DB3 Topic:Having researched educational philosophies and considered the curricular process, explain the factor that you consider to be the most important in deciding on good curriculum. Once you have explained that factor, discuss a curricular decision factor that you believe carries more weight in the final decision, and why this would be so.
For me, the most important factor is a general Biblical consideration of the curriculum. Proverbs 22:6 tells us to “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (King James Version). This is, of course, an idealist philosophy. A reflection upon Plato’s allegory of the cave seems appropriate (Knight, 2006, p. 45). This is particularly true is we recognize that the cave is the earthly world, and our real home, heaven, is beyond the darkness.
The world where we live, however, is more realistic than idealistic. Unfortunately, the driving factor in the business of United States Education is money. At a capitalist society, money and its acquisition is the driving factor behind the ins and outs of business. Whether we like it or not, money is a necessity. Money, in and of itself, is nothing. In First Timothy 6:10, we are cautioned, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (King James Version). Unfortunately, education is a business. Hoar (2015) suggests, “Some dare call this bribery, with our own money, with states being coerced to adopt federal standards or risk losing the billions of dollars of bait” (p. 41).
“The escalating cost of higher education has been a vexing subject of national concern for several decades” (Kimball, 2014, p. 886). Any place on the Internet will quote Eliot’s strategy for free money as “In the competition between American universities, and between American and foreign universities,those universities will inevitably win which have the largest amounts of free money.” The same ethic is unfortunately applied to public schools – the school with the most money wins.
The idealist sees truth as beyond themselves. Someone once told me that “most people have a need to believe in something bigger than themselves” and I must concur. The problem lies in the grounding of reality that is, unfortunately dollars and cents. My query is “In education, do the dollars make sense?” I have no conclusive answer to the question, but can only remind us all, as Casey Kasem used to say, “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!”
References
Hoar, W. (2015). Nationalizing school standards through ObamaCore. New American (08856540), 31(3), 41.
Kimball, B. A. (2014). The rising cost of higher education: Charles Eliot's "Free money" strategy and the beginning of Howard Bowen's "Revenue theory of cost," 1869-1979. Journal Of Higher Education, 85(6), 886-912.
Knight, G. (2006).Philosophy and education: An introduction in Christian perspective(4th ed.). Berrien Springs, Michigan: Andrews University Press.