The local university is facing two shortfalls: money and students. I think all colleges and universities are facing increased competition and smarter competition for students. We generally think that a student will complete high school and then enroll in college. There is evidence in many places that lives tend to go better with a college degree. So, as a list of proposed changes to what majors will be available is published, much complaint is expressed about what is planned to be discontinued.
These events lead an education professor to reflect on the subject of curriculum. You remember: schooling is triangular. We have the teacher,the student, and the subject(s) to be learned, the curriculum. I guess we could say the first curriculum was learning to read. Hopefully, as you learn to read, you will, more or less simultaneously learn to write. In the old days, we threw in "arithmetic", addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. You may remember your addition facts and your "times" tables.
It seems sensible, in these days of science talk and calls for evidence, to say that we need good data on what our kids, who have a habit of quickly turning into adults (and parents!) should learn. Then, we find that the banker says they MUST learn money and check writing while the chef says that people gotta eat and recommends cooking and nutrition. Finance and food can both be labeled as dreaded "practical" subjects, raising the fear that our plans will lead to semi-educated dunces who don't know history and science or French or Japanese.
Men and women don't live by bread alone, you know. Kids are human beings and they deserve a good education in the humanities. Ok, in the arts and sciences, too. Plus, don't omit the essentials of ecology and knowledge of the environment, which gets more worrisome all the time. That means history, philosophy, foreign languages, the physical and biological and social sciences should be added into the requirements for a college degree, right?
I don't really know what they need to know. I don't really know what they know, nor what I know. I am unclear about what I learned and which parts are now forgotten and which are out-of-date. Luckily, I probably don't need to know. I just need to demand that the kids learn hard stuff, whatever it is, to be prepared for their unknown and murky futures.
