CYCLE 1: What is curriculum? What is its purpose?

I think that a direct answer to the question(s) is in order... Curriculum is not posting on your blob past the due date...(note to self). And now for a more serious answer.

CYCLE 1: What is curriculum? What is its purpose?

I started off as an admitted idealogue. Just because the State paid for my retirement did not mean that I worked for them. No sir, I was going to do what's right for kids, and teach them what they needed to know, because that is what good teachers do. Then reality put a beat down on me. Yes, I work for a State, er, public school. My non-Social Studies collegues don't always get the implication when I say that kind of thing. I just can't help but think of the Praesidium, the ComIntern, Stalin, Beria...you know..."The State". The idea that if you don't do what we say, think what we say, echo what we say, you'll be off to the gullag,or the unemployment line. I have an increasingly strict set of guidelines sent down to me by the State, labeled with nifty names like Benchmarks, GLiCS and CommonCore. This is supposed to define and control the curriculum that is presented to Michigan's students.

But what is curriculum in the first place?

First of all, I hate the "race" analogy. Why does it always have to be a race? Somehow it's always a marathon too, as mentioned in our readings. Why not the 400 hurdles or steeplechase? Why not a ping-pong match? For my post, it's table-tennis. On the surface, ping-pong is simplistic. It's what that one old uncle used to play in the basement. Except for the fact that good players are, well, highly skilled in their own right. They are skilled in their "craft" because they have recieved an amalgam of knowledge from other players, writers, and such sources. They have taken that, melded it, added to it, and then pass it on to each of their opponents each time that they execute a "forehand smasher". That is curriculum, academic or otherwise, in a nut-shell. Its a capsulated package of the knowledge that humanity has acheived, discovered, studies and published over time.

You know, curriculum can be more than that. My kids learn from me, because I am both the vehicle for the State's curriculum, but also because I am a curriculumn of my own. I am a living, breathing capsule of experiences that impregnate all that I speak or write. My kids learn me from me, and I learn them from them.

In Social Studies, our curriculumn should be ever-gowing, as more and more is added to the human record. Yet somehow, this is not the case, and that has everything to do with the purpose of curiculum.

Know your purpose.

As very wise coach once told me "Boy, you need to know your purpose." A more accurate statement may never have been issued by a man with a mullett. The trouble with curriculum, specifically curriculum in our schools is that those who make the decisions may not know their purpose, or the purpose of curriculum itself. Is the purpose of curriculum knowledge and information, or is it philosophy and assessment? That is the fundemental question being dabated all over our State, in meetings like the one I have every Wednesday in liu of my planning period. The topic: what knowledge can we cut out of the curriulum to replace with required activities that better match the philosophies of our new, reform-minded administration. How can this even be discussed if the purpose of curriculum is to give a capsulated package of the knowledge of humanity to our children? I understand the strains placed on administrators, don't get me wrong. I just don't understand decisions that take us further and further away from what a curriculum really is.

By any means necessary.
I just have to mention Donovan for a moment. His story wasn't necessary to answer this question, but touched a nerve with me none less. I'm a teacher (clearly) and a new parent. I just want to say that the purpose, not of curriculum, but of schools, it to ensure that kids learn by any means necessary. Donovan is a kid. He has specific needs that are challeging, but he is still a kid and deserves to learn as much as he possible can if he wants to. In all of the dialog at our reforming school about curriulum, somehow this kind of thing never comes up. I rarely hear it in IEP meetings. If curriculum is encapsulated knowledge, then our pupose should be to use it, in conjunction with whatever tools it takes, to make sure every kids we have can learn.

Additional Resources

http://www.k12curriculumdevelopment.com/1/post/2010/1/2010-defining-the-purpose-of-our-curriculum.html

This particular article isn't really an article, as much as a statement of purpose ofr districts looking to improve teaching through curriculumn development. I chose to make note of this is that so many of us have heard this before.

http://www.temple.edu/lss/htmlpublications/publications/pubs97-4.htm

This one was of particular interest to me. I never find enough information about the relationship between what we do, what we use, and our potential successes in urban schools. Good read.