Politics of Curriculum: Origins, Controversies, and Significance of Critical Perspectives

I found the authors of this article to be very thorough in their discussion of how curriculum relates to politics. I also believe they were very even-handed in their criticism of the movement. The assertion I responded to most was related to curriculum as a means of reproduction and “selective tradition.” I teach AP Calculus and because my students are at the highest level in the school, I am familiar with the concept of “selective tradition” which refers “to the ways in which curriculum functions to privilege certain sets and orders of knowledge over others.” I feel that in my community certain students are set up to succeed and others are set up to fail. The least experienced teachers are assigned to the lowest level course with the most challenging students. The more experienced teachers are assigned higher level courses with higher achieving students. If the intention was for the challenged students to succeed, they would be taught by experienced teachers who have more skills to cope with the difficulties of teaching students who are less motivated to learn. The system as it is now is one focused on reproduction. Three out of four students is meeting standards and every year we hope to reproduce these results.
Another point that I found interesting was the discussion of hidden and overt curricula. Our school has courses at five different levels, Level 1 is Special Ed and Level 5 is Honors. We are in the process of reducing to four levels, in part because the parents of the students who belong at Level 2 are resisting the placement because they are opposed to the stigma they believe is attached to that level of courses. The hidden curriculum is that students learn to associate self-worth with course level. I strive very hard never to demean students for their mathematical ability, but rather acknowledge the areas where their strengths lie.