0 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Chapter 1 CURRICULUM ESSENTIALS

LESSON 1 The Curricula In School

OBJECTIVES

At the end of the chapter, you will be able to:

A. Discuss the different curricula that exist in the schools
B. Analyze the significance of curriculum and curriculum
development in the teacher’s classroom

Have you read "The Sabre-Tooth Curriculum by Harold Benjamin (1939)?"

Take some time to read it and find out what curriculum is all about during those
times.

Start here and enjoy reading.

A man by the name of New-Fist-Hammer-Maker knew how to do things his

community needed to have done, and he had the energy and the will to go ahead
and do them. By virtue of these characteristics, he was an educated man. New-Fist
was also a thinker. Then as now, there were few lengths to which men would not
go to avoid the labour and pain of thought . . . . New-Fist got to the point where he
became strongly dissatisfied with the accustomed ways of his tribe. He began to
catch glimpses of ways in which life might be made better for himself, his family
and his group. By virtue of this development, he became a dangerous man......
New-Fist thought about how he could harness the children's play to better the
life of the community. He considered what adults do for survival and introduced
these activities to children in a deliberate and formal way. These included catching
fish with bare hands, clubbing little woolly horses, and chasing away-sabre-
toothed-tigers-with-fire. These then became the curriculum and the community
began to prosper-with plenty of food, hides for attire and protection from threat.
"It is supposed that all would have gone well forever with this good educational
 system, if conditions of life in that community remained forever the same." But
conditions changed.
The glacier began to melt and the community could no longer see the fish to
catch with their bare hands, and only the most agile and clever fish remained which
hid from the people. The woolly horses were ambitious and decided to leave the
region. The tigers got pneumonia and most died. The few remaining tigers left. In
their place, fierce bears arrived who would not be chased by fire. The community
was in trouble.
One day, in desperation, someone made a net from willow twigs and found a
new way to catch fish-and the supply was even more plentiful than before. The
community also devised a system of traps on the path to snare the bears. Attempts
to change education system to include these new techniques however encountered
"stern opposition."
These are also activities we need to know. Why can't the schools teach them?
But most of the tribe particularly the wise old men who controlled the school,
smiled indulgently at this suggestion. "That wouldn't be education... it would be
mere training". We don't teach fish grabbing to catch fish, we teach it to develop
a generalized agility which can never be duplicated by mere training... and so on.
"If you had any education yourself, you would know that the essence of true
education is timelessness. It is something that endures through changing
conditions like a solid rock standing squarely and firmly in the middle of a raging
torent"

The story was written in 1939. Curriculum then, was seen as a tradition of
organized knowledge taught in schools of the 19th century. Two centuries later, the
concept of a curriculum has broadened to include several modes of thoughts or
experiences.
Formal, non-formal or informal education do not exist without a curriculum.
Classrooms will be empty with no curriculum. Teachers will have nothing to do, if
there is no curriculum. Curriculum is at the heart of the teaching profession. Every
teacher is guided by some sort of curriculum in the classroom and in schools.
In our current Philippine educational system, different schools are established
in different educational levels which have corresponding recommended curricula.
The educational levels are:

1. Basic Education. This level includes Kindergarten, Grade 1 to Grade 6 for

elementary; and for secondary, Grade 7 to Grade 10, for the Junior High
School and Grade 11 and 12 and for the Senior High School. Each of the levels
has its specific recommended curriculum. The new basic education levels are
 provided in the K to 12 Enhanced Curriculum of 2013 of the Department of
Education.
2. Technical Vocational Education. This is post-secondary technical
vocational educational and training taken care of Technical Education and
Skills Development Authority (TESDA). For the Tech Voc track in SHS of
DepEd, DepEd and TESDA work in close coordination.
3. Higher Education. This includes the Baccalaureate or Bachelor Degrees and
the Graduate Degrees (Master's and Doctorate) which are under the regulation
of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)

In whatever levels of schooling and in various types of learning environment,

several curricula exist. Let us find out how Allan Glatthorn (2000) as mentioned in
Bilbao, et al (2008) classified these:

