Society is always moving in multi-dimensions.

 

I am new to curriculum discussions at theoretical levels. My main grasp of curriculum has been through reflection over my own work as a teacher of long time. I have also been an avid observer of the way education has changed over the 20 plus years that I have spent in the field. This written assignment is based on my experiential wisdom.

 Society is always moving in multi-dimensions. On one end are layers that are still the same decades after decades. On the other end are layers already in the newer dimensions. Education has similar layers. So I would say, we are neither in a straight line nor in circles, but we follow a spiral growth. (Chadkirk, B, 2012).

  A 'the new curriculum theory' (Pinar, 1978, pp.2) is constantly in the process of emerging in some part of humanity, while there are those who still hold on the older versions. Then there are many hybrid versions too, in between. I don’t think that there is a black or white answer to this question.

 I have seen 4 levels of educational thought in my years of work. There are areas where they overlap however I have tried to give a distinction between them.

1.     Academics: Doing well in exams only important.

“The purpose of education is to help children learn the accumulated knowledge of our culture: that of the academic disciplines” (Schiro, p.7). This is where giving out factual knowledge is the most important part and “…curriculum is traditionally thought to include considerations such as evaluation and supervision” (Pinar, 1978, pp.4.). Evaluation chiefly included recall of the facts learnt. Learners were judged on basis of their position in the examination. Individual differences were ignored and the concept of ‘differentiation’ is not exist.

2.     Progressive: Exams are important but so are relationships.

I experienced the next level where the exams were put into perspective and the curriculum involved a number of progressive teaching ideas. Individual differences were respected and the boundaries of evaluation were relaxed a bit. The focus of the curriculum was not doing well in the exam. It was believed that the “purpose of schooling is to efficiently meet the needs of society by training youth to function as future mature contributing members of society” (Schiro, 2013, p.8). Building relationships was considered as important as building concepts.

3.     Learner Centric: Everyone has a potential for growth.

These were curricula that were learner centred. The belief system was that “The potential for growth lies within people. However, people are stimulated to grow and construct meaning as a result of interacting with their physical, intellectual, and social environments” (Schiro, 2013, p.9). In this curricula, evaluation was a part of curricula. The curriculum included development of skill, attitudes and values and continuous change.

This was also a curriculum that questioned the way society is structured and attempted to restructure it as it “…views education from a social perspective, the nature of society as it is and as it should be become the determinants of most of their assumptions” (Schiro, 2013, p.9).

4.     Free progress: We grow only when we have freedom

       Curriculum where evaluation as an examination was completely abandoned. Learners and teachers were seen as both growing individuals and curriculum a process that evolved with interaction between the two. Hence the curriculum is ‘community centric’, with each member as a contributing member. This is where evolution itself is the core of the work and curriculum also a part of it. There is a resistance to bringing about a structured way of seeing.

 Reconceptualists: To each to his own 

Is it over? No!

The issue as I discovered with all these ways of thinking is that it revolves around an ideology and that becomes the point of evaluation of the system. The individual is still attached to the structure in which he/she is working. There is an “…intolerance among curricularists for work differing from one's own…” (Pinar, 1978, pp.9.) And hence we can predict further evolution of the curriculum.

 We have the next movement possible given by. “Reconceptualists have no organized group, such as ASCD or AERA. Individuals at work, while sharing certain themes and motives, do not tend to share any common interpersonal affiliation”. (Pinar, 1978, p8)

 In my opinion, this is a Synthesis of the best of all the ideas that have been developed over the decades. The final step would be where the individual teachers would be curriculum designers, however, without an affiliation to a particular structure, yet respecting all of them.

Keeping freedom of learning of the learner at the centre, they would use the strategies as per the need. An attitude of ‘to each to his own’. There would be freedom without adherence to an ideology.

 In my person work in Maths teaching in middle school, this is where I came to finally. A non-allegiance to any particular model. A free flowing movement from one strategy to another depending on what is the need of the hour. A model of simply bringing a lot of variety and novelty based on how does learning happen in our brains as developed by Eric Jensen (ASCD, n.d.). The focus of the curriculum being learning in the learner and not the curriculum itself.

 

References:

1.     Ascd. (n.d.). Eric Jensen. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/Publications/ascd-authors/eric-jensen.aspx

2.     Chadkirk, B. (2012). The Spiral of Social Change: A Model of Change in the Society of Friends. Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/10617411/The_Spiral_of_Social_Change_A_Model_of_Change_in_the_Society_of_Friends

3.      Pinar, W. (1978). The Reconceptualisation of Curriculum Studies. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 10:3, 205-21. Retrieved from: http://daneshnamehicsa.ir/userfiles/file/Resources/8-2%29%20Ideologies/ARTICLE_William%20Pinar.pdf

4.     Schiro, M. S. (2013). Curriculum theory: Conflicting visions and enduring concerns (2nd ed.).  Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Retrieved  from: https://talkcurriculum.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/schiro-m-2013-introduction-to-the-curriculum-ideologies.pdf