What is curriculum?

What is curriculum? What should curriculum be? Curriculum is the collection of topics and subjects, units and modules, imposed upon students from the uber-young early childhood education years of pre-school programing all the way through secondary schooling as well as the uppermost reaches of post-secondary schooling. The funny thing and the paradox for me personally, is that even though I am curiously fond of schooling for myself and for my students, upon honest reflection, I must admit that my own schooling has been of questionable use to me. In other words, the curriculum which I have experienced over 40 years of my life has not been exactly helpful or useful. I feel a bit downcast admitting this, but it is true.

I first earned a bachelor degree in accounting with a minor in music from Hillsdale College as a very traditional aged, young thing. I felt enormous pressure to select a major, get a good job, get on with my life and prove myself to my parents and to the world. The courses contained in my bachelor degree accounting program were tightly selected with little flexibility for electives or personal choice. The accounting curriculum still used today in my own classroom is remarkably similar to what I experienced as a student 20 years ago. The principle difference being the big shift in the use of technology in how accounting work is performed. The curriculum itself is virtually unchanged. By curriculum, I mean the choices of courses required as well as the set objectives, topics and tasks to be covered in each required course. The idea was and is that a solid accounting education prepares a student for a career in accounting and a successful score on the CPA Exam. Even though I was a very strong student with a 3.8 GPA, I did not experience either expected benefit.

Hillsdale College is very much an Intellectual Traditionalist type of teaching and learning environment as William Schubert would say. A classic liberal arts education is emphasized with a robust general education component. Lecturing is viewed as an art and a key component of college life. Education itself is viewed as one of life’s finest, most treasured accomplishments. At Hillsdale College, academics are described as a liberal education…

“A liberal education at Hillsdale College entails the study of things inherently worthwhile—things good, true, and beautiful...Students refine their intelligence, furnish their understanding, and acquire the abilities and wisdom necessary to lead full, humane lives.”


Even this beautifully crafted curriculum and educational experience was not enough or was not what I really needed to genuinely understand how an accounting system really works on the job. It was also not enough to get me through the rigors of the 1990 era CPA Exam.

Years later in my late 20’s/early 30’s I completed an MBA from a well-known Michigan university. At this point in my life, I knew that I was a teacher at heart, and it seemed that the best fit for me would be teaching accounting at the college level. All related job postings required a bachelor degree in the field, professional work experience and an MBA. And so, off I went to complete an MBA. With the exception of my Forensic Accounting course, I have never used any of the curriculum from my MBA in my professional teaching career now as a college accounting teacher. One could say that it was completely useless and unrelated. It was a required credential and nothing more. How many of our students feel the same way? Assignments, courses and whole programs are meaningless other than being the gate-keeper to a chosen profession. I especially wonder about the formerly popular, ever glitzy MBA degree. I know a handful of folks with MBA’s that can’t get jobs. You can even read a book about it in Sonja Landis’s “My Master’s Degree is Useless?!?!”

When I was in my 30’s and my boys were young, I was constantly on the look-out for good babysitters, daycare and pre-school programs. I came across a local place in town called Happy Hearts. It was a Montessori inspired kind of place providing a range of pre-school and after school care programing. The place was a treasure trove of activity areas loaded full of rich, interesting objects, books and supplies. The founder of the school was an aging grandfather who handled the early morning shift when I dropped off my son with his daughter and others coming in later to handle the bulk of the school day. I would frequently open the door to hear classical music playing and paints set up in the kitchen area. He and I often picked up fascinating conversations about politics, the arts, education, anything and everything. I didn’t want to go to work! I wanted to stay and paint and be. One of my favorite features of Happy Hearts was the “wild woods” as the kids called it. The property included a fair amount of acreage in the back including all kinds of trees and trails and foliage. There were many, many times that my son was too dirty and muddy to load into the car at the end of the day. I learned to keep a towel and a change of clothes with me for those days. Happy Hearts reminds me of Summerhill in England. Learning is directed by the child and curriculum is so loose that most education specialists would chafe at the lack or structure. All traditional subjects are included such as reading, math and science but they are interwoven into activities and events that capture the children’s attention. If you don’t know about Summerhill, it is an amazing place William Schubert would describe as Experiential and Dewian. It turns out that I was a Dewey fan before I learned about Dewey!

