What Factors Should Drive The Curriculum We Teach?

I enjoy listening to teachers, and think their common wisdom is worth paying attention to. For instance, the September issue of Edutopia Magazine asks "What factors should drive the curriculum we teach?" I asked my graduate students, all teachers, to respond to the question “If you had to list three factors, which would you choose?” I had emphasized that the operative word is “should”.

The leading factor listed was a medley of outcome based learnings which had a common theme of skills and ideas which supersede the limited goals, curriculum maps and tests most states think of vast importance (see Restricting the Vision). Some of the comments were:
-- “Teach them how to think critically and outside the box.”
-- Teach them to be inquisitive, how to ask questions, how to dig deep for answers.”
-- “Students should be taught real world issues, how they apply to their life, and how they can make changes.”
-- “Real learners would have the broader skills than (state) standards if they are ever going to go anywhere in life. It's too bad you can't find these skills anywhere on a (curriculum) roadmap.”
-- “Teach them skills they will need in the work world, skills to be successful in life and skills to appreciate the world.”
-- “Learning how to learn, learning how to fail and how to adapt to change.”
-- “What you want your students to … be able to do once they are out of your class.”

The second most listed factor which should drive the curriculum was “state standards and curriculum roadmaps”. I suppose this item appeared frequently due to the fact that many teachers have accepted this form of outcome based education and the standardized testing that accompanies it. Or at least they’ve accepted the reality that it wasn’t going to go away (one teacher offered the comment “Unfortunately, standards” in her list).

The third most mentioned factor was “topics / issues in which the students are interested”. There was a strong realization that learning won’t happen if the student doesn’t buy into what is being taught.

The fourth factor was “addressing student needs and readiness”. I think this was important because teachers, being the pragmatists they are, need to address where students are before they start them on an educational journey.

The fifth most mentioned was not what students should learn but how they should learn; i.e. learning with teachers who emphasize the processes of problem-based, product -based and engaged learning along with other critical thinking activities. I suppose that the theme of these comments really meld with the most mentioned theme above. In reality they are just two sides of the same coin: by using these types of learning processes, wonderful skills result as products.