a democratic society. Essentially, they see current society as flawed and in need of intervention. Those that agree with this particular curriculum theory feel it is the job of educators to empower students to understand that deficient society and then reconstruct it to improve it. Schiro (2008) explains this by stating that schools have “the power to educate people to analyze and understand social problems, envision a world in which those problems do not exist,

and act so as to bring that vision into existence". Ultimately, the objective of social reconstruction is to continually move toward a more Utopian form of society. Dewey (1916) asserts that schools should work “to shape the experiences of the young so that instead of reproducing current habits, better habits shall be formed, and thus the future adult society be an improvement on their own” . In this manner, curriculum should be more humanist in nature. Educators should shape their curriculum in such a way that its objectives are consistently striving for social reform.

Social reconstruction is an important theory to analyze and consider for our modern curriculum and educational system. Our society faces crises and issues of colossal impact to the people of the world every day.

Discrimination and oppression are not new issues, but they are far from outdated. Racism, sexism, and marginalization of many different people goes on in almost every sector of society. In fact, Tatum (1997) discusses how some people will claim that racism is a thing of the past, but in reality “if you are paying attention, the legacy of racism is not hard to see, and we are all affected by it”

Using racism as a specific example, although there are many illustrations of injustice throughout modern-day society, it will not simply disappear if we do not address it as a legitimate problem. To make a positive impact on key issues such as race, Gary Howard (2006), author of the book We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools, tells us that a more active stance on discrimination is required.

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He instructs teachers to “actively seek cross-cultural and cross-racial interactions... [and to] engage their students in a continuous process of exploring multiple perspectives” (Howard, 2006, p. 111). A social reconstruction curriculum does just that in making the learning of prejudice and discrimination an active process where students can learn that they are capable of considerably impacting inequity and oppression and make life better for themselves and others. 

The social reconstruction curriculum theory is especially relative to social studies education. The study of social concerns and reform lends itself to social studies curriculum. Our current social studies programs in schools are for the most part entirely ineffective. According to the most recent social studies results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress from the National Center of Education Statistics (2010), United States students on average performed extremely low, in the basic category, in all subjects including history, civics, and economics.

It is arguable that this low level of performance in the area of social studies could be attributed to a lack of solid connection between curriculum and students’ lives. Diane Ravitch (2005) states in an open letter to Jon Wiener, “Students... need to be protected from plodding textbooks that give off a phony aura of encyclopaedic ‘truth’ and that turn history into a deadly boring subject in which all the facts are already known.” A reform of social studies curriculum is imperative. Using a social reconstruction approach to social studies, students will be able to make connections between subjects like history to current social issues, identify multiple perspectives, and internalize social studies content more effectively. 189

In addition to all of this, students will also be growing as responsible, aware citizens prepared to apply what they have learned in class to current social issues that are facing their communities and world. There are many things to consider when setting up a social studies curriculum based on the theory of social reconstruction. For many educators, especially those incorporating a traditional approach to social studies curriculum, this change would completely alter the format and content of their social studies classroom. It transforms the learning in the classroom from a passive consumption of information from the teacher to an active and meaningful learning environment. Bode (1933) echoes this belief with the following statement: 

This reconstruction of experience, if it is to have any significance, must take the form of actual living and doing. Consequently the school must be transformed into a place where pupils go, not primarily to acquire knowledge, but to carry on a way of life. That is, the school is to be regarded as, first of all, an ideal community in which pupils get practice in cooperation, in self-government, and in the application of intelligence to difficulties or problems as they may arise. In such a community there is no antecedent compartmentalization of values.

At the heart of social reconstruction is active participation. A classroom truly modelled after this theory would allow students to construct their own knowledge and apply that information to real world situations and meaningful contexts.

Creating a social reconstruction curriculum for social studies does not at all mean that important content knowledge cannot be explored. 190

On the contrary, David Flinders (2004) expresses that this type of curriculum could help students understand core content better because of the connections they could make to their lives outside of school. He explains that “a highly academic curriculum can be enacted in ways that avoid some of the disadvantages typically assumed by those who argue that an academic curriculum is elitist as well as irrelevant to much of a student’s lived experience” (Flinders, 2004, p. 293).

Topics that could be integrated into a social studies curriculum include, but are not limited to, poverty and hunger, racism, sexism, other forms of domination and oppression, power and human suffering, violence, economics, politics, terrorism, and war. Karen Zuga (1992) describes the teacher’s roles as being “more concerned about the social problem and creating a community with students and society and is less concerned about ‘covering the content’” (p. 54). A study of history and content related to these topics could easily be covered and used as evidence or support while the social themes remained at the core of the lessons. 

