Eastern Mindoro College

BONGABONG, ORIENTAL MINDORO

Tel. No.(043)-283-5479; email_1945 @ yahoo.com
COLLEGE DEPARTMENT

NAME: COURSE:

DATE: THE TEACHER & THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM ROOM:

CONTACT NO. INSTRUCTOR: MR. MAGTIBAY

EMAIL ADD: RATING:

CHAPTER 1: CURRICULUM ESSENTIALS

MODULE 1: THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM
LESSON 1.1: THE CURRICULA IN SCHOOL
WEEK 1 , 3 HOURS
I. FOCUS:
In this module, challenge yourself to:
• Discuss the difficult curricula that exist in the schools
• Analyze the significance of curriculum and curriculum development in the teacher’s
classroom.

II. INTRODUCTION: Module 1 is all about school curricula and the teacher. This introductory module
identifies the different types of curricula that exists in the teacher’s classroom and school. Further,
Module 1 describes the important roles of the teacher as a curricularist who engages in the different
facets of curriculum development in any educational level.

III. STRATEGIES
A. ACTIVITY: TURN UP YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Have you read “The Sabre- Tooth Curriculum by Harold Benjamin (1939)?” Take some time
to read it and find out what curriculum is all about during those time.

Start here and enjoy reading.

A man by the name of New-First-Hammer-Maker knew how to do things his community

needed to have done, and he had the energy and the will to go ahead and do them. By virtue of
these characteristics, he was an educated man. New-First was also a thinker. Then as now,
there were few lengths to which men would not go to avoid the labor and pain of thought…. New-
First got to the point where he became strongly dissatisfied with the accustomed ways be made
of his tribe. He began to catch glimpses of ways in which life might be made better for himself,
his family and his group. By virtue of this development, he became a dangerous man…… New-
First thought about how he could harness the children’s play to better the life of the community.
He considered what adults do for survival and introduced these activities to children in a
deliberate and formal way. These included catching fish with bare hands, clubbing little woolly
Page 1 of 6
 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

horses, and chasing away-saber-toothed-tigers-with-fire. These then became the curriculum and
the community began to prosper-with plenty of food, hides for attire and protection from threat.
“It is supposed that all would have gone well forever with this good educational system, if
conditions of life in that community remained forever the same.” But conditions changed.
The glacier began to melt and the community could no longer see the fish to catch with their
bare hands, and only the most agile clever fish remained which hid from the people. The woolly
horses were ambitious and decided to leave the region. The tigers got pneumonia and most died.
The few remaining tigers left. In their place, fierce bears arrived who would not be chased by fire.
The community was in trouble.
One day, in desperation, someone made a net from willow twigs and found a new way to
catch fish-and the supply was even more plentiful than before. The community also devised a
system of traps on the path to snare the bears. Attempts to change education system to include
these new techniques however encountered “stern opposition.”
These are also activities we need to know. Why can’t the schools teach them? But most of
the tribe particularly the wise old men who controlled the school, smiled indulgently at this
suggestion. “That wouldn’t be education… it would be mere training”. We don’t teach fish
grabbing to catch fish, we teach it to develop a generalized agility which can never be duplicated
by mere training. . . and so on.
“If you had any education yourself, you would know that the essence of true education is
timelessness. It is something that endures through changing conditions like a solid rock standing
squarely and firmly in the middle of a raging torrent.”

B. ANALYSIS

The story was written in 1939. Curriculum then, was seen as a tradition of organized
knowledge taught in schools of the 19th century.
Two centuries later, the concept of a curriculum has broadened to include several models
of thoughts or experiences.

Formal, non-formal or informal education do not exist without a curriculum. Classrooms will be empty
with no curriculum. Teachers will have nothing to do, if there is no curriculum. Curriculum is at the heart of
the teaching profession. Every teacher is guided by some sort of curriculum in the classroom and in
schools.

In our current Philippine educational system, different schools are established in different
educational levels which have corresponding recommended curricula. The educational levels are:

Basic Education. This level includes Kindergarten, Grade 1 to Grade 6 for elementary; and for secondary,
Grade 7 to Grade 10, for the Junior High School and Grade 11 and 12 and for the Senior High School.
Each of the levels has its specific recommended curriculum. The new basic education levels are provided
in the K to 12 Enhanced Curriculum of 2013 of the Department of Education.

Technical Vocational Education. This is post-secondary technical vocational educational and training
taken care of Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). For the TechVoc track in
SHS of DepEd, DepEd and TESDA work in close coordination.

Higher Education. This includes the Baccalaureate or Bachelor Degrees and the Graduate Degrees
(Master’s and Doctorate) which are under the regulation of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)

Enriching Minds of Champions

 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

C. ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION

GEAR UP YOUR MIND!

Highlights:
➢ LESSON 1.1: THE CURRICULA IN SCHOOLCURRICULUM
FOUNDATIONS

In whatever levels of schooling and in various types of learning environment, several curricula
exist. Let us find out how Allan Glatthorn (2000) as mentioned in Bilbao, et al (2008) classified these:

TYPES OF CURRICULA SIMULTANEOUSLY OPERATING IN THE SCHOOLS

Are you aware that in every classroom, there are several types of curricula operating at the
same time? Let us study each one.

