.1 Changing the Curriculum

What do you think should be included in changing curriculums?

Our topic today is the American school curriculum and here as some of you know it is my position that we really have a hidden national curriculum, a curriculum that we don't acknowledge. The problem with the hidden national curriculum is that if you don't recognize its existence, it is pretty hard to change. If you do not understand how you got the curriculum in the first place, then you are not likely to be able to understand how to change it. So we get kicked by the fact that for all sorts of reasons we don't like what is going on in the curriculum today and we would like to change it but there is no one to talk to. That is my basic premise that there is no one to talk to. Let me put it this way that if I wanted to change the curriculum who would I consult to change it? Who could we have a conversation with to change the curriculum? Let's say that I go to the school board and I propose that we should drop geometry and teach statistics instead. And I make a really compelling case that kids are going to use more statistics in their lives than they are bisecting angles. Everybody listens and the school board is convinced and they say "yeah, you are right, statistics is more important than geometry." Now can they then take the decision to simply drop geometry and add statistics? What about college entrance requirements? There are a lot of colleges out there that like you to have geometry. So the school board just says to the colleges, "By the way we just decided to have statistics instead of geometry and please understand that it is not the students fault that they didn't get geometry, it is just the policy of our district." Do you think that will fly? Not very well. As a matter of fact, it does fly. Any time a kid applies to ODU and there was some specific course required, if they could demonstrate they had the equivalent or they had something different because they're school taught it in a different way, ODU would let them in and so would Harvard and Stanford and any other college. However, schools don't know that and kids don't know that and they don't want to trust that. They don't want to trust putting themselves in a position where they'd get a waiver. So the school board definitely isn't enough because they can change the curriculum but they still are not in charge of it.

	Why can't school boards change their curriculums?	Answer Here
	Mrs. Lamm teaches Geometry in a district where the course is required for graduation. She would really like to see the math department offer different levels of Geometry for the students in her school. Mrs. Lamm teaches approximately 120 students each day and judges by the variance in grades that there would be equal thirds to divide the general Geometry class into three classes-Honors Geometry, regular Geometry, and z-level geometry. Who should Mrs. Lamm approach first and last about making this minor change in the curriculum for that school system?	Answer Here