Curriculum and Society: Rethinking the Link
Alicia De Alba

Today’s students learn differently then students in the 60s and 70s.The curriculum during that time was geared toward preparing the students for the real world “working world”. What are we preparing our students for if we gear our teaching towards a test? As for the culture conflicts, we still have the struggles with privilege versus the underprivileged, or between different cultures, just occurring with a different generation. However, with the different time comes more sensitivities and freedoms to these culture. Everyone has an opinion about some issues, both positive and negative and with schools we have to “tip toe” around certain issues both political and religious. Let’s take the recent example of the conflict schools and parents about President Obama’s speech. In our school district, in order to watch the speech, you had to get parental consent and show the curricular goals that met the reason why you would show this particular speech. In previous presidential debates or speeches there was no such need for parental consent or assurance that these speeches and debates meet some kind of curriculum goals.

One sentence in the paper, I think really captures the overall purpose of the paper that states, “we need to rethink this relationship to enable us to recapture a purposeful, critical and analytical view of our work in education (p 481).” Basically we need to keep up "with the Jones'". We as teachers need to understand the social changes of today’s society especially with the boom of technology with today’s generation and use it in our curriculum. When teaching in today’s society we try to strive connect our lesson to the “real world”. What comes to mind when I think about curriculum and society is the topic of service learning. Which is commonsensical! In order for our students to understand a little more about their society connecting the curriculum to service can help students understand more about the connection to the “real world” and what they are learning about in school. Basically assuring them that what they are learning in school is memorable instead of memorized.