Module 1: Curriculum and
the teacher
Lesson 1 – Curriculum in Schools
Module 1
is all about school curricula and the teacher. This introductory
module identifies the different types of curricula that exist in the
teacher’s classroom and school. Further, Module 1 describes the
important roles of the teacher as a curricularist who engages in
the different facets of curriculum development at any educational
level.
DESIRED LEARNING OUTCOMES
+ Discuss the different curricula that exist in the
schools;
+ Enhance understanding of the role of the teacher
as a curricularist; and
+ Analyze the significance of curriculum and
curriculum development in the teacher’s classroom.
CURRICULUM
Types of Curricula in Schools
1. Recommended Curriculum. Almost all curricula 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 verse 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.
Conti…
+2. Written Curriculum. This include
documents based on the recommended
curriculum. They come in form of courses
of study, syllabi, modules, books, or
instructional guides among others. A
pocket of this written curriculum is the
teacher’s lesson plan.
Conti…
+3.Taught Curriculum. From what has been written
or planned, the curriculum has to be implemented
or taught. The teacher and the learners will put life
to the written curriculum. The skill of the teacher
to facilitate learning based on the written
curriculum with 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.
Conti…
+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
authentic learning through direct experiences occur.
MOCK-UP
REPRESENTATION (a prototype
or full-sized model of an object)
REALIA
REAL THINGS (real life
experiences or objects)
MODEL
SUBSTITUTE (smaller
scale than the original,
made using plastic &
cardboard)
Conti…
+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 can either
be an assessment of learning. If the process is to
find the progress it is to find out how much has
been learned or mastered, then it is assessment of
learning. Either way, such curriculum is the assessed
curriculum.
Conti…
+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 be indicate to cognitive,
affective and psychomotor outcomes. Learned
curriculum will also demonstrate higher order and
critical thinking and lifelong skills.
Conti…
+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.
ACTIVITY #1: THINK-PAIR-SHARE
1. Get a partner (A and B).
2. Discuss the Sabre – tooth Curriculum and answer the
following:
a. Does the Sabre-tooth curriculum still exist at present?
Give examples of your evidence.
b. Describe the kind of curriculum that exists as described in
the article.
c. What does the author mean, when he said “A curriculum
should be timeless?” Explain.
d. What is the difference between education and training?
“The Sabre-Tooth Curriculum by Harold
Benjamin (1939)”
A man by the name of New-Hammer-Maker knew how to do the
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 glimpse 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
Conti…
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
Conti…
“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 the place, fierce bears arrived who would not be
chased by fire. The community was in trouble.
Conti…
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 was also devised a system
of traps on the path to snare the bears. Attempts to change
educational 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.
Conti…
“That wouldn’t be education… it would be mere training”. We
don’t teach fish grabbing to catch fish, we teach it to develop
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 time-lessness. It is something that
endures through changing conditions like a solid rock standing
squarely and firmly in the middle of a raging torent”