Flinders (2004) expressed the concern that “school comes to be recognized as an end in and of itself” (p. 294). Our education system is for the most part based on answers. Our systems of accountability which is mainly standardized testing emphasizes students being able to recall information. As a country, we value the answer. This type of traditional approach to education is not appropriate for social reconstruction classrooms. When we expect students to provide a singular answer, then we are conveying that there is one right answer to each social problem our country faces. This does not align with the foundation of social reconstruction that relies on students discussing issues and identifying multiple perspectives.

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A more appropriate and progressive approach to this type of classroom would be a process-based emphasis. Instead of the answer being the most valuable part of an activity or lesson, the thinking and collaboration process would be revered above all else.

For example, a class may not be able to come up with a viable solution to end world hunger, but that does not mean that learning and self-growth did not occur. Instead of supplying answers, a curriculum based on the ideas of social reconstruction provides students with the tools and critical thinking skills required to problem solve and apply strategies to new, relevant problems. 

Another important feature that needs to be in place for a social reconstruction curriculum to be successful is the presence of inquiry. It is crucial for the classroom environment to encourage dialogue, discussion, and the identification of multiple perspectives.

Paulo Friere (2004) discusses the importance of dialogue in education. He states that "without dialogue there is no communication, and without communication there can be no true education" (Friere, 2004, p. 128).

Dialogue in this sense means more than just students having a discussion. The teacher has to be considered a learner, as well. It is the role of the teacher to learn and discover alongside the students. Friere (2004) continues his explanation of dialogue by describing how “authentic education is not carried on by ‘A’ for ‘B’ or by ‘A’ about ‘B,’ but rather by ‘A’ with ‘B’” (p. 128). Friere (2004) compares any other type of instruction to banking, where the teacher merely deposits information into the students with little interaction. 

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A social reconstruction curriculum in this context would also require students to look at social studies issues from multiple perspectives. To truly think critically about a topic, a well-rounded, unbiased view is required.

In keeping with an appreciation for diverse viewpoints, in a rebuttal to the letter written by Diane Ravitch quoted earlier in this text, Wiener (2005) writes of the power of encouraging and instructing using multiple perspectives. He explains to Ravitch that when this strategy is employed, “students end up learning not just about what happened... but about how history itself gets reconstructed.

The organizing theme... has intrinsic interest, whereas a mass of data and dates can quickly become meaningless” (Wiener, 2005). Encouraging students to view a problem from multiple perspectives helps to provide an awareness of potential biases and also allows students to actively practice empathy, which is a key characteristic of social change and reform. 

If the purpose of the education system based on social reconstruction ideas is to create students who are ready to reconstruct society, then the students should be the primary driving force behind instruction.

A social reconstruction classroom must be based on student-driven content. Friere (2004) reiterates this need by pointing out that “we must never merely discourse on the present situation, must never provide the people with programs which have little or nothing to do with their own preoccupations, doubts, hopes, and fears” .

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In an ideal situation, the social studies curriculum in this type of classroom would either rise from discussion of students’ interests or the needs of the direct community. Once the topic is established, it is important to continue ensuring that the learning is constructed by the students and not simply passed from the teacher to the students.

A genuine student-led “discussion allows students to expose their thoughts and values to each other, have their thoughts and values challenged, and reconstruct their thoughts and values in light of insights obtained from the discussion and any group consensus that might arise from it” (Schiro, 2008, p. 140). This is at the heart of social reconstruction.

A standard social studies unit in this type of classroom would typically follow a specific pattern. At the introduction of the social issue, the students would work to analyze the history of the problem to uncover exactly how society evolved to get to that certain point or social difficulty. Following this analysis and synthesis step, the students would work together and have a discussion of possible strategies that could be implemented to overcome that particular problem.

Then finally, the students would participate in some form of meaningful field experience or action to set in place their new ideas. This important step in the process is a great way for students to get actively involved in their communities and practice making a real difference in the lives of other people. 

Changing the traditional social studies classroom to one based on the ideas of social reconstruction is not without its flaws and potential obstacles.

