As I read the first reading I had very little knowledge as to how curriculum was made. However, I never knew how much politics were involved in the decision making. “This chapter examines the political dynamics
around the construction of official school curriculum—that is, curriculum developed by governments or other sanctioned authorities for standard use in schools across a state, province, or country” (Levin, p 7). I always thought that the curriculum was developed by teachers/ministry of education and not the government. This makes me think about how there are conflicts with the decision making of what should be taught in schools. We would think that the people who do the teaching should have more of a say of what goes into the curriculum as they know best. The government does not think about how stressful of a job teaching is and just form together a curriculum and hands it over.
When we think of curriculum we think of a set of documents that guide us as to what we are suppose to teach our students, but it is a little more complicated than that. A lot of work and thought goes into making a curriculum and disagreements happen. Deciding what to put into the curriculum to make everyone happy can be challenging. We need to make sure that students are receiving the proper education at their grade level, without having certain people (parents) upset about the subjects. There will be different opinions upon making the curriculum, but making sure students receive the right education to an extent is important.
References:
https://www.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/16905_Chapter_1.pdf
2 Comments
Jaelyn Prediger
Hi Melina,
This is a very well thought-out post and I also love the quotations you have added in from each article to support your paragraphs! In terms of how much politics is involved in decision making, why do you think there is always so much? I would love to hear what you think, and thank you for sharing!
Melina Palamara
Hey Jaelyn,
Thanks for your comment! I don’t have a great understanding of politics however, I think there may be so much in decision making because of all the people they have to accommodate for. There will be multiple opinions and disagreements while making a curriculum, not everyone will agree. The government always is in charge of the important decisions made for our country, that is why I think they are in charge of the curriculum for our country. I think there is so many involved in curriculum making because there is a lot of rules and guidelines to be followed during the process and a lot of people that are part of the decision making.