Patterns of curriculum

Curriculum:
The word "curriculum" began as a Latin word which means "a race" or "the course
of a race" (which in turn derives from the verb currere meaning "to run/to
proceed").

 Kerr defines curriculum as, "All the learning which is planned and guided by
the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside
of school." 
 Braslavsky states that curriculum is an agreement among communities,
educational professionals, and the State on what learners should take on during
specific periods of their lives. Furthermore, the curriculum defines "why, what,
when, where, how, and with whom to learn." 
 Outlines the skills, performances, attitudes, and values pupils are expected to
learn from schooling. It includes statements of desired pupil outcomes,
descriptions of materials, and the planned sequence that will be used to help
pupils attain the outcomes.
 The total learning experience provided by a school. It includes the content of
courses (the syllabus), the methods employed (strategies), and other aspects,
like norms and values, which relate to the way the school is organized.
 The aggregate of courses of study given in a learning environment. The
courses are arranged in a sequence to make learning a subject easier. In schools,
a curriculum spans several grades.

Here are some patterns of curriculum:

Humanistic Curriculum:
The learner as human being has prime significance for the Humanistic Curriculum
which aims at development and realization of complete human personality of the
student. The humanistic curriculum does not take student as subservient to society,
history or philosophy but as a complete entity. The humanistic curriculum experts
suggest that if education succeeds in development of needs, interests, and aptitudes
of every individual, the students will willingly and intelligently cooperate with one
another for common good. This will ensure a free and universal society with
shared interests rather than conflicting ones. Thus humanists stress on individual
freedom and democratic rights to form global community based on “common
humanity of all people”.

The Humanistic Curriculum is based on the belief that the education that is good
for a person is also best for the well being of the nation. Here, the individual
learner is not regarded as a passive or at least easily managed recipient of input.
S/he is the choosing or self-selecting organism. To design the Humanistic
Curriculum, we have to focus on the question “What does the curriculum mean to
the learner?” Self-understanding, self-actualization, and fostering the emotional
and physical well being as well as well as the intellectual skills necessary for
independent judgment become the immediate concern of the Humanistic
Curriculum. To the humanists, the goals of education are related to the ideals of
personal growth, integrity, and autonomy. Healthier attitudes towards self, peers,
and learning are among their expectations. The concept of confluent curriculum
and curriculum for consciousness are the important types of humanistic
curriculum. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Rousseaue, Kant, and Pestalozzi are
some of the great humanists of the world history. 

Educational Technology and Curriculum:

The Curriculum and Educational Technology (CET) doctoral concentration
addresses the ever-increasing demand for educational leaders who understand the
effective use of technology in maximizing student achievement, as well as
educators' professional development. Students will explore, design, and evaluate
curriculum-based educational technology applications as they are, and will be,
used in a wide variety of K-12 and adult learning contexts and systems. They will
also understand and implement effective educational technology professional
development models and practices appropriate for K-12 teachers, K-12
administrators, and post-secondary faculty.

CET students' program work will be supported by and culminate with

development of a focused line of research in curriculum and educational
technology. In short, CET students will develop the skills and dispositions
necessary to serve as leaders in integrating educational technologies into teaching
and learning.

Social Reconstructionist Curriculum:

Social Reconstructionists are dissatisfied with the social, political and economic
order of society and take curriculum as vehicle for reconstruction of the society.
They advocate a curriculum which gives vision of an ideal society and ensures
“reconstruction” of present society on the basis of that vision. The
Reconstructionists suggest that curriculum should confront the learners with issues
which mankind face and this curriculum should develop in learners the ability of
critically analysing these issues and finding out the possible solutions.
Consequently, the learners will develop deep understanding of the society and they
will strive for better social order. Social adaptation and social reconstruction
approaches are very important here. The social adaptation approach refers to
awareness of students about the social problems and giving the students solutions
of these problems. On the other hand, social reconstruction refers to developing in
students critical awareness of social problems and seeking changes in basic
structure of society to improve the real world. The Social Reconstructionists may
be grouped into following categories: 

1. Freire’s social reconstructionism (Revolution) 

2. Neo-Marxists (Critical inquiry)

3. Futurolgists

Deschooling:
Deschooling, a term rooted in the beliefs of Ivan Illich, is the shift from a
traditional, government-influenced institution of schooling to a less-restricted
method of learning that focuses on being educated by one's natural curiosities.[

