Week 5: Curriculum

Although curriculum is a fundamental part of the framework of schooling, curriculum decisions and choices are shaped in large measure by other considerations – ideology, personal values, issues in the public domain, and interests. Curriculum decisions are often part of a much larger public debate that often extends beyond education to larger questions of public goods.

[The Saskatchewan Way: Professional-Led Curriculum Development] is complicated. At first glance, one might think that curriculum is just a set of documents to be taught to students. However, as you delve deeper and consider everything that is taught and learned in a classroom, curriculum becomes much more involved… Curriculum is ‘a complicated system of interpretation, interactions, transmissions – planned and unplanned’. Curriculum is complicated – particularly when examined within its relationship with teaching.

Curriculum decisions are often made based on larger concepts that go beyond education. While curriculum is the basis and framework of schooling, the curriculum is usually shaped by ideology, personal values, public interests and government influenced. As discussed in Chapter One: Curriculum Policy and the Politics of What Should Be Learned in Schools by Ben Levin, politics is all about power, and controlling the curriculum is a way to keep hold of that power. It is a way to influence students at a young age, and control what is going on in classrooms. However, the government does not know what is necessarily needed within the classroom. Individual needs, diversity and teachings are known by classroom teachers and that is why teachers should have more of a say in curriculum development.

The Saskatchewan Way is teacher based curriculum development. The Saskatchewan Ministry of Education as had Saskatchewan teachers since the 1940’s. The Saskatchewan Way states, “Teachers, trustees, administrators, university facility, departmental officials, and, in some instances, other concerned parties learned to share their views on educational issues and, through the process, reach decisions which met common goals” (p.5). While I know politics still plays a role in Saskatchewan curriculum, I think there is more understanding of the students, diversity, and needs when creating the curriculum. I know there is still a long way to go with the Saskatchewan curriculum, however, I think we have a good base and are far ahead of other provinces.