FOCUS QUESTIONS

1. What is the formal curriculum taught in schools?
2. How does the invisible curriculum influence learning?
3. What is the place of the extracurriculum in school life?
4. What forces shape the school curriculum?
5. How has technology affected the curriculum?
6. How do textbook publishers and state adoption committees “drive” the curriculum?
7. What is standards-based education?
8. What are the provisions and criticisms of No Child Left Behind?
9. What problems are created by highstakes testing, and what are the testing alternatives?
10. How are cultural and political conflicts reflected in the school curriculum?
11. How can we rethink tomorrow’s curriculum?

CHAPTER PREVIEW

“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us,” said Winston Churchill. Had the noted statesman been a noted educator, he might have rephrased this epigram, substituting curriculum for buildings, for what children learn in school today will affect the kind of adults they will become and the kind of society they will eventually create. In fact, it is the power of curriculum to shape students, and ultimately society, that takes curriculum development out of the realms of philosophy and education and into the political arena. Children learn through the formal curriculum, made up of objectives and textbook assignments, and through the more subtle lessons of the hidden, null, and extracurriculum. This chapter will provide a brief overview of what has been taught, and how curricular decisions are reached.

Several trends are pushing schools toward a similar curriculum: the indomitable textbook, the Internet, and the recent emphasis on state standards and testing. Protests (perhaps better titled “antitests”) have been growing against the increasing influence of standardized tests in general, and No Child Left Behind in particular. The benefits of standards and the many problems with high-stakes tests are explored in this chapter, as are more positive and creative ways of looking at curriculum and testing.