How should curriculum be generated?
Is it worrisome that I am the curriculum coach, as well as a full-time first grade teacher, at an elementary school and I am struggling to write an answer to this question in simple black and white? I am going to stick with a modest answer – not at all. The question, “How should curriculum be generated?,” is complex, complicated, and challenging. Currently, the school that I teach/coach at is in the process of re-evaluating and transforming our elementary curriculum for reading, writing, and math beginning with the preschool curriculum and continuing throughout kindergarten to the sixth grade. This isn’t an easy task that can be successfully accomplished by a single individual. According to Ralph W. Tyler, the renovation of a school wide curriculum should include the participation of the school’s faculty. He wrote, “Unless the objectives are clearly understood by each teacher, unless he is familiar with the kinds of learning experiences that can be used to attain these objectives, and unless he is able to guide the activities of students so that they will get these experiences, the educational program will not be an effective instrument for promoting the aims of the school.” Our faculty consists of one school leader, one secretary, one office manager, nine highly qualified teachers, two assistant teachers, two interventionists, and an infinite number of parent volunteers and students – all in which are actively involved with this complex, complicated, and challenging evaluation and transformation process of our curriculum.
According to Ralph W. Tyler, “In planning an educational program to attain given objectives we face the question of deciding on the particular educational experiences to be provided, since it is through these experiences that learning will take place and educational objectives will be attained.” As our tiny, yet extremely knowledge and highly educated staff, attempts to successfully tackle generating a curriculum perfectly suited to meet the individual social, emotional, cognitive, physical, and language needs of our student population, we are quickly discovering that this is a task for educational experts, which can include members of your own faculty, specifically teachers. Teachers are the ones that are required to maintain their certification with continuing education courses, to uphold and implement current educational theories and trends, and to reexamine methods of teaching in order to continually meet the individual, educational needs of each and every student. Yet how much input do teachers really have in regards to developing and generating curriculum?
As I was reading the article, How Christian Were the Founders by Russell Shorto, I couldn’t stop thinking about this question. In reference to the educational system in Texas, Russell Shorto stated, “The board has the power to accept, reject or rewrite the TEKS, and over the past few years, in language arts, science, and now social studies, the members have done all of the above. Yet few of these elected overseers are trained in the fields they are reviewing.” Really? Why are untrained, uneducated amateurs, in the educational field, controlling educational issues? I am a teacher specializing in early childhood development. I am a trained, educated specialist who understands the manner in which young children learn. I, also, effectively educate early elementary teachers with skills, strategies, and best practices for teaching young children. However, I would never even consider stepping into a college classroom with the intentions of teaching teachers to teach. This is not my field of expertise. In the article, How Christian Were the Founders, Russell Shorto quoted Tom Barber stating, “In general, the board members don’t know anything at all about content.” Isn’t it common sense that the people “in charge” have some type of content knowledge? Shouldn’t the educational experts be “in charge” or at least have some input regarding matters of education? In my personal opinion, I believe that the state of our country’s educational system has a lot to do with this travesty – the people in charge simply do not know what they are doing.
For now our tiny curriculum committee, consisting of our entire staff, as well as representatives from our parent and student populations, has decided that we are just the educational experts that our students need in order to re-evaluate, to transform, and to generate the ideal curriculum for our school. To be honest, before reading Ralph W. Tyler’s Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, I slightly doubted that our staff could accept, let alone accomplish, the daunting task of generating a school-wide reading, writing, and math curriculum. However, Ralph W. Tyler stated, “The program may be improved by attacks beginning at any point, providing the resulting modifications are followed through the related elements until eventually all aspects of the curriculum have been studied and revised.” What a breath of fresh air!
