The Miseducation of the American Public: William Pinar (2004) LCJ

 What is curriculum?

"Whose knowledge is of most worth?"

"Are educators merely semi-skilled technicians?"

The above are two questions that Dr. Patricia Marshall had us grapple with during my Masters program at NCSU. I had never really thought about it, but now I do. I actually ask these questions a lot in my work. My close colleagues have begun to grapple with the questions themselves. However, many are perplexed by the questions.  Pinar's work brings me back to some of the discussions in Dr. Marshall's Curriculum Theory class. Below I have highlighted the chapter headings from the text with brief points and quotes under each that helps me grapple with, describe, and define curriculum. 

• RECONSTRUCTING THE SUBJECTIVE AND SOCIAL SPHERES IN CURRICULUM AND TEACHING
• Curriculum is a course of study intended to engage one in understanding and learning about the world around them (both locally and globally). It is also intended to lead one to a pathway of successes in life or the "American Way".
• Curriculum Theory rejects the fact that much of our curriculum is built on the premise of the "American Way", standardized test data being foundational for outcomes of success, and for profit business monetary gain.
• Dewey believes that curriculum is meant to bridge self and society.
• "Despite the heroic efforts of millions of teachers, the schools have been—are today—complicit in the miseducation of the American public."
• "It renders the curriculum self-enclosed, abstract, split off from those everyday lives not only students live, but also from those lived by their parents and those in their communities, their nation, on the earth (Riley-Taylor 2002).The current curricular configuration amounts to the miseducation of the American public. Our professional obligation is the reconstruction of the public sphere in education."
• UNTIMELY” CONCEPTS
• Curriculums choose to tell others what to teach. 
• Curriculum is written across content areas and academic disciplines inclusive of popular cultural studies. 
• Curriculum can be political or designed by private sectors to meet the goals of their beliefs. "The reconstruction of the public sphere cannot proceed without the reconstruction of the private sphere."
• Curriculum can help one understand one's self. 
• "In moving to cultural studies curriculum specialists are asking, as we once did, what knowledge is of most worth. This is a question that must be asked constantly; the answers we provide will change according to project, person, nation, and the historical moment. As university-based scholars of education, we take from extant academic knowledge to devise mosaics that point to the educational significance of academic knowledge for the individual, situated subjectively, socially, historically, a gendered, racialized and too often tragically human creature."
• TOO LITTLE INTELLECT IN MATTERS OF SOUL”:ON THE EDUCATION OF TEACHERS
• Many teacher prep programs focus on "how" to teach the curriculum. Perhaps more focus should be on "what" curriculum is taught, how the standards were designed, and whose knowledge determined the standards. 
• "Rather, curriculum theorists in the university regard our pedagogical work as the cultivation of independence of mind, self-reflexivity, and an interdisciplinary erudition. We hope to persuade teachers to appreciate the complex and shifting relations between their own self-formation and the school subjects they teach, understood both as subject matter and as human subjects."
• THE SCHOOL AS A BUSINESS
•  The metaphor of school as a business is discussed. Education is like an assembly line factory.
• Education is linked to standardization, economic function and business thinking with managers, coachers, and social engineers (teachers) who take the lead. 
• For the foreseeable future, most teachers will be trained as “social engineers,” directed to “manage” learning that is modeled loosely after corporate work stations.
• THE FIGURE OF THE SCHOOL TEACHER
• Instead of we think and do should we we theorize and practice?
• It is up to us as educators to be reflective, ask questions, inform and work to help others define and grapple with curriculum, it's purpose, and it's implications for learners. 
• “Instead of ‘curriculum implementation’, ”Aoki asks, “how about ‘curriculum improvisation’?” Such as if in theoretical articulation, he notes, “provokes in us a vitalizing possibility that causes our whole body to beat a new and different rhythm. ”Such a “new and different rhythm” is very much needed in teacher education, one that makes audible the generative roles of creativity and individuality in teaching."
• As Linda McNeil (2000, 3) has observed: “Standardization reduces the quality and quantity of what is taught and learned in schools.” Moreover, we must do better....we can do better. 

There are many diverse belief about what schools are for and why they exist and the curriculum that is used. The beliefs come from the stakeholder who feel ownership and are invested (personally and economically) in particular knowledges. Teachers as semi-skilled professionals, managers, and social workers are some metaphors (and expectations) that are used to define the role of educators that are prevalent today (sometimes explicitly and implicitly). One's values can be written in curriculums and observed in classrooms when implemented. I struggle to grapple with whether the explicit beliefs and purposes of education are consistent with the culture of the classroom and school, as I really think it depends on the individual, the leadership, and the school. Moreover, some are very complacent with curriculums they are given, yet other are not. We have many definitions of what curriculum is and what curriculum is not and the definitions or theories span wide and far depending on context. Grappling with historical evidences of curriculum, curriculum theories, and curriculum foundations may just help me to gain insight into the definition of curriculum and even "beat to a new and different rhythm". I will continue to ask "Whose knowledge is of most worth?" and "Are teachers being pushed to be semi-skilled technicians rather than professionals?"

Points to ponder:

• Beliefs about ‘what schools are for’ that exists in their educational setting;
• Assumptions about the needs of learners, metaphors of teachers and learners, and explicit and implicit learning theories that are prevalent; 
• Ways in which values are conveyed in classrooms and schools; 
• Culture of curriculum observed; and
• If explicit beliefs and purposes of education are consistent with the culture of the classroom and school.