School Curriculum

When it comes to school curriculum we as teachers need to decide what is valuable for our students to grasp. The components of school curriculum are explicit, integrated, implicit, null and extracurricular. Explicit curriculum is the formal material usually found in textbooks, curriculum guides, and standards. Integrated are the concepts and skills from various disciplines that are combined and related. This type of curriculum is very popular in Elementary Schools. Then we have implicit curriculum which is the way a teacher presents content. It can be in hidden messages, and often implied rather than voiced. Null curriculum is where teachers decide what is most important to cover in a short amount of time. Finally, there is extracurricular, which is the learning experience from the student's formal studies.

The things that have an influence on curriculum are textbooks, standards and accountability, the Federal Government, and the teachers philosophies and professionalism. The idea of "What gets tested gets taught" is the norm in most schools today. Textbooks are used as outline for most classes, but the majority of textbooks cover more than twice of what is going to be taught. The Federal government plays role of making sure that curriculum is accessible to all. This can be seen in the NO Child Left Behind Act, IDEA and National Defense Education Act. Philosophy and Teacher Professionalism reflects our learning goals as teachers, and what do we want our students to learn from this subject. Each philosophy will vary from grade to grade, and subject to subject.

There have been many controversies over school curriculum in the 21st century. There have been the controversies over essentialism verses progressivism, how math should be taught, intelligent design, and censoring. A big topic of debate is sex education in the school system. Sex education is very important whether it is being taught in the home or at school. We as educators need to provide our students with the no how when it comes to protection, pregnancy, and prevention. In ideal world I would love to see parents talking with their children about sex, but the truth of the matter is it just does not always happen. Schools need to be well equipped when it comes to Sex Education.

The classroom we must teach core curriculum but make it applicable to the real world. We need to teach pathways and not just memorization. We need to teach our students as Seth Godin puts, "To care enough to be not afraid of being criticized  for their ideas".  Teachers need to do the same and not be afraid of teaching in an untraditional way. When we take a little of the old mixed in with the new we can create amazing pathways of learning!