Types of Curricula Simultaneously Operating in the Schools

1. Recommended Curriculum. Almost all currricula found in our schools are

recommended. For Basic Education, these are recommended by the
Department of Education (DepEd), for Higher Education, by the Commission
on Higher Education (CHED) and for vocational education by TESDA. These
three government agencies oversee and regulate Philippine education. The
recommendations come in the form of memoranda or policies, standards and
guidelines. Other professional organizations or international bodies like
UNESCO also recommend curricula in schools.
2. Written Curriculum. This includes documents based on the recommended
curriculum. They come in the form of course of study, syllabi, modules, books
or instructional guides among others. A packet of this written curriculum is
the teacher's lesson plan. The most recent written curriculum is the K to 12
for Philippine Basic Education.
3. Taught Curriculum. From what has been written or planned, the learners
will put life to the written curriculum. The skill of the teacher to facilitate
learning based on the written curriculum with curriculum has to be
implemented or taught. The teacher and the aid of instructional materials and
facilities will be necessary. The taught curriculum will depend largely on the
teaching style of the teacher and the learning style of the learners.
4. Supported Curriculum. This is described as support materials that the
teacher needs to make learning and teaching meaningful. These include print
 materials like books, charts, posters, worksheets, or non-print materials like
Power Point presentation, movies, slides, models, realias, mock-ups and other
electronic illustrations. Supported curriculum also includes facilities where
learning occurs outside or inside the four-walled building. These include the
playground, science laboratory, audio-visual rooms, zoo, museum, market or
the plaza. These are the places where authentic learning through direct
experiences occur.
5. Assessed Curriculum. Taught and supported curricula have to be evaluated
to find out if the teacher has succeeded or not in facilitating learning. In the
process of teaching and at the end of every lesson or teaching episode, an
assessment is made. It can either be assessment for learning, assessment as
learning or assessment of learning. If the process is to find the progress of
learning, then the assessed curriculum is for learning, but if it is to find out
how much has been learned or mastered, then assessed curriculum. it is
assessment of learning. Either way, such curriculum is the assessed
curriculum.
6. Learned Curriculum. How do we know if the student has learned? We
always believe that if a student changed behavior, he/she has learned. For
example, from a non-reader to a reader or from not knowing to knowing or
from being disobedient to being obedient. The positive outcome of teaching
is an indicator of learning. These are measured by tools in assessment, which
can indicate the cognitive, affective and psychomotor outcomes. Learned
curriculum will also demonstrate higher order and critical thinking and
lifelong skills.
7. Hidden/Implicit Curriculum. This curriculum is not deliberately planned,
but has a great impact on the behavior of the learner. Peer influence, school
environment, media, parental pressures, societal changes, cultural practices,
natural calamities, are some factors that create the hidden curriculum.
Teachers should be sensitive and aware of this hidden curriculum. Teachers
must have good foresight to include these in the written curriculum, in order
to bring to the surface what are hidden.

However, in every teacher's classroom, not all these curricula may be present at
one time. Many of them are deliberately planned, like the recommended, written,
taught, supported, assessed, and learned curricula. However, a hidden curriculum is
implied, and a teacher may or may not be able to predict its influence on learning.
All of these have significant role on the life of the teacher as a facilitator of learning
and have direct implication to the life of the learners.
LESSON 1.2 The Teacher as a Curricularist

OBJECTIVES

At the end of the chapter, you will be able to:

A. Enhance understanding of the role of the teacher as a
curricularist in the classroom and school

What specific roles do teachers play as a curricularist? Should they do these

roles?
This lesson will bring all of you to an enhanced understanding and realization
of the multifaceted roles of the teacher which relate to the curriculum. Let us find
out!
Look at the words inside the box. Read each one of them. Which one describes
the teacher as a curricularist?

Exciting Facilitating Knowing

Growing Initiating Broadening Building
Recommending Growing Planning
Showing Rewarding Evaluating
Innovating Frustrating Believing
Copying

Are you aware that the teacher's role in school is very complex? Teachers do
a series of interrelated actions about curriculum, instruction, assessment, evaluation,
teaching and learning. A classroom teacher is involved with curriculum continuously
all day. But very seldom has ateacher been described as curricularist.
Curricularists in the past, are referred only to those who developed curriculum
theories. According to the study conducted by Sandra Hayes (1991) the most
influential curricularist in America include John Dewey, Ralph Tyler, Hilda Taba
and Franklin Bobbit. You will learn more of them in the later part of the module.

