Gke1 Task 1

Gipson, Michael – Task 1 – Reading Response

Prompt: Using your own words, define curriculum in 25 words or less. Write a half-page narrative describing how curriculum has been interpreted throughout the years, with connection to chapter one and to your professional practice (e.g., teaching field). My definition of curriculum is; the subject matter, material resources, and real world skills taught, and presented to students within the worlds’ school systems. Curriculum has been interpreted in several ways for many decades in the past. Each educator or education professional, with whom, you ask to define and interpret curriculum, will more than likely give you a different view than others you have asked on separate occasions. It’s not just educators that have different views and opinions of curriculum; lawyers, carpenters, nurses, and even stay-at-home parents all interpret and view curriculum in different ways. This even goes for different categories of schools:

With Luxembourg (Tucker, 2011) being the country that spends the most money per student in the world, the United States comes in second. This proves that educational funds are vital for schools to remain operational. Though money is not the only issue. In Marc Tucker’s article, he states that schools “put more money behind their hardest-to-educate students than those who are easier to educate.” (Tucker, 2011) He also says the schools have curriculum and standards that math and the assessments and materials used are “based on that curriculum.” (Tucker, 2011) I feel that the public schools in America need to focus more of their funds on the lower performing schools that are falling behind. The reasons for them falling behind may be numerous, but none-the-less, the lower achieving schools seem to be moving at a slower pace than schools with higher funding and better test