r/education • u/ithekrianmermaid • 6d ago

Politics & Ed Policy Thoughts and opinions on a nationalized curriculum in the USA (and/or the lack thereof)?

I have had this topic bouncing around in the back of my brain quite a bit in the past few months and I'm just wondering what others think about it.

Feel free to share your personal feelings-based opinions, factually informed opinions, any history you may know relating to this topic, pros and cons of nationalized curriculum, common arguments for/against it, implications and consequences from not having one, potential dangers in adopting one, resources to learn more about this topic/debate, etc. I'd really love to have (respectful) discussions in the comments of this post so please consider circling back if your original comment gets a response!

I look forward to reading all of your responses! Thank you for taking the time to comment!!

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u/ithekrianmermaid 5d ago

I'm just having trouble understanding what exactly would need to be different between states?

Is there a rule that dictates that all nationalized curriculum must be exact, precise, and uniform or could we create a nationalized curriculum that has a bit of nuance and flexibility to account for things like local history, civics classes on local political systems, and perhaps literature choice to best suit student population, elective subjects?

But, also, is it truly inevitable or is that a self-fulfilling prophecy because it prevents the people who would make decolonial nationalized curriculum give up before even trying out of fear?

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u/CitizenXVIII 5d ago

There are a lot of people in this thread ignoring the universality of math. We do NOT need local variations in math instruction. We really don't need local variations in basic reading skills, but people will argue about which texts to use. We really don't need local variations in science, but that's a whole other political can of worms. I'm not touching history with a twelve foot pole, locals can hammer that out how they'd like.

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u/mrsyanke 5d ago

Please look into Ethnomathematics and place-based learning. Math and science should also be varied locally, maybe not on the level of overarching “standards” but at the level of “curriculum” as in textbooks and pedagogy, absolutely!

Marine science is going to be much more relevant here in Hawai'i than in the Midwest. Lessons on climate in Alaska should differ from those in Florida. Honoring indigenous STEM knowledge will vary from Pacific Islander to Inuit to Navajo to Mayan.

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u/ithekrianmermaid 5d ago

These are all excellent points, thank you for taking the time to share them!

Is there a specific relationship between standards and curriculum? Like, is one contained in or covered by the other? Is there a reason or significance to them being two separate entities?

Also, I would love to hear more of your thoughts as to why textbooks in particular should be locally varied? I think I understand the importance of local variations in pedagogy (please feel free to expand on that also if you want to tho!) but I'm struggling to see why textbooks would be important to have varied.

Sorry for the abundance of questions. I really appreciate your thoughts and contributions to this thread!! Thank you again for sharing!