Etymological Meaning of Curriculum

A school day is full of activity. One period is maths, another is a science experiment, then a visit to the library, then a game on the playground. None of this happens at random. It follows a plan, and that plan is the curriculum. A curriculum is a broad plan of educational activities, and it directs the whole business of teaching and learning.

Before a teacher can teach any class or level, four questions need answers. The curriculum is where those answers are found:

• What should be taught?
• Why should it be taught?
• How should it be taught?
• How will we find out how much the students have learnt?

Think of a teacher of class 7 science. How deep to go in a lesson, whether to teach it through an experiment or through pictures, and how to check the learning at the end are not decided on a whim. The teacher looks at the curriculum. That is why understanding a curriculum means understanding its meaning, its definitions, its importance, its elements and how it is made. Curriculum, textbooks and curricular materials are closely linked, and the curriculum is the one to understand first.

The etymological meaning of a word is its meaning according to where the word came from. The Nepali Brihat Shabdakosh, the large Nepali dictionary, says the word for curriculum means the subjects prescribed for teaching together with the order in which they come, what is taught first and what follows. Multiplication, for example, makes sense only after addition, so addition comes first.

The English word curriculum comes from the Latin word currere, which means "to run". So in its original sense a curriculum is a running track, the course or ground on which a race is run.

Picture a school sports day. A runner does not run wherever they like. They stay inside a lane marked in lime, and the lane carries them to the finishing line. Education works the same way. It is a kind of race in which the student is the runner, the curriculum is the track, and the aims and objectives of education are the finishing line. By running along the track the curriculum lays down, students reach their aims and objectives.

The word curriculum can be understood in two ways, a narrow way and a broad way. In the narrow sense, a curriculum is the subject matter to be taught during one educational period, such as a school year. Put simply, it is the list of content taught to students in the classroom.

This is the older, customary way of understanding a curriculum. For that reason the narrow meaning is also called the traditional concept of curriculum.

A curriculum has four elements: objectives, content, teaching learning activities and evaluation. The narrow meaning keeps only one of the four, the content. Why to teach, how to teach and how to check learning are all left out. If someone asks for the curriculum of a class 10 subject and is handed a single sheet listing only the names of the units and lessons, that sheet is a curriculum in the narrow sense.

In the broad sense, a curriculum means every activity and every experience a student gains under the direction of the teacher or the school. Seen this way, a curriculum is a planned written document for the physical, mental, intellectual, social and emotional development of the student.

The broad meaning takes in every educational activity, inside the school and outside it, that is carried out to reach the objectives of education. On this view, the curriculum includes everything a student learns from:

• the classroom
• the library
• the laboratory
• the playground
• interaction with other people at school

Here is an example. A school takes its class 9 students to observe a nearby community forest. They learn to recognise kinds of trees, work together in groups and write a report when they get back. None of this happened in the classroom, but all of it happened under the school's direction. In the broad sense, that trip is part of the curriculum.

So every experience, every piece of knowledge and every skill a student gains, inside or outside the school, falls within the broad meaning of curriculum.

Placed next to each other, the two meanings are easy to tell apart:

People who study curriculum as a field are called curriculum experts. Different experts and official bodies have defined curriculum in different words. Here are four of those definitions.

When reading these definitions, notice the key phrase in each. The National Education System Plan calls a curriculum an educational programme. Crow and Crow speak of learning experiences inside and outside the school. Hilda Taba speaks of the school's whole effort and calls it a plan for learning. Tyler speaks of all the experiences directed by the school.

The words differ, but all four definitions point the same way. Not one of them calls a curriculum just a list of content. All of them talk about the objectives of education, about planning and about experience, and three of them include learning both inside and outside the school. The experts, in other words, lean towards the broad meaning of curriculum.

Looking closely at these definitions, a curriculum can be understood in three ways:

• a broad educational programme made to achieve the objectives of education, inside and outside the school
• the essence of all human knowledge and experience
• an action plan that supports a person's all-round development

A curriculum is the action plan that directs an educational programme. It helps decide what to teach, how much to teach and how to teach students at each level and in each class. It also helps assess how much students have actually achieved. For these reasons a curriculum is regarded as the backbone of all educational activity.

The importance of a curriculum is easiest to learn in four groups. The first group is about planning. A curriculum:

• helps set the national, level-wise and subject-wise objectives of education, so that educational plans can be built on them.
• helps teachers make and carry out suitable daily lesson plans that reach the general and specific objectives it sets.
• gives the basis for making and using the teaching materials each lesson plan needs.

The second group is about teaching methods. A curriculum:

• guides the choice and use of child-centred teaching methods and student-centred teaching learning activities.
• helps make students active by using many different teaching methods.

The third group is about assessment and correction. Teaching that gives extra help to students who have fallen behind is called remedial teaching. A curriculum:

• puts weight on constructive teaching, in line with the idea of continuous student assessment.
• helps prepare the ground for remedial teaching that raises the level of weaker students.
• can be used as the main reference for judging whether the objectives it sets have been achieved.
• helps point out weaknesses in the teaching learning process so that they can be put right.

The fourth group is about the teacher. A curriculum:

• helps the teacher teach according to the core purpose and spirit of the curriculum.
• helps the teacher evaluate their own work and improve the teaching learning process.

From planning a lesson to assessing its result, the curriculum is needed at every stage. It plays a key role in carrying out, successfully, all the educational activities done inside or outside the school.