Curriculum

What is Curriculum?  Merriam Webster Dictionary describes curriculum as the the courses offered by an educational institution and a set of courses constituting an area of specialization.

In this Chapter….  “Curriculum deals with the selection of desired education outcomes and learning experiences to achieve these outcomes. Curriculum building in music includes the formulazion of objectives for the music-education program, the orgaization of classes and activites in which to achieve the objectives, and the selection of experiences that are appropriate to the classes and activities and will contribute to pupil growth toward the objectives. The task of selecting experiences also implies concern with the selection of teaching materials.”  Leonhard and House, 1959, p.22  Foundations and Principles

 “Whether we like it or not, all of us have been curriculum makers.  Cathy Benedict The history of curriculum is the history of us. It is the history of our strength and our fallibility.

Questions from the book.  Are there fundamentals, basics, or essentials that each of us should “know”?  Is curriculum a way in which to address social justice?  What does teaching have to do with curriculum?  Can we answer these…?

Function in Schools  The function of curriculum has often been to shape the ways in which students could and should be prepared to enter the world.  Curriculum has often been seen as a way in which to reconcile, control, and even solve he embedded tensions between the individual and society.  Is this right?  Do we solve tensions by using curriculum?

Early Influences  Rousseau and Pestalozzi are cited often as major influences in the development of music education curriculum.

Rousseau and Pestalozzi  Rousseau  Believed that the purposed of music education curriculum was to engage in processes so that students would be able to relate to others in a natural way that would allow respect for ourselves and other.  Pestalozzi  The principles he devised included directives to teach one thing at a time, sounds before signs, master each step before moving on, introduce theory after practice, to “analyze and practice the elements of articulate sound, and teach note names as the correspond to instruments.

 Are either right or wrong?  Could they have good principles but need to be looked over again?  How could/ would you change one or both of these principles?

Both Together  It is said that both believed that students needed to first experience what was to be learned prior to the process of naming and labeling.  How does this help a teacher build their curriculum?

Two Other People to Look at.  Bobbitt  Curriculum had been framed and defined by the “prepared subject-matter” that was found in textbooks, but also by a purposeful denial of the varying nature and needs of children.  Tyler  Belief that the educational end-means aim of schools were “inadequate”  Proposed a system and rationale for “viewing, analyzing and interpreting the curriculum and instructional program”

The Rationale  The Questions we need to as:  What education purposes should the school seek to attain?  What education experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes?  How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction?  How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?

The Spiral Curriculum  Bruner:  Interested in the ways internal mental processes underlie behaviors and consequently, the ways in which structure in learning plays a central role in how educator might go about considering teaching/ learning process and curriculum development.

Manhattanville Music Curriculum Project  Musicians and Educators came together to develop a comprehensive music curriculum in the late 1960s.  Based on the idea that rather than focusing solely on technical and skill development, “personal meaning through critical thinking and problem solving should be at the heart of the music making process.”

National Standards in Music  In 1994, NAfME (formally know as MENC) published the National Standards  The nine standards were presented as behavioral objectives, which go literally to what students music “know and be able to do to demonstrate that they are proficient in the skills and knowledge.”

Which do you think?  Which do you think is the most effective theory / way?  Why do you think that curriculum is important?  As teacher, what do we need know to make our curriculum the best and most knowledge enriching curriculum out there?