Introduction
The 21st-century global community has divergent needs that differ significantly from those of the previous decades. In the education sector, a better and improved curriculum is necessary to meet the holistic demands of the learner. Through the lens of two articles, this presentation gives a detailed analysis of the issues informing the need for quality education. To achieve such an objective, there is a need for all stakeholders to focus on the best structure and process of curriculum-making.
Background Information
In the article “The New Technique of Curriculum-Making,” the author indicates that a new strategy for curriculum development is critical since education is improving continuously. In the work, Bobbitt identifies education as an instrumental process intended to fill the human mind with adequate knowledge (45). This process entails the provision of facts of science, grammar, history, and geography. A person whose reservoir has been properly filled would be described as well-educated.
Old Education
From the studied materials, it is notable that many learning institutions have done little to improve the quality of education. Everywhere, it emerged that subject storage had remained the usual practice in many schools. Most of the developed subjects lack the much-needed human element. Bobbitt goes further to indicate the old education system had an informed curriculum (45). Due to the need to focus on subjects, a simple approach for curriculum-making exists whereby developers just copy printed syllabi from elsewhere.
New Education
In the analyzed content, it is agreeable that the right time has come for a new wave of education. A new practice or theory is critical that deviates from the need to fill men’s reservoirs with knowledge. Some of the key characteristics that curriculum developers need to consider include “action, conduct, and behavior” (Bobbitt 46). Action defines what life is made of, and behavior is what defines it. Education, therefore, needs to prepare men to complete activities capable of supporting their lives. New education needs to become an activity, conduct, action, and behavior. Such an approach will ensure that the diversified and civilized individual is able to receive education pitched on his humanistic abilities.
Purpose of New Education
The proposed new education will guide more people to lead in better ways. The suggested idea will unfold people’s qualities and powers. More individuals will acquire actual abilities and eventually emerge successful. Through modernized education, the process would amount to growth in skills, habits, vision, and wholesome. Bobbitt states that “education is the process of growing human beings” (48). Modern education will result in the discovery of the child, thereby helping people to grow and develop desirable personalities.
Attributes of New Education
The promoted new education has the potential to discover the child while supporting his or her seventy-year unit of life. It integrates the aspect of society and what men need to do if they are to lead meaningful lives. The intended education needs to examine and treat children without using the lens of a social vacuum. The reader observes that the emerging education remains “antagonistic to the crystallized subject-storage conception” (Bobbitt 48). Such an achievement will transform the experiences of learners and take them closer to their goals
Curriculum development focuses on new objectives that can meet the needs of learners in kindergarten classes to junior college. Bobbitt asserts that science ought to be considered to control educational methods and affairs in the formulation of new curricula (49). Such an outcome prepares children for life and the ability to complete numerous activities. Activity analysis is intended to support the discovery of both educational processes and ends. The emerging practice will support the discovery of human activities men need to perform more efficiently.
Activity-Analysis
The studied article argues that activity analysis is applicable in the field of vocational education. Public schools continue to focus on general education while ignoring specialized skills. Researchers will need to distinguish non-specialized activities from general ones. Bobbitt indicates that the first responsibility of education is to focus on human life and “distinguish the several major fields of man’s activity” (50). The work identifies these divisions of man’s actions: language, leisure, religion, parenting, unspecialized arts, health, social, and citizenship.
Comprehensive Fields
There is a need for curriculum developers to consider comprehensive fields and break them down based on the recorded actions. Currently, most of the existing plans fail to focus on the inner attributes of human culture (Bobbitt 51). The article goes further to indicate that numerous activities exist that result in humanistic living. According to Bobbitt, activities that tend “to make up life are of many kinds, and the different kinds are not equally evident” (51). Humans have a tendency to think primarily of outward behaviors.
Education and Quality of Life
The proposed model for curriculum development will meet all people’s educational needs. The new approach to education development and reform is practical and sustainable. This happens to be the case since it seeks to focus on the life series of all intended activities, thereby being able to support all ages, from infancy to adulthood and beyond. The ideas evident in the article are acceptable and capable of guiding stakeholders to focus on the best approaches to focus on a new approach for reforming curricula through proper mechanisms (Bobbitt 50). They will expose learners to the relevant attributes and empower them to complete the necessary activities.
Curriculum Reform: Structure
In the 21st century, China, Norway, and Singapore have decided to reform their curriculum systems by creating a vision and translating it to come up with a better form of education. Such processes involved in the curriculum development process are informed by cultural, economic, and social conditions. The present focus of reform is to come up with quality education capable of “helping all students achieve broad and balanced moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic development” (Deng 1). The intended achievement needs to be in tandem with the changing needs of the present century.
Tripartite System: Case of China
In China, a tripartite system has become the model for curriculum development and administration. Such a structure includes these three levels: the school, local players, and national stakeholders. Each group has specific roles intended to support the process. National-level players include ministers and policymakers who create visionary goals for the sector (Deng 3). Local officers and leaders will formulate a curriculum based on the cultural, geographic, and economic trends recorded. The school level allows instructional leaders and teachers to implement the local and national curricula in the selected learning centers.
Curriculum Making Process
In the process of making a curriculum, the three-tiered model is critical, whereby the government liaises with key stakeholders and professionals to focus on the anticipated goals. These parties will formulate the needed goals and vision and ensure that they are in tandem with the study courses and materials. Three phases are usually considered throughout the curriculum-making process. They begin with planning and development, followed by initial implementation, and then full implementation (Deng 4). When pursued diligently, the process will be completed successfully, thereby delivering the much-needed results.
Key Domains and Meaning
Three domains exist that govern the process of curriculum making. These would include policy, classroom, and programmatic, depending on the intended curricular activity. The first domain describes the regulations and guidelines needed for the development process. The classroom aspect dictates the involvement of teachers and how they focus on the learners’ changing needs. The programmatic focus is on the nature of the content and how it resonates with the needed outcomes. By considering these attributes, systemic curriculum reform will promote changes that “are integrated around a set of curriculum standards or outcomes” (Deng 11). Consequently, more learners will remain content and ready to pursue their goals.
Emerging Issues
The new model for curriculum reform could guide more learners to achieve their goals. However, some gaps exist that revolve around the availability of adequate resources and supportive mechanisms associated with people’s cultural attributes. Policymakers should, therefore, equip teachers with additional opportunities and ideas to support the successful implementation of the developed curriculum (Deng 11). The proposed instructional beliefs should be informed by the option of classroom practice.
Works Cited
Bobbitt, Franklin. “The New Technique of Curriculum-Making.” The Elementary School Journal, vol. 25, no. 1, 1925, pp. 45-54.
Deng, Zongyi. “Curriculum Making in the New Curriculum Reform: Structure, Process and Meaning.” Curriculum Reform in China: Changes and Challenges, edited by Hong-Biao Yin and John Chi-Kin Lee, Nova Science Publishers, 2013, pp. 31-46.