In this lesson, we will start using the word curricularist to describe a

professional who is a curriculum specialist (Hayes, 1991; Ornstein & Hunkins, 2004;
Hewitt, 2006). A person who is involved in curriculum knowing, writing, planning,
implementing, evaluating, innovating, and initiating may be designated as
curricularist. A TEACHER'S role is broader and inclusive of other functions and
so a teacher is a curricularist.
So what does a TEACHER do to deserve the label curricularist? Let us look at
the different roles of the teacher in the classroom and in the school. The classroom
is the first place of curricular engagement. The first school experience sets the tone
to understand the meaning of schooling through the interactions of learners and
teachers that will lead to learning. Hence, curriculum is at the heart of schooling.
Let us describe the teacher as a curricularist.

The teacher as a curricularist....

1. knows the curriculum. Learning begins with knowing. The teacher as a
learner starts with knowing about the curriculum, the subject matter or the
content. As a teacher, one has to master what are included in the curriculum.
It is acquiring academic knowledge both formal (disciplines, logic) or
informal (derived from experiences, vicarious, and unintended). It is the
mastery of the subject matter. (KNOWER)
2. writes the curriculum. A classroom teacher takes record of knowledge
concepts, subject matter or content. These need to be written or preserved.
The teacher writes books. modules, laboratory manuals, instructional guides,
and reference materials in paper or electronic media as a curriculum writer or
reviewer. (WRITER)
3. plans the curriculum. A good curriculum has to be planned. It is the role of
the teacher to make a yearly, monthly or daily plan of the curriculum. This
will serve as a guide in the implementation of the curriculum. The teacher
takes into consideration several factors in planning a curriculum. These
factors include the learners, the support material, time, subject matter or
content, the desired outcomes, the context of the learners among others. By
doing this, the teacher becomes a curriculum planner (PLANNER)
4. initiates the curriculum. In cases where the curriculum is recommended to
the schools from DepEd, CHED, TESDA, UNESCO, UNICEF or other
 educational agencies for improvement of quality education, the teacher is
obliged to implement it. Implementation of a new curriculum requires the
open mindedness of the teacher, and the full belief that the curriculum will
enhance learning. There will be many constraints and difficulties in doing
things first or leading, however, a transformative teacher will never hesitate
to try something novel and relevant. (INITIATOR)
5. innovates the curriculum. Creativity and innovation are hallmarks of an
excellent teacher. A curriculum is always dynamic, hence it keeps on
changing. From the content, strategies, ways of doing, blocks of time, ways
of evaluating, kinds of students and skills of teachers, one cannot find a single
eternal curriculum that would perpetually fit. A good teacher, therefore,
innovates the curriculum and thus becomes a curriculum innovator.
(INNOVATOR)
6. implements the curriculum. The curriculum that remains recommended or
written will never serve its purpose. Somebody has to implement it. As
mentioned previously, at the heart of schooling is the curriculum. It is this role
where the teacher becomes the curriculum implementor. An implementor
gives life to the curriculum plan. The teacher is at the height of an engagement
with the learners, with support materials in order to achieve the desired
outcome. It is where teaching, guiding, facilitating skills of the teacher are
expected to the highest level. It is here where teaching as a science and as an
art will be observed. It is here, where all the elements of the curriculum will
come into play. The success of a recommended, well written and planned
curriculum depends on the implementation. (IMPLEMENTOR)
7. evaluates the curriculum. How can one determine if the desired learning
outcomes have been achieved? Is the curriculum working? Does it bring the
desired results? What do outcomes reveal? Are the learners achieving? Are
there some practices that should be modified? Should the curriculum be
modified, terminated or continued? These are some few questions that need
the help of a curriculum evaluator. That person is the teacher.
(EVALUATOR)

The seven different roles are those which a responsible teacher does in the
classroom everyday! Doing these multi-faceted work qualifies a teacher to be a
curricularist.
To be a teacher is to be a curricularist even if a teacher may not equal the likes of
John Dewey, Ralph Tyler, Hilda Taba, of Franklin Bobbit. As a curricularist, a
teacher will be knowing, writing, implementing, innovating, initiating and
evaluating the curriculum in the school and classrooms just like the role models and
advocates in curriculum and curriculum development who have shown the way.