Students First

We need to design curriculum from the ground up. The ground being our students.

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One of the biggest failures of coursebooks and curriculum as usually designed is its lack of student-centeredness.

It’s one size fits all and doesn’t allow for needs assessment and in particular isn’t localized to the context, place, world of the students.

Of course, the curriculum is designed such because it’s rather difficult to start design from the ground up. It’s more practical, more time efficient, to just design the curriculum “evergreen” and impose it on students “as is”.

I’m against this but I do realize the constraints under which many teachers teach. However, teachers can do a lot with supplements to the official curriculum that addresses and focus lessons back directly on the lives of their students, “in situ”, in place.

Here is just one example. Get students writing about, listing their favorite businesses in town. Best hairdresser. Best pizzeria. Best place to buy shoes. Then compare, debate, and argue!

But start there - with the students’ lives first.