Class 2: January 14, 2008

"What is curriculum?" is a question whose answer can be simple or complex. Curriculum can be said to be "a program of study" developed to have those who follow it interact with its content, for better or worse, depending on the follower. It may also be defined as a person's "self-actualizing path", a walk of life that takes on an existential character, guided by one's personal sense of truth.

The curriculum design metaphors presented by Kliebard are contrasting, but all share a key thread. Students transform, develop or travel “under” the control, care or leadership of “someone in charge” of bringing them to some end. In each case the students are under the charge of someone knowledgeable about their future. The implication, then, is that curriculum is purposeful. However, given the differentiation in the metaphors, it is apparent that curriculum can reflect different philosophical stances of what end to achieve and how to achieve it.

To put the concept of curriculum into its proper perspective, it is necessary to consider the full range of dynamics existing within social systems. In other words, social evolution needs to be understood. It is fact that people have evolved many ways to distinguish and partition themselves: economic – occupational skill, accumulated wealth; political – power, authority, "who's who"; religious – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism. Such social constructs, each with an inherent philosophical bias about reality, have come together to form the kind of social structure visible in postmodern society. But in all of it, if curriculum is purposeful, where does curriculum fit?

Society, regardless of whether it is referred to as a small local community or today's global village, inherently contains an educational system. This is not to say that an educational system needs to be a formal structure like the one that existed in the United States for Puritan religious indoctrination, or the ones that exists in North America today; no. Since becoming educated is a naturally occurring process of human development, an education system really is just the environment within which one or more people live. It is here where curriculum fits, because if the education one receives is not by chance, then it is purposeful, and if it is purposeful, it will be designed by one or more people.

A curriculum of studies may be developed and followed by the same person, or it may be developed by someone for someone else. In any case, following a curriculum implies that there is a goal to be reached, that there is a defined need to be met. Thus, a curriculum may look like a production plan, a gardener's manual, or traveler's map. The goal to be reached by whoever follows it may reflect to some degree the philosophical biases of the society.