In your work as a teacher, you'll continually be faced with two questions: "What am I teaching?" and "Why am I teaching that?" These questions are so fundamental that we almost forget that a great deal of thought, decision making, and sometimes even controversy goes into answering them. The answers are critical because they determine the school curriculum—what we expect our students to learn.
Our purpose in writing this chapter is to examine the K–12 curriculum and help you understand your role in influencing what is taught. We try to answer the following questions:
- What is curriculum, and how are curriculum and instruction related?
- How does philosophy influence the curriculum?
- How do state and local districts attempt to control the curriculum?
- What is the relationship between textbooks and the curriculum?
- How do professional organizations influence the curriculum?
- What kinds of controversies exist in the curriculum?
