Editing Curriculum (section)

===Historical conception===
{{rquote|right|Action is response; it is adaptation, adjustment. <br/>&mdash; John Dewey<ref name="deweychild"/>}}
Whatever the origins and intentions of early curricula, the function of inculcating culture had emerged by the time of ancient Babylonia.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Crisostomo
 |first1               = Jay
 |date                 = 14 January 2019
 |chapter              = Multilingual Writing Practices and Translation in Advanced Lexical Education
 |title                = Translation as Scholarship: Language, Writing, and Bilingual Education in Ancient Babylonia
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=KWKEDwAAQBAJ
 |series               = Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records (SANER) - volume 22
 |location             = Boston
 |publisher            = Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
 |isbn                 = 9781501509759
 |access-date          = 27 March 2023
 |quote                = Scribal identity was explicitly connected to the curriculum and specifically Sumerian in a number of literary works [...]. [...] The [...] scribal curriculum [...]  was all about learning Sumerian. Through copying lists of Sumerian lexemes and especially in the reproduction of Sumerian literature, the curriculum inculcated the student scribe in Sumerian culture.
}} 
</ref> [[Education in ancient Rome | Ancient Roman curricula]] came to emphasise Greek as well as Latin skills, with emphasis on the study of classical poetry. This model influenced the curricula of medieval and Renaissance<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Atwill
 |first1               = Janet M.
 |orig-date            = 1998
 |title                = Rhetoric Reclaimed: Aristotle and the Liberal Arts Tradition
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=dYs2_7qIpwQC
 |series               = Cornell paperbacks
 |year = 2009
 |location             = Ithaca, New York
 |publisher            = Cornell University Press
 |page                 = 16
 |isbn                 = 9780801476051
 |access-date          = 27 March 2023
 |quote                = [...] Renaissance curricula were far more influenced by Quintilian's pedagogical program than by Cicero's goals for the training of an orator.
}} 
</ref>
education.

In the early years of the 20th century, the traditional concept held of the curriculum was "that it is a body of subjects or subject matter prepared by the teachers for the students to learn". It was synonymous to the "course of study" and "syllabus".

In ''The Curriculum'',<ref>Bobbitt, John Franklin. ''The Curriculum''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918.</ref> the first textbook published on the subject, in 1918, [[John Franklin Bobbitt]] said that curriculum, as an [[idea]], has its [[Root (linguistics) |roots]] in the [[Latin]] word for ''race-course'', explaining the curriculum as the course of deeds and experiences through which [[child]]ren become the [[adult]]s they should be to succeed later in life. Furthermore, the curriculum encompasses the entire scope of formative deed and experience occurring in and out of school - such as experiences that are unplanned and undirected or those that are intentionally directed for the purposeful formation of adult members of society - not only experiences occurring in [[school]]. (cf. image{{which?|date=March 2023}} at right.)

To Bobbitt, the curriculum is a [[Social engineering (political science)| social-engineering]] arena. Per his cultural presumptions and social definitions, his curricular formulation has two notable features:

* that [[scientific]] experts would best be qualified to and justified in designing curricula based upon their expert [[knowledge]] of what qualities are desirable in adult members of society, and which experiences would generate said qualities
* curriculum defined as the deeds-experiences the student ''ought to have'' to become the adult he or she ''ought to become''

Hence, he defined the curriculum as an ideal, rather than as the concrete [[reality]] of the deeds and experiences that form who and what people become.

Contemporary views of curriculum reject these features of Bobbitt's postulates, but retain the basis of curriculum as the course of experience(s) that form humans into persons. Personal formation via curricula is studied both at the personal and group levels, i.e. [[cultures]] and societies (e.g. professional formation, [[academic discipline]] via historical experience). The formation of a group is reciprocal, with the formation of its individual participants.

Although it formally appeared in Bobbitt's [[definition]], curriculum as a course of formative experience also pervades the work of [[John Dewey]] (1859–1952), who disagreed with Bobbitt on important matters. Although Bobbitt's and Dewey's idealistic understanding of "curriculum" is different from current, restricted uses of the word, writers of curricula and researchers generally share it as common, substantive understanding of curriculum.<ref>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.</ref><ref>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.</ref> Development does not mean just getting something out of the mind.<ref name="deweychild"/> It is a development of experience and into experience that is really wanted.<ref name="deweychild"/>

[[Robert M. Hutchins]] (1899–1977), president of the [[University of Chicago]], regarded curriculum as "permanent studies" where the rules of grammar, rhetoric, logic, and mathematics for basic education are emphasized. Basic education should emphasize [[the three Rs]] and college education should be grounded on liberal education. On the other hand, [[Arthur Bestor]] (1908–1994), an [[essentialism | essentialist]], believes that the mission of the school should be intellectual training. Hence, curriculum should focus on the fundamental intellectual disciplines of grammar, literature, and writing. It should also include mathematics, science, history, and foreign language.

According to Joseph Schwab, [[Academic discipline | discipline]] is the sole source of curriculum.{{cn|date=March 2023}} In our{{whose?|date=March 2023}} education system, curriculum is divided into chunks of knowledge called subject areas in basic education including English, mathematics, science, and social studies. In [[college]], discipline may include humanities, sciences, languages, and many more. Curricula should consist entirely of knowledge which comes from various disciplines.{{cn|date=March 2023}} Dewey proposed that learning the lesson should be more interesting and beneficial than receiving a scolding, being ridiculed, or being required to stay after school, among other punishments.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Dewey
 |first1               = John
 |author-link1         = John Dewey
 |year                 = 1902
 |title                = The child and the curriculum
 |url                  = https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/29259/pg29259-images.html
 |location             = Chicago
 |publisher            = University of Chicago Press
 |page                 = 29
 |access-date          = 27 March 2023
 |quote                = To learn the lesson is more interesting than to take a scolding, be held up to general ridicule, stay after school, receive degradingly low marks, or fail to be promoted. 
}} 
</ref>

Thus, a curriculum can be viewed as a field of study. It is made up of its foundations (philosophical, historical, psychological, and social foundations), domains of knowledge, as well as its research theories and principles. Curricula as an area of study should be scholarly and theoretical. The field is concerned with broad, historical, philosophical social issues and academics. Mark Smith suggests a starting definition of "curriculum" offered by John Kerr and taken up by Vic Kelly in his standard work on the curriculum: "All the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the school".<ref name="smithmk"/>

There are four ways of approaching curriculum theory and practice:<ref name="smithmk"/>
# curriculum as a body of knowledge to be transmitted
# curriculum as an attempt to help students achieve a goal
# curriculum as a process
# curriculum as [[Praxis (process) | praxis]]
In recent years{{when?|date=March 2023}} the field of education and curriculum has expanded outside the walls of the classroom and into other settings, such as [[museums]]. Within these settings curriculum is an even broader topic, including various teachers, inanimate objects such as audio-tour devices, and even the learners themselves. As with the traditional idea of curriculum, curriculum in a free-choice learning-environment can consist of the explicit stated curriculum and the hidden curriculum; both of which contribute to the learner's experience and lessons from the experience.<ref>"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</ref> These elements are further compounded by the setting, cultural influences, and the state of mind of the learner.<ref>Falk, J.H. & Dierking, L.D. (2000). Learning from museums: Visitor experiences and the making of meaning. Walnut Creek, CA; AltaMira Press.</ref> Museums and other similar settings are most commonly leveraged within traditional classroom settings as enhancements to the curriculum when educators develop curricula that encompass visits to museums, zoos, and aquariums.<ref>
Kim, M., & Dopico, E. (2014). Science education through informal education. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 1–7.</ref>