I am having an exchange this afternoon with Robert Pondiscio and other friends on Twitter and Facebook over how heinous is the crime of confusing curriculum standards with the taught curriculum.
https://twitter.com/rpondiscio/status/249850098467602432
https://twitter.com/shermandorn/status/249862580808609792
https://twitter.com/rpondiscio/status/249868448384053248
https://twitter.com/shermandorn/status/249868786730164224
(Ouch! Standards are…)
https://twitter.com/dr_ddennis/status/249869994270289921
https://twitter.com/rpondiscio/status/249870649881931776
In the term as Pondiscio is using it, standards can be a framework for the formal curriculum or taught curriculum. I think that confusing the different concepts is a relatively minor sin, since there are multiple common meanings of the word curriculum which span different levels of formality and the range between the best-laid plans and reality. I sympathize with him for many reasons; among others, Lynne Cheney deliberately blurred the distinction in the early 1990s in lying about the national history standards project. But I don’t think he, I, or anyone else can win an emotionally charged argument about who controls curriculum by criticizing someone’s word choice.
You can probably gauge an individual’s education policy buttons by seeing which of the following pairs of commonly-swapped terms is a pet peeve or close to it:
- Standards vs. curriculum
- Not meeting adequate yearly progress vs. failing school
- Value-added measure vs. teacher evaluation
- Student achievement vs. intelligence
- Impact vs. influence ((This is the confusion most likely to irritate me.))
- Methodology vs. methods
- Educational policy vs. education policy
One could go on for a few more pages like this. We all probably should get a life about what we see as terms of art, because what you may see as a technical term with a specific definition, your neighbor sees as just a word.
Maybe the historical perspective can bring this into focus.
Starting in the 1870s, and into 1900, the credit hour system was implemented at the high school and college level. There are many reasons for this, including the efficiency/standardization craze, elective option (Eliot), and the explosion of high schools across the nation; the push for reform gained momentum.
The resulting organizational reforms (i.e., bureaucratization) re-constructed education value in ways that would be communicated and monitored — the birth of the credit-hour. That this occurred at both levels is a testament, I think, to the power of the overarching changes. Curriculum and credits are inseparable from this point on — context is meaning, right?