MONDAY, APRIL 12, 2021 CURRICULUM

 MONDAY, APRIL 12, 2021 CURRICULUM

First a fable

Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world” so they organized a school. They had adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He also developed a “charlie horse” from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and a D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceeding well and also run, climb, and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian.

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.

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(This story was written when George Reavis was the Assistant Superintendent of the Cincinnati Public Schools back in the 1940s! This content is in the public domain and free to copy, duplicate, and distribute. )
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Since I’ve been substitute teaching, I’ve been thinking about education, curriculum, learning, and STEM (and STEAM) programs.

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If you were the King of the Educational World, what would YOU include in a curriculum?

Would you include climbing, swimming, running, and flying like the animals?  Each of the animal groups wanted the curriculum to favor themselves.  (Hey, thought the duck, I’m going to “ace” swimming; The Eagle thought I’m going to soar through the flying class!!!.)

But, not one animal could do it all.
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I’ve been through curriculum fights.  The curriculum is good as long as it includes the “MY” class.  This has been a few years when we wanted to make our MBA program streamlines and competitive.  So, what is the minimum a student needed for a master’s of business administration?  

My view (as an IT professor) was that it was silly to ‘turn out’ an MBA graduate who didn’t know and understand technology in business.  Innovation comes from technology (right?) Of course, my management colleagues said - “but this is BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION - our students need more business courses, more management courses”.  My finance friend said, “Time out - in today’s world an MBA graduate needs to know finance”.  

(For my non-academic friends, academics can get passionate about their field of study).

I did teach some basic Excel in my class, and one of my students said “I’m going to hire an accountant that knows Excel and business software, while I need to have some basic understanding, I’ll hire somebody I can trust”.  (By the way, this person has been quite the entrepreneur and very successful - and I assume he has hired somebody that knows the technology!!!) 

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Back to the original concept - what are the basics that a K-12 student needs to know?  Is there a “body of knowledge” they must have?

Of course, traditional K-12 programs emphasize the 3Rs (which, of course, is not correct - Reading Ritting, and Rithmetic).  I agree with that - all students need to be able to read, all students need to be able to write, and all students need to be able to do mathematics.  

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In the next couple of days, I’m going to throw out my ideas.  Where might I  be going?  (Hint - education loves acronyms - so is it STEM or STEAM?)

LOVE WINS!!

HUGS!!

Karen