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The first roadblock to social reconstruction is the obligation of teachers to help students master specific standardized content. The Indiana Department of Education has determined a list of standards and content that every social studies teacher is required to cover. Social reconstruction in its purest form asks teachers to forget about content and how they traditionally view education. It also requires more time to be spent on each unit. Tackling social reform is not a one day or even one week lesson. Students are asked to think critically and then participate in the learning. This cannot happen effectively with an extensive laundry list of standards to cover. Currently in Indiana, students are not tested as much on social studies content on standardized high-stakes tests. For this reason, the area of social studies is still the safest avenue for a social reconstruction curriculum. As accountability and testing change however, this might change as well. Unfortunately, this type of curriculum requires administration and those in charge of schools to put a lot of trust in teachers. Our current system of standards and high-stakes testing is not a system based on trust of teachers at all.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding social reconstruction education. This is another obstacle that teachers may face when trying to implement this type of instruction in their classroom. This particular form of curriculum requires teachers to bring controversy and a discussion of conflict into each lesson. Themes of social reform are generally very political and therefore can stir controversy easily. In terms of quality education, this may not be a bad thing in itself. Diane Ravitch (2011) agrees curriculum should “engage vigorously in discussion of controversial topics.” However, with controversy comes resistance. Community and parent support in a child’s education is undoubtedly important.

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Considering this well known assumption, do teachers have the right or should they teach social reform if the change the students advocate for is in opposition to the views of their home environment? This type of education unfortunately will sometimes walk a fine line between important social change and decreasing family and community support. Without a solid ethics guideline in which everyone can agree, there will always be some resistance. We experience dominance and oppression today because society as a whole has allowed it. For this reason, social reform education would be in direct opposition to what the majority has put in place.

A historical example of this inherent problem with social reconstruction education involves Harold Rugg and the controversial textbook series that he created. Rugg aligned himself with social meliorates or social reconstructionists. He created a textbook series called Man and His Changing Society “calling attention to the critical social problems that America faced” (Kliebard, 2004, p. 169).

His textbooks focused on controversial topics such as immigration, sexism, and poverty. Because of the enlightening nature of his textbooks about American practices that cast the country in a negative light, his textbooks were eventually deemed un-American and lost popularity very quickly. The introduction of controversy, though essential to a curriculum based on social reform, was ultimately what caused the demise of this series and ended its use in the classroom. It was mentioned previously that the curriculum in a social reconstruction classroom should always be student-driven. Zuga (1992) reiterates this statement saying “it is not determining what content a child needs to know in the future in order to be a successful adult, thereby limiting the potential of the child.

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It is not lacking the commitment to take a stand, one which will not be universally agreed upon, on issues, all issues, It is not discouraging students from taking a stand on issues” (p. 56). This is a key attribute of a true social reconstruction curriculum. However, without a strong, exact accountability system in place to ensure that the content is not being predetermined by the teacher, there is a strong possibility, if not a guarantee, that some bias or prejudice will be introduced into the classroom. With a strong government influence, there is the potential for special interest groups to push their political agendas on education.

Also, if the curriculum remains tied to textbooks, then it allows those textbook companies to push their own agendas, as well. Without some way to guarantee that the content and the learning is completely constructed by students, then there is a large risk for corruption because of the political nature of a social reconstruction curriculum.

Even without a primarily government controlled education system and a reliance on textbooks as the source of curriculum, can education and teachers be neutral? The answer is no, and this presents an ingrained shortcoming of social reconstruction. Teachers are in some way subconsciously or otherwise pushing their own prejudices all of the time. Flinders (2004) asserts that “teaching itself is a normative enterprise; it seeks to foster something that the teacher considers worth fostering” (p. 287). 

On the contrary, neutrality in education could be dangerous. If neutrality is expected, what happens when students present dangerous or unethical ideas? Remaining neutral in a sense also means remaining apathetic to the continuing of social problems such as oppression.

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Even though there is the potential for prejudice and bias in a social reconstruction curriculum, choosing to ignore the need for social reform is a political choice and bias in itself. Gutstein and Peterson (2005) explain this political choice in the following statement:

When teachers fail to include [content] that help students confront important global issues, or when they don’t bring out the underlying implications of problems... these are political choices, whether the teachers recognize them as such or not... [and they] contribute to disempowering students and are objectively political acts, though not necessarily conscious ones. (p. 6)

Basically if the curriculum is not slated toward social reconstruction, then it is supporting the perpetuation of the current society, “which is simply the opposite side of the political agenda” (Schiro, 2008, p. 153).

