Unit 3 Written Assignment_Curriculum Design (1)

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May 10, 2024

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What Does Curriculum Mean to You? What Does Curriculum Mean to You? Anonymous University of the People EDUC 5220-01 Curriculum Design - AY2024-T4 1

What Does Curriculum Mean to You? What Does Curriculum Mean to You? The word “Curriculum” generally means the knowledge and skills students learn in educational environments. Curriculum can be a very subjective definition dependent upon who is defining the word. In the United States, the Department of Education is designed to ensure that students across the nation have equal access to educational opportunities, however, each state is still responsible for developing its guidelines and regulations (US, 2021). Within these individual states, school districts and teachers can create very different curriculum structures. As individual educators, we are the mediators for the needs of our students and the curriculum demands. It is our responsibility to adapt the curriculum to the needs of our students and their ability to learn. Therefore, it stands to reason that each of us will find very different definitions of the word curriculum based on the age and cultural backgrounds of the individuals we are writing about for this assignment. What does the word curriculum mean to you? As I approached my neighbor Allenor yesterday while she was outside weeding her flower garden, I asked her what the word curriculum means to her. and she paused her gardening for a moment and said, “To me, curriculum means the things you need to learn to be a good citizen and contribute to your family and community.” As the sun was shining and the wind was blowing softly, she had a little smile on her face as she remembered her school days and time spent with friends. She said in her small, rural farming community in the 1930s, girls weren’t encouraged to go to college, or even really to go to high school, but more so to tend to the home, children, and the needs of the community and that she did not attend school past the 8 th grade. She she described a memory of a school year where there were a particularly large number of 2

What Does Curriculum Mean to You? students in the classroom, and her favorite teacher had been let go from her job. When I asked Allenor what things she felt she learned in school, she smiled and said “reading, writing and arithmetic, and lots about sewing, cooking, and taking care of the home”. Her favorite subject was reading. She described getting so engrossed in reading some of the books that she would lose track of time and not hear her mother calling for her or the teacher addressing her. She felt that if she understood the meaning of the words she was reading, she could figure out anything else. Allenor went on to describe that during certain times of the year, many of the boys would be missing from class as they helped on family farms during planting and harvest seasons, and that one year they had a lack of paper for writing assignments, so she used coal to write her alphabet letters on a plank of wood. She talked about the dress codes with girls having to wear dresses or skirts no matter what the weather was like, making it a very long, cold walk to school in the winter months, and more than once a girl had showed up to school wearing pants and had been sent home. Allenor said that one year, there was no teacher for the winter, so children stayed home. Allenor said that much of her educational experience occurred during the Great Depression in the 1930s and that looking back on that period in her life, she finally understood some of the things that had happened in school back then. As the sun began to fade behind a small rain cloud that had appeared, Allenor excused herself to go back inside. Following our discussion, I took some time to read about the educational environment during the Great Depression in the 1930’s. The nation was struggling, and resources became increasingly scarce, and it became public opinion that education was an expense that could not be afforded. During this time the administration under President Roosevelt initiated programs that brought benefits to some of the school districts that were experiencing financial hardships, including financial assistance that allowed schools to pay teachers and a program headed by the 3

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