When I was in high school, I found a used copy of “Summerhill” by A.S. Neill at a Goodwill Store. I bought it, read it and devoured it. I was fascinated, moved, attracted to and totally freaked out that such a place could exist. It seemed like a gigantic, risky, fascinating experiment. I wondered if the Summerhill kids would end up permanently deranged without a proper K-12 education. The irony is that maybe it’s the other way around in that our US kids may be the ones messed up by that proper K-12 system. I would describe Summerhill as an extreme alternative school. Kids are allowed to progress and experience academic and non-academic pursuits as their interests and desires allow. Summerhill founder A.S. Neill describes it as a place of freedom:

“We set out to make a school in which we should allow children freedom to be themselves. In order to do this we had to renounce all discipline, all direction, all suggestion, all moral training, all religious instruction. We have been called brave, but it did not require courage. All it required was what we had – a complete belief in the child as a good, not an evil, being. Since 1921 this belief in the goodness of the child has never wavered: it rather has become a final faith.” (A.S. Neill, Summerhill, 1960)

The kids are exposed to all kinds of subjects and possible activities, but the kids direct what they do, when they do and how far they go into each subject. Summerhill seemed like madness to me back then, but it hit a nerve, and I was fascinated. I think it left such a mark on me, because I was a sensitive, bright, artistic child. I wonder how I would have fared in a Summerhill or Happy Hearts type of school environment. School was a challenge to me, but I was determined to conquer it. If school had not been posed as a challenge but as something else, I wonder how I would have engaged it.

Now in my 40’s, I find myself wrapping up yet another degree with a questionable link to my chosen profession. I would describe the MAED program at MSU as Social Behaviorist in nature. I have learned a great deal about myself and have significantly improved my confidence as a writer. I truly do not know what the future holds for me. I have tried repeatedly to infuse and share the ideas I am learning at MSU into my current teaching environment only to find that new ideas and my offers to assist and help are not welcome. I will keep trying. I also have an eye on the world at large. There are many possibilities, many unknowns. It is too soon to say whether or not my MSU studies and the MAED curriculum have been effective and useful to me.

Let me pose it this way…what would have been better?...

It would have been better for me as a budding entry level accountant to spend most of my time working in accounting in an apprenticeship and much less time in the classroom. Many classes were not relevant and could be removed from the program with required courses spaced before, during and after several years of apprenticeship work.

It would have been better for me as a budding educator to spend time in college classrooms working with other teachers observing, team teaching and doing my own teaching. Again, some supporting coursework would have been beneficial with the majority of my credits and time spent in the classroom beginning to learn the craft and art of teaching.

It would have been better for me as a child to have spent several years in an environment similar to Happy Hearts or Summerhill. Instead of school as a struggle and an opposing foe to be conquered, school could have been a place to learn the basics of being a citizen as well as a time to learn about myself and my abilities and talents.

It would have also been better for Donovan to be in a Happy Hearts/Summerhill kind of place. It seems that Donovan would be better served by a curriculum which allows him to develop whatever abilities he does have whether artistic, emotional, communication, etc. It seems ridiculous to force someone for nearly 20 years to work on linguistics, for example, when the individual does not possess the ability to produce the proclaimed desired end result. Issues of bodily safety and emotional health seem more important in Donovan’s case than achieving set milestones in English, Science and Math. Perhaps the ultimate, proper and reasonable curriculum goal for Donovan could have been to develop as fully as possible into a functional member of society. This goal could be broken down into independence and personal care, communication and social interaction, and some kind of expression of intelligence, such as music in Donovan’s case. Curriculum is the ordered set of requirements leading to an academic credential. It can take infinite forms and expressions. Unfortunately, widely used, standard educational curriculums may not be effective at all, and in fact, may be causing harm.