.4 National Curriculum

It is an unfortunate system but that is what we are stuck with. The big issue is trust. I would prefer a national curriculum that was made by a process that I knew and understood and had some input into even if I didn't agree with it, rather than have a national curriculum that nobody controls, and therefore nobody can change. That's what the rest of this lecture addresses. What are the impacts of the curriculum as we now have it? What alternatives might be available if we got our act together to change it? Right now we have the paralysis of local control. We don't want to admit that there is an unsanctioned national curriculum because Americans don't want a national curriculum, they want a local curriculum. Local control of schools is an important thing to Americans. We don't want the government controlling our schools and thus we wind up with no control. We have uncertain accountability. No one knows what they are responsible for teaching. No one knows who is responsible for deciding it and certainly nobody is going to take any responsibility for changing it so it just stagnant. Nobody is responsible for it, there is nobody to ask about it, nobody that you can deal with. You have an unsanctioned curriculum that doesn't change. So we need to have someone in charge of the curriculum. It doesn't matter who you put in charge I'm not trying to sell any one method. I would just like to have someone to talk to. I would like to have a group that was in charge of the national curriculum that I could trust, that represented the nation, that wouldn't be all white males for example. I think there needs to be balanced input from around the country and most importantly, a method to change our national curriculum. We definitely have a lot of changing social conditions and this is a tough one. It is tough in terms of curriculum. For example, with our changing social conditions, should schools act like parents? Any time the schools look like they are going to start acting like parents everybody gets nervous, and complains we're compromising family values. We have a lot of kids coming to school that don't have families behind them. That is a terrible thing to say but it's true. If you have a kid coming to school without a family behind them, you have two choices. Either the school acts as surrogate parents or the school just says, "Tough!" and you find someone else to take the role of surrogate parents. I happen to believe that the school is probably the best agency in society to take that role on but I would be happy if the schools didn't take that on. But if there is a need and nobody else is willing to do it, then I think it is pretty hard for us as educators to educate our students if they come to us without family or even surrogate families. Family values, surrogate parenting, is only one of the changing social conditions.

	What kind of national curriculum is preferred by the instructor? What is the other side of this curriculum?	Answer Here
	Mr. Voyer is in the military and must move frequently. His daughter, Amber, is a senior in high school and has been enrolled in schools across the country throughout her academic career. She has only had world geography once, and has never had a world history class because of different standards in each school. How might some sort of national standard for teaching history from a national curriculum like the one that Dr. Allen proposes have prevented this problem for Amber?	Answer Here