Republic of the Philippines

NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY

NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

BEED II-A and II-B Prof. Kristine D. Yu, MAT-ELL

1st Semester – AY: 2023-2024 Assistant Professor 4

Module 1, Lessons 1 and 2

The Teacher and the School Curriculum
(Two Weeks/ 6 Hours)

Introduction
Module 1 is all about school curricula and the teacher. This introductory module
is composed of two lessons that identifies the different types of curricula that exist in the
teacher’s classroom and school. Specifically, lesson 1 discusses the curricula in school
while lesson 2 is all about the teacher as a curricularist.

Learning Outcomes
1. Understand the different curricula that exist in schools.
2. Analyze the significance of curriculum and curriculum development in the
teacher’s classroom.
3. Conduct a mini survey among teachers to understand the role of the teacher as a
curricularist in the classroom and school.

Discussion
LESSON 1: THE CURRICULA IN SCHOOL

Have you read The Saber-Tooth Curriculum by Harold Benjamin? Take some
time to read it and find out what curriculum is all about during that time.

Start here and enjoy reading.

A man by the name of New‐Fist‐Hammer‐Maker was a doer, inspite of the fact

that there was little in his environment with which to do anything very complex. You
have undoubtedly heard of the pear-shaped, chipped‐stone tool which archaeologists

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 Republic of the Philippines
NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY
NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

call the coup‐de‐point or fist hammer. New‐

Fist gained his name and a considerable
local prestige by producing one of these
artefacts in a less rough and more useful
form than any previously known to his tribe.
His hunting clubs were generally superior
weapons and his fire‐using techniques were
patterns of simplicity and precision. He knew
how to do things his community needed to
have done, and he had the energy and will
to go ahead and do them.
By virtue of these characteristics, he was an educated man. New‐Fist was also a
thinker. Then, as now, there were few lengths to which men would not go to avoid the
labor and pain of thought….He finally got to the point where he became strongly
dissatisfied with the accustomed ways of his tribe. He began to catch glimpses of ways
in which life might be made better for himself, his family, and his group. By virtue of this
development, he became a dangerous man….
By watching his children play, New-Fist thought about how he could harness their
play to better the life of the community. He considered what adults do for survival and
introduced these to children in a deliberate and formal way. Thus, New ‐Fist discovered
the first subject of the first curriculum – fish grabbing -with‐the‐bare‐hands. Woolly‐
horse‐clubbing was seen to be the second main subject in the curriculum. Finally,
driving away the saber‐tooth tigers with fire was discovered the third subject.
Having developed a curriculum,
New‐Fist took his children with him as he
went about his activities. He gave them
an opportunity to practice these three
subjects. The children liked to learn. It
was more fun for them to engage in
these purposeful activities than to play
with colored stones just for the fun of it.
They learned the new activities well, and
so the educational system was a
success. As New‐Fist’s children grew
older, it was plain to see that they had an

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 Republic of the Philippines
NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY
NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

advantage in good and safe living over other children who had never been educated
systematically.
Some of the more intelligent members of the tribe began to do as New ‐Fist had
done, and the teaching of fish‐grabbing, horse‐clubbing and tiger scaring came more
and more to be accepted as the heart of real education.
For a long time, however, there were certain more conservative members of the
tribe who resisted the new, formal education system on religious grounds. It is to be
supposed that all would have gone well forever with this good educational system if
conditions of life in that community had remained forever the same. However,
conditions changed, and life which had once been so safe and happy in the cave‐realm
valley became unsecure and disturbing.
A new ice age was approaching
in that part of the world. A great glacier
came down from the neighbouring
mountain range to the north. Year after
year it crept closer and closer to the
head waters of the creek which ran
through the tribe’s valley, until at length
it reached the stream and began to
melt into the water. Dirt and gravel
which the glacier had collected on its
long journey were dropped into the
creek. The water grew muddy. What
had once been a crystal‐clear stream in
which one could see easily to the bottom was now a milky stream into which one could
not see at all. At once, the life of the community was changed in one very important
aspect.
It was no longer possible to catch fish with the bare hands. The fish could not be
seen in the muddy water. For some years, the fish in this creek had been getting more
timid, agile, and intelligent. The stupid, clumsy, brave fish, of which originally there had
been a great many, had been caught with the bare hands for fish generation after fish
generation, until only fish of superior intelligence and agility were left. These smart fish,
hiding in the muddy water under the newly deposited glacial boulders, eluded the hands
of the most expertly trained fish-grabbers.

