As we close the course, I want to first thank you for an excellent semester together. I have enjoyed getting to know each of you. I have enjoyed dialoging with you about your experiences and your ideas. It has been an unprecedented time and I feel lucky to have shared it with each of you. So, thank you!
So, as we close, a few final thoughts.
Curriculum, as we have learned in this course, answers a fundamental question that all societies must answer: What knowledge is of most worth? What do we want to pass on to our children?
We cannot teach everything. There is not enough time, even across an entire lifespan, to learn all that can be learned. Therefore, curriculum is an agreement. Ideally, in a pluralistic society such as ours, this agreement is grounded in a rational and defensible procedure—a procedure that directs teachers and parents as they seek to assist children.
As we begin the process of creating curricula, experts are usually consulted. Experts on content, experts on child development, and experts on social need. But at the end of the day, we don't have a curriculum until teachers are consulted and brought into the process. A curriculum does not live until it's in the hands of teachers working with students.
What I believe that this cycle has shown us is that, as teachers, a curriculum is most helpful when it sets out broad goals that leave teachers plenty of space to maneuver. That allows teachers to respond to the unique needs of unique persons and communities. That allows teachers to work from the interests and questions of children themselves.
This becomes very clear when we consider curricula that deal with sexuality. Because we have to ask, there, as in math or reading: What is our ultimate goal?
Our goal in reading is not just that kids read. It's that they read good books across their lifetime, enjoy those books, and become better people for having read them.
Our goal in math is not just that kids can add and subtract. It's that children see relationships and patterns. It's that they can make reasonable predictions about the future based on information about the past and present. It's that they can deal well with uncertainty—resolving it when possible, and living with it when they can’t.
Our goal in sex ed is not just that kids know what causes and can prevent pregnancy. It's that children can enter into relationships that are happy and fulfilling. That they can build families in which they and their offspring—should they choose to have them—can thrive and flourish. In short, the goal of sexuality education is not always what people think.
Curricula are unhelpful when they over-specify what it is that we need to do as teachers. Yes, we can teach first graders to read, or third graders to multiply, or fifth graders how to use birth control. Facts and skills can be laid out and, as teachers, we can "implement" such curricula.
But we must not lose sight of our goals. Our goal is to forward a child's learning. That means, at the end of the day, we must always assess our end goal in terms of the child's current conditions--their readiness, intellectually and emotionally, to do what we are asking them to do.
Dewey suggested that a curriculum is a map. A way to chart a journey. But, it is not the journey itself. Learning math is not a journey. Living a life in which math is helpful and useful is the journey.
Only the child can undertake that journey, and it is the teacher's job to make sure that, day by day, year by year, the child is heading in the right direction.
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