Curriculum for the masses

Curriculum Blog Entry

Curriculum is essentially, to me, all the ideas, concepts and topics expected to be passed on to students in a given amount of time. Curriculum is the general guide, at this point, established a government agency to ensure that all students are exposed to similar knowledge, no matter where they may be within our state. Curriculum to me is not unbending or set in stone. It is a general outline that an educator has to help them throughout the year. It’s an itinerary that shows you where you need to end up, but not which paths to take.
Curriculum frequently has a very negative connotation, or reputation. This appears to come from the fear that someone is telling teachers what they should be doing. The people who fear this seem to miss the idea of the useful aspect of this guide. Don’t get me wrong, I have my doubts, questions and gripes about some of the things that go on, but overall, my curriculum maps help me to remain focused. ( I start with the space science and tend to remain there longer than I ever intend. SO many late breaking events occur that can capture the imagination and interest of my students, that I can very easily get carried away!) These maps also help me to separate my year into manageable sets of ideas and topics. When you look at the world of space, the topics are endless, from the current theories of the origin of the universe, to the volcanic activity of a moon orbiting Saturn, to the lunar landings, Mars probes, Apophis, Viking 1 and 2 not getting as far as calculated, how the sun works, causes for aurora, space shuttles, the new interest in the moon, the potential for billions of dollars from the material in a single asteroid….it’s exhausting, and that just the space portion for me!( I won’t get into the Earth section of my curriculum right now.)
Without curriculum as a series of guideposts, I would have a much more difficult time balancing my material, while walking the tightrope of time. I can bend my curriculum to meet the needs of my learners and frequently take a few minutes at the end of a period to show students a “just discovered” topic that does not always relate to the day’s lesson, using the internet, a projector and a smartboard. One of these new topics could just be the idea that catches their imagination, brings what students have learned into the real world for them, or leads one of my students to pursue science. In this quest, I feel that curriculum has been quite helpful to me.