Recently, a parent asked, ‘What’s the roadmap in terms of milestones for children? Have you decided what children should know in every class?’ The question was, of course, pertaining to curriculum. This appears to be the main concern for a lot of parents. Parents and even teachers are reassured the moment they can hang on to neatly typed pages that announce what the child will be learning in terms of content.
But there is an issue here. The issue is that the content will change according to the child’s age, culture and the progress in the world in terms of science, technology and human sciences. New theories will replace the old. So the content cannot be static. It must be developed according to the learner group. To take an example, doing Charles Dickens (which seems to be included in every school curriculum in India) may be at odds with a group. After all what link does it have with the child’s life? What is important, the particular author or the fact that the children have to be exposed to good literature? And if so, then why not another contemporary author?
Content is often designed by adults who have decided on what the children should know. It is of course built on the premise of ‘tabula rasa’ or that the child’s mind is an empty slate that needs to be filled up. Content is like stuffing mashed solids into a container. No one takes into consideration what kind of a container it is and whether the particular stuffing is appropriate at all for the different kinds of containers. I may be stretching the metaphor a bit but can one type of content suit the diversity of children with their individual traits and gifts?
The designing of the curriculum must take into consideration the likes and dislikes and abilities of the learner group. To ask children to decide on what works they may want to study, what periods in history etc, is not difficult. It puts the onus of choice on them and they have a greater involvement in what they have decided.
What then should be the school’s role in designing the curriculum? It should be in terms of skills and competencies. Learning to read, to write, to sequence, to count are competencies. To take another example, designing a brochure is a skill that will integrate the content: the software applications, language skills, artistic and graphic choices etc as opposed to content that states that children will learn particular softwares in computer classes, learn tenses and adjectives in language etc.
There is one more important issue. All children do not mature at the same rate. Some children learn fractions sooner, some later. Does it really matter by the time you are 18 whether you learnt writing at the age of 5 or 7? Each child has a different roadmap because each child is unique.
Content can be the same for years. After all, you can learn about the human body at the age of 5, at 15 and 25 with different levels of challenges. And it can be a life long process.
So, it is the process that is important. The way children learn, not what they learn. The ‘what’ can change but the ‘how’ remains the same. As someone so beautifully put it: ‘The journey is the destination,’ and sometimes one has to take some detours or pause to admire the scenery or to try new paths.
The above article was published in the Ahmedabad Mirror on 01/9/2009