Recommended Curriculum. Almost all curricula found in our schools are recommended. For Basic
Education, these are recommended by the Department of Education (DepEd), for Higher Education,
by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and for vocational education by TESDA. These
three government agencies oversee and regulate Philippine education. The recommendations come
in the form of memoranda or policies, standards and guidelines. Other professional organizations or
international bodies like UNESCO also recommend curricula in schools.

Written Curriculum. This includes documents based on the recommended curriculum. They come
in the form of course of study, syllabi, modules, books or instructional guides among others. A packet
of this written curriculum is the teacher’s lesson plan. The most recent written curriculum is the K to
12 for Philippine Basic Education.

Target Curriculum. From what has been written or planned, the curriculum has to be implemented
or taught. The teacher and the learners to facilitate learning based on the written curriculum with the
aid of instructional materials and facilities will be necessary. The taught curriculum will depend largely
on the teaching style of the teacher and the learning style of the learners.

Supported Curriculum. This is described as support materials that the teacher needs to make
learning and teaching meaningful. These include print materials like books, charts, posters,
worksheets, or non-print material like Power Point presentation, movies, slides, models, realias,
mock-ups and other electronic illustrations. Sup[ported curriculum also includes facilities where
learning occurs outside or inside the four-walled building. These include the playground, science
laboratory, audio-visual rooms, zoo, museum, market or the plaza. These are the places where
authentic learning through direct experiences occur.

Assessed Curriculum. Taught and supported curricula have to be evaluated to find out if the teacher
has succeeded or not in facilitating learning. In the process of teaching and at the end of every lesson
or teaching episode, an assessment is made. It can either be assessment for learning, assessment
as learning or assessment of learning. If the process is to find the progress of learning, then the
assessed curriculum is for learning, but if it is to find out how much has been learned or mastered,
then it is assessment of learning. Either way, such curriculum is the assessed curriculum.

Enriching Minds of Champions

 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Learned curriculum. How do we know if the student has learned? We always believe that if a student
changed behavior, he/she has learned. For example, from a non-reader to a reader or from not
knowing to knowing or from being disobedient to being obedient. The positive outcome of teaching is
an indicator of learning. These are measured by tools in assessment, which can indicate the cognitive,
affective and psychomotor outcomes. Learned curriculum will also demonstrate higher order and
critical thinking and lifelong skills.

Hidden/ Implicit Curriculum. This curriculum is not deliberately planned, but has a great impact on
the behavior of the learner. Peer influence, school environment, media, parental pressures, societal
changes, cultural practices, natural calamities, are some factors that create the hidden curriculum.
Teachers should be sensitive and aware of this hidden curriculum. Teachers must have good foresight
to include these in the written curriculum, in order to bring to the surface what are hidden.

However, in every teacher’s classroom, not all these curricula may be present at one time.
Many of them are deliberately planned, like the recommended, written, taught, supported, assessed,
and learned curricula. However, a hidden curriculum is implied, and a teacher may or may not be able
to predict its influence on learning. All of these have significant role on the life of the teacher as a
facilitator of learning and have direct implication to the life of the learners.

D. APPLICATION 1. BOOST UP YOUR LEARNING!

Now, let us observe further if these curricula are existing in a teacher’s classroom.
Do the activities that follow.

Take Action

Activity 1- Think- Pair-Share

1. Get a partner (A and B).

2. Discuss the Sabre-tooth Curriculum and answer the following:
a. Does the Sabre-tooth curriculum still exist at present?
Give examples of your evidence.
b. Describe the Sabre-tooth of curriculum that exist as described in the article.
c. What does the author mean, when he said “A curriculum should be timeless?” Explain.
d. What is the difference between education and training?

Activity 2- Observing Curriculum in a Classroom

Visit a classroom other than your own with permission from the teacher. (Elem, High School,
College).
Do the two activities:
1. Observe the classroom situation.
2. Interview the teacher.
Focus your observation and interview on the presence or absence of the seven types of curricula
and their descriptions.
4

Enriching Minds of Champions

 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

3. Record your observation and interview on the matrix provided.

Guide questions for Observation and Interview

1. What curricula are present in the classroom from my observation?
2. What curricula are present in the classroom from my interview?
3. How do I describe what I observed? Interviewed?
4. Is there a type of curricula not present in the classroom? Identify.

Type of Curriculum What observation/information did I get? or

What answers did I get from my Interview?
1. Recommended
2. Written

3. Taught

4. Supported
5. Assessed

6. Learned

7. Hidden

Self-Check

I. Spin a Win: Agree or Disagree

Read each statement and decide whether you Agree or Disagree. Write your answer before each
number.

___________1. In the Saber Tooth Curriculum, learning is experiential and authentic.

___________2. It is a reality that there exist more than one curricula in the teacher’s classroom.
___________3. A teacher can say with confidence that learning has occurred, if the curriculum has been
assessed.
___________4. Some curricula in the schools/classrooms are unwritten.
___________5. To establish national standards, teachers should be guided by recommended curriculum
in basic and higher education.
___________6. Teachers should expect that school curricula are dynamic and changing.
___________7. Evaluated curriculum makes judgement about learning.
___________8. Textbooks and modules are written curricula that represent the recommended curricula.
___________9. Only the Department of Education can recommend a curriculum.
___________10. In the heart of all the types of curricula, the teacher has a major role.

Enriching Minds of Champions

 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Self-Reflect

Is it necessary for teachers to learn about school curriculum? Why? Write your answer on the space
provided below.
______________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________

Prepared by:
MR. JAYMAR B. MAGTIBAY
Instructor

Enriching Minds of Champions