Written Assignment Unit 3

EDUC 5220 Curriculum Design

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This written narrative of the exchange will be examining the meaning of curriculum from a

layperson’s point of view. This person is not involved in education or anything near the

profession of education. The person for this assignment is Max Jambo, but for the purpose of

this paper, he will be called Jambo. He is 32 years of age. He has a company dealing with

upholstery. He has been in this profession for about 7 years to date. He has an advanced

diploma in entrepreneurship. Three questions were asked to Jambo. The questions are: What

does the word curriculum mean to you? Why do you say that the meaning of curriculum is

similar to course layout? If you were given a chance to create a curriculum in upholstery, how

would you do it?

The first question that I asked Jambo was; what does that the word curriculum mean to you?

This question made Jambo laugh and he asked me why am asking him such a question when I

know he has nothing to do with education. I said to him that education does necessary mean

being in a classroom. Every day when he tries to make his employee learn, there is education.

I made him understand and we went back to our topic. Jambo answered, “Curriculum to my

understanding is just another word for a course outline.” And continued by saying that,

“curriculum is a document that outlines what and how teachers must teach. In this document,

teachers are given instructions on how to do their job. I can also say that it is like a school

syllabus.”

The second question to Jambo was, why do you say that the meaning of curriculum is similar

to course layout? In his answer, Jambo was trying to show how the curriculum is similar to a

course outline. Jambo said, “I am not sure to answer this question. I think a curriculum is on

top while the syllabus is under it. Both tell teachers how to start the lesson.” Jambo also said

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that he thinks the curriculum is similar to the syllabus because they all are like a blueprint of

how a subject must be tought.

The third question was that, If you were given a chance to create a curriculum in upholstery,

how would you do it? When I asked this third question paused for a moment and his response

was: “ Man if i can be given a chance to create an upholstery curriculum, the first thing I will

do is to start with the requirements of being a good upholster, I can then list all the

vocabulary used in this business.” Jambo continued saying, “the reason of listing the

vocabulary is that everyone must be able to speak the same language and to avoid mistakes

and to avoid misconceptions.” Jambo continued saying that after outlining all the words used

in upholstery, he would introduce all the major issues, themes, and concepts involved in the

upholstery business. He also said that in his curriculum, he would include all the benefits of

this upholstery business and cover minor issues and problems that one can find in this

business. He concluded his answer by telling that he would list the names of all tools a person

must have in order to work.

This conversation was very interesting to me but very challenging to Jambo. I could tell that

he never expected that someone can ask him such a question. He thanked me as well because

I made him know that he is also involved in education even though he is not a teacher and he

promised me that he will make an outline of vocabulary and tools so that when new

employees can use it.

The way Jambo answered my questions, I could tell that he responded based on pure

experience to curriculum based on his time he was in school either the time in secondary

school or collage. We can see here an advantages of having experience, a person can be able

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to understand new perspective and idea. Jombo’s answer to the first question was not

supprising to me at all. Many people has that misconcesption that a curriculum a list of topics

to be taught in a subjects. I loved the way he hanged on to his answers when i followed up

with the second question. Galstyan (2020), notes that “Curriculum and Syllabus are two main

documents widely used in the education process. The general purpose of both is to organize

the proper relationship between professors and students and define both sides' responsibilities

and requirements.” No wonder people like Jambo think that the two are the same. While

Surbhi (2017), notes that “when it comes to education, the two concepts which pop up in our

mind which are commonly misconstrued are syllabus and curriculum.”

References:

1. Galstyan E. (2020, December). Curriculum and Syllabus: What is the Difference?

Armcad. Retrieved from

https://armacad.info/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-curriculum-and-syllabus

2. Surbhi S. (2017, May). Difference Between Syllabus and Curriculum. Retrieved from

https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-syllabus-and-curriculum.html