Deschooling is mainly accredited to Ivan Illich, who felt that the traditional
schooling children received needed to be reconstructed. He believed that schools
contained a "hidden curriculum" that caused learning to align with grades and
accreditation rather than important skills .Illich believed that the modern school is
grounded on a foundation that is focused on growing schools as an industrialized
system. Rather than focusing on the needs of the children, it is more heavily
focused on the aggrandizement of the school system. Illich communicated that the
school system has formed a toxic industry that specializes in what families should
be capable of forming themselves, namely education. According to Illich, schools
align success on paper with academic excellence. He presumed that schools,
grades, and diplomas gave false assumptions that the students have become
knowledgeable in a certain educational concept.
John Holt was an educator who also believed in deschooling. His thoughts were
closely aligned with Illich because neither were convinced that school was the
place that taught students everything they needed to know. Instead, they
communicated that school was not the sole avenue for learning because students
learn consistently through other facets, such as exposure to the natural world. As a
result, Illich and Holt saw schools as being insufficient because of their focus on
strictly doing "skill drill" instead of other methods of learning.Additionally,
theorist of deschooling saw education as maintaining the social order. Therefore,
they wanted to "denounce the monopoly that traditional education institutions held
on education and learning."
Vocational Curriculum:
Vocational education is education that prepares people to work in various jobs,
such as a trade, a craft, or as a technician. Vocational education is sometimes
referred to as career education or technical education. A vocational school is a
type of educational institution specifically designed to provide vocational
education. Until recently, almost all vocational education took place in the
classroom, or on the job site, with students learning trade skills and trade theory
from accredited professors or established professionals. However, online
vocational education has grown in popularity, and made it easier than ever for
students to learn various trade skills and soft skills from established professionals
in the industry.

In curriculum vocational courses are planned around the learner’s interests and
aspirations. These vocational learning outcomes are based on the learner’s hopes
for the future and will incorporate their needs, strengths, preferences and interests.
Learners are fully involved in their vocational course planning that outlines what
activities they will participate in for a successful transition to adulthood.Work
experience will be planned, where possible, around the learner’s interests and
aspirations. 
Conservative liberal art:
Liberal arts education (from Latin liberalis "free" and ars "art or principled
practice") can claim to be the oldest programme of higher education in Western
history.It has its origin in the attempt to discover first principles – 'those universal
principles which are the condition of the possibility of the existence of anything
and everything'. Rooted in the basic curriculum – the enkuklios paideia or
"education in a circle" – of late Classical and Hellenistic Greece, the "liberal arts"
or "liberal pursuits" (Latin liberalia studia) were already so called in formal
education during the Roman Empire. The first recorded use of the term "liberal
arts" (artes liberales) occurs in De Inventione by Marcus Tullius Cicero, but it is
unclear if he created the term. Seneca the Younger discusses liberal arts in
education from a critical Stoic point of view in Moral Epistles. The exact
classification of the liberal arts varied however in Roman times,  and it was only
after Martianus Capella in the 5th century ADinfluentially brought the seven
liberal arts as bridesmaids to the Marriage of Mercury and Philology, that they
took on canonical form.
The phrase liberal education does not refer to a curriculum that contrasts with
aconservative education; it refers to a curriculum designed to provide students
with the knowledge and abilities to become successful, productive members of a
free society. It provides them the opportunity to practice free-thinking.
References:
1. Hancock, D., Dyk, P. H., & Jones, K. (2012). Adolescent Involvement in Extracurricular Activities.
Journal of Leadership Education, 11(1), 84–101.
2.  Bobbitt, John Franklin. The Curriculum. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918.
3.  Jackson, Philip W. "Conceptions of Curriculum and Curriculum Specialists." In Handbook of Research
on Curriculum: A Project of the American Educational Research Association, edited by Philip W.
Jackson, 3–40. New York: Macmillan Pub. Co., 1992.
4.  Pinar, William F., William M. Reynolds, Patrick Slattery, and Peter M. Taubman. Understanding
Curriculum: An Introduction to the Study of Historical and Contemporary Curriculum Discourses. New
York: Peter Lang, 1995.
5.  Museum Education as Curriculum: Four Models, Leading to a Fifth Elizabeth Vallance Studies in Art
Education Vol. 45, No. 4 (Summer, 2004), pp. 343–358
6.  Falk, J.H. & Dierking, L.D. (2000). Learning from museums: Visitor experiences and the making of
meaning. Walnut Creek, CA; AltaMira Press.
7.  Kim, M., & Dopico, E. (2014). Science education through informal education. Cultural Studies of
Science Education, 1–7.
8.  "Harvard approves new general education curriculum". The Boston Globe. 15 May 2007. Retrieved 9
February  2013.