This means that in making the choice to create a social reform based curriculum or to avoid it, an educator is making a political and biased decision. The fundamental question that educators need to face concerns whether or not our current society is in need of improvement.

If educators can assume that we all share a basic ethics system that in general defends the right for people to be treated fairly and respectfully and if we can admit that there is still wrong in the world, then we cannot avoid including those discussions in at least the social studies curriculum.

By refraining from doing so, we are subconsciously teaching students that the world in its current condition is just as it should be. 

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Teachers' Role in Reconstructions Curriculum:

Teacher and curriculum

After reading about the roles of Chinese teachers and American teachers, you may ask “What role would a Chinese language teacher assume herself/himself in the language and culture in the United States, and how would that affect the curriculum design? Or “What role would a bilingual/bicultural teacher assume herself/himself in the immersion in the United States, and how would that affect the curriculum design? Here are some thoughts for you to ponder upon:

 Work as an instructional designer:

You may have focused on the learners’ developmental, emotional and affective needs in your teaching.

You may have focused on learner critical thinking, problem-solving and collaborative skills, you may also intend to emphasize, sometimes overemphasize the correct way of pronouncing each word and making each sentence order correct by repeating or ask your students to answer this question

“ What does ‘apple’ mean in Chinese?”So can you identify yourself in one or more of the scenarios described above? Research identified that teachers well-designed learning activities that foster language use in authentic and real life settings, can support learner’s needs and facilitate deep learning. 

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Work as an intercultural practitioner (primarily for language and culture teachers): You are now teaching both Chinese language and culture. These two aspects are closely knitted. And it is helpful for us to ask what culture is, how we detect the nuanced cultural difference in teaching, and how we lead students cross the boundaries of difference cultures.

The role of teachers, as an intercultural practitioner, is first to analyze a culture, its concepts and keywords, and then to introduce and explain them to learners by way of paraphrase or presenting the affective behavior within a situation-oriented approach, and finally to step back and let learners discover and interpret the meanings for themselves. (It is at this point that learners may show their positive or negative feelings.) Teachers are now in a position to observe the extent of learners’ understanding and agreement, and so may lead learners into an analytical comparison of the two cultures.  

Work with your colleagues to adapt the curricular standards to your own teaching: There are multiple standards for curriculum in the United States. How do we work effectively under the mandated curriculum standards and test system? Examples from Chinese context may give us some insights. Researchers found there are two ways helpful for a teacher’s professional development under the mandated curriculum standards and testing system: 1) careful study of the curriculum materials that were authoritatively, specifically, and consistently structured; 2) and her continuous and substantial participation in the collaborative observations, discussions, and reflections on each other’s lesson development, teaching, and lesson debriefing in schools.

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Work as an effective room manager:

Classroom management is not separated from academic curriculum. A successfully designed and implemented curriculum cannot do without effective room management strategies. Chinese researchers suggested teachers set explicit rules, give punishment and award appropriately, give students some control in a limited range, set up teacher’s authority via respect, develop mutual trust and positive relationships with students, and communicate with the parents. You can find more resources on Gaining Ground and appropriate these resources for your own use in the room management:   

Work with parents and community in designing your schoolwork and homework: Your room is not the only place that curriculum should be! Please note that we take the general view about the definition of curriculum and regards it as the experiences through which children grow, learn and mature to become adults. So the schoolwork needs to be connected to what students can learn at home and make their learning an integrated and consolidated daily experience. In that sense, homework needs to be considered in our curricular design. And the parents’ involvement is vital for this process. Researchers found that in spite of the differences in students’ race, family background, prior ability, and high school curricular track, low-ability students who did 10 hours of homework or more per week had as good report card grades as high-ability students who did no homework. But it does not mean that the more homework, the better. Teachers need work with parents and make use of varied and meaningful homework to help students engage in goal-directed learning.

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Here is an example of how to involve parents in schoolwork and homework:

1. Objectives: explains the learning goals of the activity, if this is not clear from the title or letter.

2. Prewriting: gives the student space to plan a letter, essay, story, or poem by outlining, brainstorming, listing, designing nets and webs, or by using other planning strategies.

3. First draft: gives the student space to write and edit. A student who needs more space may add paper. Some teachers ask the student to write a final copy on other paper at home or at school.

4. Interactions: guides the student to conduct a family survey or interview, talk with a family partner about ideas or memories, read work aloud for reactions, edit work, practice a speech, or conduct other interactions. Other assignments include exchanges focused on grammar, vocabulary, reading, and other language arts skills.

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