Chapter
seven
Curriculum
Process
Curriculum Process means “HOW” are the
intentions of the curriculum translated into
action?
It is not concerned ,however , with the
detailed practicalities
of teaching and
learning - the method. Rather, it seeks to
identify those questions which need to be
asked in order to understand, in broad terms,
the curriculum in action in classrooms – the
process.
The National Curriculum sets out general
intentions ,content and methods of
assessment, and the appointed working
groups have drawn up guidelines for more
detailed programs of work; but the manner in
which the National Curriculum is to be
delivered in the classroom – the process – is,
quite rightly, left to the teaching profession.
This is not to say that teachers and pupils will
be entirely free agents in how they pursue
the curriculum in action; there are strong
indirect influences especially from systems of
Assessment . The point being made here is
that external bodies, ranging from central
government to headteachers and even
heads of department, can exercise much less
direct control of this dimension of curriculum
than they can over objectives, content and
forms of assessment.
For this reason it is important that teachers
should be aware of the general criteria by
which the various forms of curriculum
process may be described and distinguished
from one another. These, then, are the basic
Questions which should be asked about the
curriculum in action in classrooms:
To what extent are the pupils active?
To what extent is the action directed by
pupils or by teachers?
What proportion of time is spent on each
area of learning ?
Does the action match each pupil’s
capacity to learn from it?
How does the child see it?
Active or passive
Pupils?
Learning is more likely to take place when
pupils are active rather than passive. The
surge of curriculum development projects of
the 1960s and1970s advocated a high level
of pupil activity. This percept is now widely
put into practice; most present day
classrooms bustle with active children. The
traditional picture of active teachers at the
front of the class addressing silent, seated
Children has declined, especially in primary
schools. Children nowadays are much less
likely to be regarded as passive recipients of
knowledge dispensed by teachers.
The intention of these recent developments in
classroom practice was that the action should
be largely exploratory, problematic and open
ended, and less concerned with routine tasks
leading to predetermined outcomes. The
activities were not to be entirely regimented
by the teachers. Hence we have seen a
growth of open ended activities in science,
Practical work in mathematics, creative
writing in English, and so on.
But appearances may be deceptive. The
important question is not how much activity
is going on but how much learning is going
on? Physical activity provides no certainty of
learning and external passivity does not
necessarily denote a blank mind. It could be
that silent children may be totally absorbed in
what a teacher, skilled in the arts of
presentation, is doing and saying. The action
may be mainly in the mind – where some say
it ought to be.
Despite the appearance of present day
classrooms, and the best intentions of those
recent curriculum developments, there is
evidence that much of the activity is not
really open ended and exploratory in nature,
but that it is strongly under the direction of
teachers.
So the issue is not simply how much
activity but what kind of activity, and in
particular who directs the activity.
Pupil-directed Learning or
Teacher-directed Learning?
Discovery or Instruction?
The ‘child-centered’ idea has often been
perceived - unfortunately – as one end of a
polarized view of schooling: formal/informal,
didactic/exploratory, making a sharp distinction
between curriculum action in which the teacher
is an instructor and that in which the pupil is a
discoverer. This dichotomy is carried into the
content dimension, being perceived as a
Distinction
between
a
subject-based
curriculum and problem- or topic-based
curriculum.
What has emerged is that in practice the
self-directed enquiry process is neither so
extreme nor so widespread as has been
popularly supposed even in primary schools. It
is true that a superficial observation of
classrooms might give the appearance that the
process of learning is much less under teacher
control than it was in the past. Pupils may be
grouped round tables rather than sitting
In rows facing the teacher, and they may be
working on different rather than the same
tasks. Teachers are more likely to be talking to
groups and individuals rather than to the class
as a whole; and in primary schools the effect
be may be enhanced by the open-plan form of
classroom design.
Yet, much of the research points to the fact
that what the pupils are doing is still largely
under the direction of the teachers. They are
not working independently. A child working
alone through sets of work-cards or duplicated
Work-sheets cannot be said to be working
independently in the ‘progressive’ sense of
the word.
Even when no teacher is present, during
homework for example, the activity is still
likely to be determined by the teacher. The
same could be said of the so-called ‘distance
learning’ schemes. Physical separation of
pupils from teachers or fellow learners gives
no guarantee of genuinely independent,
individualized learning.
Skills and frills
‘Skills and frills’ may seem to be a facetious
way of distinguishing between two kinds of
curricular activities, but it does not highlight
this criterion of independence. ‘Skills’ implies
essential training in basic subjects ; pupils
conform to uniform activities; they do what
they are told. In ‘frills’ they have some
freedom to diverge and to do as they wish.
But there is more to it than that. The further
implication is that the basic compulsory
subjects have precedence over, and higher
status than, the more open and independent
activities.
The main function of the curriculum during
the years of compulsory schooling is to
instruct children in basic school subjects.
Furthermore, it assumes that this is the main
function of those who operate the
curriculum: the teachers.
