Curriculum

Today's two reading show the irrelevancy of curriculum or how it was formed out of the necessity of society/power.

Chartier and Hebrard argued that the curriculum reflect the social needs; the emphasis was put on reading, writing, and reckoning because society wanted to diffuse Christianity and to foster merchants. They showed that historical contexts played an important role in deciding what types of skills students should learn at school.

Nieto also demonstrated how school curriculum ignores students' culture, language, and interest. She also showed that curriculum instills some values in students over other values. For example, he introduces an account of a Puerto Rican student that she recognizes American history to be more important than her own history. Those students who have different cultural background from American are unconsciously devalue their own culture and have dilemma at schools.

Nieto also illustrated that students do not see the importance in learning because the contents are not relevant to them. This reminded me of Makiguchi's argument that the learning contents have to be related to students' lives; otherwise, it's waste of time and energy.

When I was reading Nieto's essay, several questions came up to my mind.
- "good teachers are 'interesting,' creative, and caring." What did students mean by 'interesting'?
- What did you think about the comment by Vinh on p137 about praise?
- Does the aim of education always mean becoming a good person?