CONTEXTS FOR LANGUAGE CURRICULUM
By : Mumu Muzayyin Maq, M.Pd.
In everyday language some of the basic term used to discuss the purpose and content of education are used loosely. Terms like “education” and “training” are used interchangeably. “Purpose” is usually defined as “an intended or desired result,” and terms “goal” and “objective” are often considered to be synonyms. However when we use these terms in curriculum discourse, we need to be more precise.
First we consider the distinction between training and education as context for curriculum.
Although used interchangeably, the two terms “training” and “education” refer to fundamentally different contexts. Training refers t context in which can predict with some confidence the spesific situation in which people will use what tey learn. For example, if we want to prepare students to be automotive mechanics, and we know precisely the kinds of tasks automotive mechanics need to perform, we can develop curricula to train students for these tasks. In this context, targeting the curriculum directly at the tasks the graduates will perform is the most efficient approach to job preparation.
Education, on the other hand, refers to contexts in which we cannot predict with any spesificity or certainty the situation in which people will use what they learn. For example, if we assume that social studies is intended to prepare students for their civic responsibilities, but that we do not know precisely how they will use their social studies knowledge, we must develop curricula that educate these students broadly. Some educators believe that building curricula around fundamental principles and contexts-a “content” approach-serves tke purpose. Other believes that teaching students how to solve the problems, formulate problems, and locate resources-a”process” approach-is the preferred approach to preparing students for changing times. Regardless og the approach used, the assumption when formulating curricula for educational contexts is that most of the situation for which we prepare students are unpredictable.Broudy’s analysis of the uses to a similar distinction. He argues that if we were consider kowledge useful only to the extent that we use in the same way that we learn it., then much of the knowledge we acquire in school would be useless. Knowledge of literature, the fine arts, music, and history among others, is used “associatively” and interpretively” (Broud, Smith, Burnett, 1964) in the sense that they supply images and conceptual frameworks that enrich experience and help us to find meaning in it. It is this sense of their utility that makes them appropriate for educational, rather than training, contexts. Vocational skills, arithmetic computation, and typing, on the other hand, are among the forms of knowledge used “respectively” and applicatively”. When students use the knowledge gained from these experiences, they use it in a form and context closely resembling the situation in which they learned it. This similarity between learning and use is what makes it appropriate to say that the teaching of these subjects and topics takes place in training contexts rather than educational context.
AIMS, GOALS, AND OBJECTIVES
Society Goal
The school is one of yhe society’s most significant institution and is, therefore, expected to contribute to the accomplishment of goals in society’s of a country ( increasing society’s competitive adge, fostering world peace, decreasing unemployment, reducing crime, and protecting the environment, etc). for example, school might attempt to help decrease unemployment by offering vocational education programs.
Administrative Goal
School and colleges are organizations, and such, are concerned not just with the education of their students, but also the maintenance and improvement of the organization ( hiring more minority teachers, lightening the school year, adding a new science laboratory, and repairing the high school’s roof ).
In cotrast with societal and administrative goal, which, strictly speaking, are not educational goals. Educational aims are more remote from events of teaching and learning than educational goals, which, in turn, are more remote than curriculum objectives. The more remote an intended consequence is, the more general and lengthy the term it tends to be. As a result, the consequence that educational aims describe tend to be produced by a wider range of experiences than those described curriculum. Although the more remote consequence tend to be more difficult to evaluate, they also tend to be more profound (Zais, 1976, pp.305-306)
Educational Aim
The stated aims of education “describe expected life outcomes based on some value schema either consciously or unconsciously chosen”.for example, the aim of developing a respect for people of different cultural diversity. Four related categories of educational aims are conventionally cited, although the particular emphasis depens upon the value schema of he writer :
1. Personal development includes “self-cultivation”or “self actualization” and personal living.
2. Socialization includes citizenship and interpesonal relations.
3. Economic productivity includes both vocational and consumer aspect.
4. further learning includes command of basic skills and oher requirements for continuous and independent learning.
All four categories include both educational and training dimentions. As societal values have changed throughout history, the intenden purpose of an education has followed suit. In ancient Greece, the Spartans, proud of their athletic prowess, fighting skills, and sense of civic responsibility, based their educational systemon these ams.
As the progressive movement continued, this utilitarian view of educations was elaborated, as evidenced by he many commission report published during he first half of the twentieth century. Compare these comprehensive listings of aims with the narrow view proposed at a White House Conference in 1961 as the central purpose of education, namely,the cultivation of the ability to think. The school were identified as one of the primary tools for regaining superiority, and this task was seen as achievable only if the schools focused on the development of the main.
Educational Goal
This educational goals are escrbed in terms of the caracteristics that are supposed to result from learning over the years and across the subject matters of schooling. For example, a school or college may expect that its graduates develop the following characteristicts as a result of its educational program :
1. facility in using the English language
2. Familiarity with another language
3. proficiency in solving problems and thinking criticaly
4. Sense of self-respect and insight into own uniqueness, including interests and capabilities
5. Habits conducive to good health, physical fitness, and personal safety
6. capasity for creative expression and easthetic judhement
7. self-discipline
of course this list is not exhaustive and leaves out many important goals,such as ablity to use mechanical tools and apparatus, family living skills,and job-entry skills and work habits, to name just afew others.
Learning Objective
Learning objective are the intended educational consequences of particular courses or units of study. A statement of an intention that someone learn something may be called an “intended learning outcome” (Johnson, 1967:Goodlad & Ritcher,1966) or a “learning objective”. Just remember that whenever and however we are able to express what we want students to learn, Just as our overview of the history of educational aims showed us that changes in educational aims reflect changes in social values, history also show that’s change in educational aims reflect change in educational goals and learning objectives. Since categories of learning objectives reflect the way one conceptualizes such notions as knowledge and learning, the range of learning objectives is as wide as the range of conceptions of knowledge and learning.