But society wants more than that: teachers
are also expected to educate in the wider
sense of the word; and here one can detect
some ambiguity in the policy makers. If a
society is to value self-reliance and
independence above all other qualities,
then oppportunities to display them should
be given prominence in the curriculum in
action and not confined to facile
statements of aims.
How is time allocated?
It may seem self-evident that a pupil’s level
of attainment is directly related to the length
of time actively spent in learning. Yet, it is only
recently that research has confirmed the point
and educationists have taken it seriously.
For secondary school pupils the length of
time spent in studying each subject is mainly
determined by the organization of the
curriculum for the school as a whole. This is
Laid down in the school timetable. The
amount of time devoted to each subject is
largely out of the hands of both pupils and
teachers until the point is reached when a
selection amongst subjects can be made.
But in primary schools class teachers and
their pupils are likely to have much more
control over the balance of time spent
between the various learning experiences. It
has been shown that there are large, indeed
alarming, differences between the time
which primary school teachers allocate to
even such subjects as mathematics and
language.
Learning depends not just on time allocated
but on time properly used. Unless the time is
spent in actually learning, and not in peripheral
activities, it is unlikely to be spent profitably.
There are two aspects to profitable
involvement. The first is a purely quantitative
one: the proportion of the time i9n class in
which the pupils are actively involved in
learning compared with the total time
available.
The research on this is recent and it reveals
that in some classes pupils may spend less
than two thirds of the available time,
discounting official breaks, actually engaged
in curriculum tasks, the reminder being
spent on administrative affairs or moving
from one task to another.
Does the action match
the child?
The ‘child- centered ‘ approach to learning
emphasizes the need to match the curriculum
to the needs of individual children. So a
fundamental question to be asked of the
curriculum in action is : to what extent do the
tasks match the capacity of each pupil to
learn from them? It is not just a matter of
allocating tasks to pupils in such a way as to
ensure success; more important is that
engagement in the tasks should advance the
pupil’s learning. The tasks must not be so hard
as to leave the pupils bewildered, nor so easy as
to leave the pupil’s learning no further forward.
The growing evidence in this field is
somewhat disturbing. While all teachers may be
aware of this need, the findings so far point to a
high level of mismatch between each pupil’s
state of learning and the things that they are
being asked to do. The result is that many highattainers are ‘not stretched’ and many lowattainers are left ‘mystified’.
The implications for the way in which the
curriculum action is organized within
classroom are profound. This is particularly in
classes of so-called ‘mixed-ability’. If all the
pupils were of about the same level of ability,
they could all engage in the same task or
different tasks provided these were of a
similar level of difficulty. But if the differences
in ability of pupils are great, such uniformity
of activity must lead to mismatch between
tasks and the capacity of pupils to learn from
them.
If the importance of ‘match’ is accepted,
there needs to be some distinction made
between the curriculum provision for pupils of
high and low attainment. The organization of
the school curriculum as a whole often
differentiates between high and low attainers
by such organizational devices as setting,
streaming and banding. But where this is not
done at the institutional level, it is left to
teachers to organize the classroom activities
appropriately.
In the simplest terms the organization of
classroom activities may fall into three
categories:
•Whole class teaching
•Group activities
•Individual activities
Children are now to be assessed much more
frequently than in the past.
Through the eyes of a
child
A child’s perception of the same events may
be somewhat different. One accepts that the
prime concern of both teacher and pupil should
be the quality of learning; but there is a good
deal more to it than that. What goes on in
classrooms is not just to do with learning
’lessons’; it is to do with learning to live
together in a small closed community with all
the control and modifications of attitudes and
behavior which that implies.
Beneath the surface action in classrooms,
there is an infra-structure which supports the
work of both teachers and pupils. There are
rules and procedures, explicit and implicit,
devised in the first instance to enable
teachers to put their plans into action, to
cope with the demands of the pupils, and –
above all – to remain in control of the
situation. This necessarily imposes on the
pupils norms of behavior which may be very
different from those which apply outside the
classroom.
This requirement to adapt to the ethos of
the classroom is not part of the formal
curriculum; but it is part of the informal or
hidden curriculum, and if children do not
adjust to it they are likely to become
unhappy or rebellious or both. And if at the
same time children are required to
undertake tasks which are either too easy or
too difficult for them, the overall effect could
be to inflict permanent harm.
One of the main question to be asked is
“where does the control of the curriculum
action lie?” It is difficult to escape the
conclusion that, in both the formal and
informal curriculum, control of the action
lies almost entirely with the teacher – that is
certainly how the children will see it.
Essentially that is a matter of the
organization of pupils and the curriculum
within classrooms. But both teachers and
pupils have to work within externally
imposed limits:
the National Curriculum is one and external
assessment
is another. The most
immediate one, however, is the way in
which the curriculum of the school as a
whole is organized.
Best of luck
Dr. Nissrein Abdel
Bassett El-Enany