I created this blog because I want to find out from teachers, administrators, and parents their thoughts on implementing a more diversified curriculum for students.
The current curriculum, I feel based on my own experiences with the educational system, is extremely limited. We need to be pro-active with students if we want them to become open-minded, critical-thinking, and productive members of society.
Yes, the teaching of certain core subjects such as history, science, and english is essential for the development of a basic cultural understanding of this country and the world, nature, and logic. But, how much of that knowledge do children really retain, and must it be so limited???? These american and european cultural limitations do not reach out to all children. Frankly, you're going to lose a lot of their attention unless they are learning about their own history, and not just about the acquisition of more land through wars, but of their own culture. What sets apart different societies besides their different locations on a map? What discoveries can be accredited to them? How advanced were they? What about their art?
In order to motivate students, students must be able to relate to the lesson. They need an inspirational leader that they can find resemblances to. Perhaps they would be more enthused to read, if the books and authors spoke specifically to them, and their situations in life.
Instead of focusing the lesson around Columbus, why not make the Native Americans the main star of the lesson? They are after all the ones who knew this country the best; they designed it. They were so self sufficient and environmentally aware, so much more beyond their time. Perhaps those lessons could help promote a better understanding of the importance of environmental conservatism and sustainability, which is now necessary for our current global warming crisis, and the preservation of our natural resources and endangered species, by using less. Perhaps it will also teach young students about accepting and respecting other cultures and people that are different.
Race, Class, and Gender should also be a dominant theme throughout all lessons. Why should students have to wait for college, if they even choose to attend, to learn about proper ethics and to learn about disparaged social classes? How do you fight against inequality if students aren't aware that it is still a prominent issue? The media only exacerbates the problem by depicting women as sex objects, and not having enough diverse characters on television.
Educational institutions can not assume that proper values and morals are taught at home. Nor can they assume that children are given sufficient attention and guidance. Therefore, there must be a place were children can rely on for what they are not receiving at home. Teaching students about different religions, cultures, ways of living and thinking, will not persuade students to be a certain way. Rather, by teaching students to think critically and giving them a broad, more accurate sense, of what life is and who people are, they will be able to determine for themselves what they feel most comfortable with. Children are capable of making such decisions for themselves. We should not underestimate them.
Therefore, I want to know how teachers would feel about implementing a more diverse curriculum, how they feel about the current curriculum now, and how they feel about the attention levels of their students, and the potential that some students have but do not acknowledge? Are you frustrated, or do you think that the current curriculum is a sufficient source of information and preparation for the real world?