Reflection 12

A curriculum is something that teachers struggle with. A curriculum is a description of the class beign offered, or a description of what the students should be learning. Over time the curriculum changes. It all depends on what century the student is in. During the colonial time which is the seventeeth century schools were focused on the "two r's". The "two r's" were religion and reading,. Schools were focused on the puritan morality. The few to graduate were forced to remeber a lot Latin and Greek. Sadly, for females, African Americans, Nati ve Americans, or poor you were not allowed an education. The would lock the school house doors because they felt that these people were not worthy of an education. The eighteenth century was focused on building the new nation. The new nation emphasized on the secular to free the formal curriculum from the strict bonds of religion. The classes were still based on reading, religion, and morals. However, math and writing were the center of attention. In the secondary level, students were able to learn vocational skills. Some examples of the vocational skills were, surveying, bookkeeping, accounting, and even navigating. At this time there was still a color barrier but more and more women were going to school. In the nineteenth century students had a more secure curriculum. The more and more the nation developed, so did the curriculm. Elementary schools really focused on math, spelling, behavior, writing, and even geography. Secondary students were most likely enrolled in an academy. They had a choice to focus on the original Latin curriculum or the new English curriculum. They both included public speakinhg, history, grammar, science , algebra, modern language and so much more. Luckily for students in the first half of the second century education was more progressive. Many new immigrants dominated the curriculum. It was good to be creative and in the arts. The curriculum consisted of arts, and the original courses like history, geography, civics, reading, writing, spelling. These were squeezed into the language arts and the social sciences. One of the most intriguing of the change of curriculums was the in the 1950s through the 1960s. When the Soviet Sputnik which is the first artificial satellite launched, the low point for the West in the Cold War was launched. The American schools used as the scapegoat for the U.S failure to win against the Soviets in space. The prestigious universities were made to create a more demanding curriculum. The focus was mainly science, math, and foreign language. Students weren't taught for memorization but on being taught to think like mathematicians or scientists. All of the problems going on around the students caused the students to be higher-order thinkers.