ULACIT

Introduction to Curriculum Essay Relationship between Education and Curriculum Adriana Sand Cascante
As future teachers, when we try to understand what curriculum in education means, it is easy to think about educational administration. We tend to make a relation between how to manage a school and the contents we will teach our students. The curriculum is often considered as the set of courses, and their respective content, that are offered at a school or university. Even though, this idea is correct in part, the curriculum is more than a list of courses and the content they require. For this reason it is important to have clear the concept of curriculum and its relationship with education. First at all, curriculum carries out evaluation and assessment, determines syllabus, deals with learners needs, develops the aims objectives, and determines methodology.(Quirs, Georgina) It means that the curriculum offers to teachers how to handle with students evaluation, what items of the content will be tested (syllabus), how to work with the necessities learners could have, (e.g. learning disabilities or learning styles) and principally it is a guide of the expected objectives students should acquire in their learning process, and the methodology teacher can use in order to accomplish them. Also, a curriculum can be defined as the planned educational experiences offered by a school which can take place anywhere at any time () in the multiple context of the

school, e.g. public schools as caring communities.1 (Todd, 1965) This definition is very relevant since experience is tight linked with education and the curriculum. It is very known that we learn through experience as some other ways of knowing (e.g. rational, practical, theoretical, intuitive, or personal) and the four themes that organize the curriculum content are determinate by peoples experiences with health, healing, self knowledge and knowledge of others, and professional growth. On the other hand, the current view point of curriculum defines it as all the courses of study offered by an educational institution, or a group of related courses, often in a special field of study: the engineering curriculum.2 Now what we have a more understandable idea of the curriculums meaning, it is paramount that we consider curriculum as a vital part of education. In formal education any branch of knowledge needs an established curriculum in order to organize what the student must learn. Since the curriculum defines the course objectives or learning outcomes and the program's assessment method, we have to work with it as a primary guide for teaching and education. The main idea is that in a school, education can have the same structure for all students, and teachers have a guide to plan their lessons according the established curriculum. Moreover, it is imperative to take into account that the curriculum cant provide education by itself. Teachers must the vital role of functioning as facilitators and evaluators because they have to transmit their students the contents within the curriculum, and to test their students outcomes in relation

with the course objectives. A good teacher is a proficient evaluator. He/she notices how well students are doing and uses this information to scaffold new objectives for student attainment.3 Moreover, students culture, family and circumstances need to be considered when designing curriculum.4 In this way, education can provide more individualized learning experiences for the students, and it definitively will become in meaningful learning for them. It is a challenge for teachers involve students needs inside the curriculum, but they should try to do it. Constructivism is a helpful theory that can give teachers some orientation about how to introduce learner-centered approaches into the established curriculum. Instead of that, Curriculum-centered classrooms focus essentially on teaching the curriculum. The teacher decides what should be taught, when, how, and in what time frame. The curriculum that must be covered throughout the academic year takes precedence. This type of teaching requires rigorous discipline because students' interests or necessities are taken into account only after content requirements are established. It doesnt means that teachers are not able to adapt the curriculum in order to provide a meaningful education to their students. As a conclusion we can appreciate that the curriculum is not just another aspect of education. It is the base of the structure of the learning. Education depends on what the curriculum is about. Finally, we must understand that curriculum is important and necessary for teachers as for students. It is both a guide to what and how must be taught about a determinate subject matter, and the outline of required objectives of the course that students would achieve.

Bibliography

Todd, E. A. Curriculum Development and Instructional Planning. Nederland, TX:

Nederland Ind. School District, pg. 2.

2

curriculum. (n.d.). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Edition. Retrieved June 03, 2008, from Dictionary.com website:

Fourth

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/curriculum
3

Ediger, M., (June 2007) Balance In The Curriculum. College Student Journal, Vol. 41

Issue 2, p376-378, 3p. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from Academic Search Elite database.
4

Fan Foo, Sue. (2008) World Council for Curriculum and Instruction North American

Chapter Conference 2007. Newsletter of the World Council for Curriculum and Instruction, p6. Retrieved June 03 2008 from World Council for Curriculum and Instruction database.