Designing a curriculum for a new school is a challenging and rewarding undertaking. The first step is to determine the school’s educational philosophy and mission. Is the mission math and science focused or humanities focused? Is it to create an engaging learning environment focused on project-based and inquiry-based learning? Perhaps the mission is to educate students with special needs. There are many wonderful missions. The critical part is to have a well-developed mission based on an educational philosophy about teaching and learning. The school’s mission and philosophy will drive curriculum development.
In the vast majority of cases, schools can adopt an existing curriculum and modify it to meet the needs and mission of the school. The critical part of the process is that of adapting the selected curriculum to the school’s mission and student population. No published curriculum can take into account the diverse missions of schools and needs of students, regardless of the quality of the curriculum. However, a high quality published curriculum can certainly provide the majority of the building blocks for a school’s curriculum.
One of the most critical aspects of designing and developing curricula is the involvement of teachers. First, teachers are the professionals. Assuming the school has chosen excellent teachers, they should be deeply involved in curriculum development before the school opens and during their tenure at the school. After all, teachers are the ones that will be teaching the curriculum. They need to understand it, own it and believe that it is serving their students well. The best and probably only way for a faculty to truly understand, own and believe in the value of the curriculum they are expected to teach is to engage them as a group in initial and continuous curriculum development.
Teaching a curriculum is a group effort, or at least it should be. If faculty members are developing curricula and teaching their own disciplines in isolation from their colleagues, the school is on the wrong track and doing its students a major disservice. To develop a curricula for a new school, it is essential to gather the faculty together for a week or two – preferably longer – prior to the opening of school to analyze and develop the curriculum, assuming one has been chosen already. During this process, teachers need to work together in grade level teams and discipline area teams to identify ways in which to connect teaching and learning across disciplines, and ensure continuity from grade to grade.
The curriculum development work done prior to the opening of school is just the beginning. It is critical for teachers to have ample time to meet together throughout the year to continue to evaluate and improve the curriculum. In addition, teachers need to use their time together to figure out how to collaborate with each other across disciplines. Connecting what students are learning in literature with science or in math with art, etc. can make a world of difference for learners.