Curriculum Who? and What?

When it comes to school curriculum who has the final say on what is taught in the school system? The State Superintendent along with school board and school offices set the standards and applies them. Then they form committees to help decide what the core curriculum should be for the state schools. Do teachers have a say in the process? The teacher gets to teach the curriculum according to the subjects that are being covered.

Let's clarify what curriculum and instruction are. Curriculum is what you teach, your arrangement of curriculum and planned educational experiences. We discussed the four types of curriculum, but here is better clarification on the types of curriculum. Explicit curriculum is the content, the objectives, and lesson plan. These are the things that are directly taught. This is used more in Junior and High Schools. Here in the state of Utah we have a website that helps with lesson planning for explicit content, it called Utah Education Network (UEN.org). An example of Explicit curriculum would be Math and Language Arts. Next we have Implicit "hidden" curriculum. These are the attitudes and values students take from school. The types of learning children gain without formal instruction in a particular area. Teacher's actions influence the Implicit curriculum, for example by the posters they hang in their classrooms, or they may spend more time on particular topic. Then there is Null curriculum this is where things are left out of Explicit curriculum, and they often include controversial subjects like Evolution. Finally, there is Extracurricular, which is the activities outside of the classroom, such as clubs, sports, etc. Studies have shown that low-ability and at risk students are less likely to participate in extracurricular activities.

Now instruction is how you teach and deciding what practices are best. Pedagogy is the art and science of teaching young people. The art is the design of teaching and the creativity behind teaching. It can allow for wiggle room. The science of teaching is based off of practices that are effective tools that help students learn. These are the strategies that have been proven and always used in college and method courses of teaching.