TIE536_Curriculum: What's It All About?

I found my mind wandering back to our discussion of curriculum last Monday. I have always approached how I think about ‘curriculum’ from the traditional viewpoint: an individual course or course of study, approved by a board of education, that leads to a degree or certificate—curriculum in the overt or explicit sense. But it’s quite obvious that there are many other factors at play that are in a very real way a part of every curriculum. The societal curriculum plays a very big role at my school in Wheaton, which might be best know for its unofficial claim as having the most churches per capita in the U.S.A. The hidden curriculum is alive and well at my school—the principal is very ‘hands-on’ and has certain expectations about the behavior within each classroom that become part of the curriculum. I’m not certain about specific things that are not taught in my school, and part of the null curriculum, although as an Art teacher I tend to stay away from highly controversial pieces of art. This may also be due to the fact that I’m new to teaching Art, period, but also new to the school and not yet tenured. That tends to make one more conservative in their choices. These are the aspects of curriculum which stood out most notably, and have led me to think in deeper terms about the decisions I make to include or not to include material in daily lessons, and will influence my future activities when I am involved in the formal writing of curriculum for my district.