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 Republic of the Philippines
NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY
NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

Those tribesmen who had studied advanced fish ‐grabbing in the secondary
school could do no better than their less well‐educated fellows who had taken only an
elementary course in the subject, and even the university graduates with majors in
ichthyology were baffled by the problem. No matter how good a man’s fish ‐grabbing
education had been, he could not grab fish when he could not find fish to grab.
The woolly horses were ambitious and decided to leave the region. The tigers got
pneumonia and most died. The few remaining tigers left. In their place fierce bears, who
would not be chased by fire, arrived. The community was now in a very difficult
situation. There was no fish or meat for food, no hides for clothing, and no security from
the hairy death that walked the trails day and night. Adjustment to this difficulty had to
be made at once if the tribe was not to become extinct.
One day in desperation, someone made a net from willow twigs and found a new
way to catch fish- and the supply was even more plentiful than before. The community
also devised a system traps on the path to snare the bears. Attempts to change
education system to include these new techniques however encountered “stern
opposition.”
These new activities we need to know: “Why can’t the schools teach them?” But
most of the tribe particularly the wise old men who controlled the school, smiled
indulgently at this suggestion. “That wouldn’t be education… it would be mere training”.
“We don’t teach fish‐grabbing to catch fish; we teach it to develop a generalized agility
which can never be duplicated by mere training. We do not teach horse ‐clubbing to club
horses; we teach it to develop a generalized strength in the learner which he can never
get from so prosaic and specialized a thing as antelope‐snaring. We don’t teach tiger‐
scaring to scare tigers; we teach it for the purpose of giving that noble courage which
carries over into all the affairs of life and which can never come from an activity as bear ‐
killing.”
“If you had any education yourself,” they said severely, “you would know that the
essence of true education is timelessness. It is something that endures through
changing conditions like a solid rock standing squarely and firmly in the middle of a
raging torrent. You must know that there are some eternal verities, and the saber ‐tooth
curriculum is one of them!”
The story was written in 1939. Curriculum then was seen as a tradition of
organized knowledge taught in schools of the 19 th century. Two centuries later, the
concept of a curriculum has broadened to include several modes of thoughts or
experience.

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 Republic of the Philippines
NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY
NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

Formal, non-formal or informal education do not exist without a curriculum.

Classrooms will be empty with no curriculum. Teachers will have nothing to do, if there
is no curriculum. Curriculum is at the heart of the teaching profession. Every teacher is
guided by some sort of curriculum in the classroom and in schools.
In our current Philippine educational system, different schools are established in
different educational levels, which have corresponding recommended curricula. The
educational levels are:
1. Basic Education. This level includes Kindergarten, Grade 1 to Grade 6 for
elementary; and for secondary, Grade 7 to Grade 10 for Junior High School, and
Grade 11 and 12 for Senior High School. Each of the levels has its specific
recommended curriculum. The new basic education levels are provided in the K
to 12 Enhanced Curriculum of 2013 of the Department of Education.

2. Technical Vocational Education. This is post-secondary technical vocational

educational and training taken care of Technical Education and Skills
Development Authority (TESDA). For the TechVoc track in SHS of DepEd,
DepEd and TESDA work in close coordination.

3. Higher Education. This includes the Baccalaureate or Bachelor Degrees and the
Graduate Degrees (Master’s and Doctorate) under the regulation of the
Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

Types of Curricula Simultaneously Operating in the Schools:

The following are the types of curricula that exist in every classroom in whatever
level of education as classified by Allan Glatthorn (2000).

1. Recommended Curriculum
Perhaps you have asked these questions: Why should I take all these subjects
and follow the course flow religiously? Why is there a need to implement the K to 12?
The answer is simple! The Ministry of Education, the Commission on Higher Education,
or any professional organization can recommend and implement a curriculum.
In the Philippines, the curriculum being implemented by the Department of
Education (DepEd) for Basic Education or the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd)
for Higher Education, and TESDA for Technical Vocational Education are examples of

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 Republic of the Philippines
NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY
NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

recommended curriculum. In some cases, a law-making body like the congress and the
senate, or a university or a school can recommend a subject, a course, or any academic
program deemed necessary for national identity and security, for environmental
protection and sustainable development, among others. The recommendations come in
the form of memoranda or policies, standards, and guidelines. Other professional
organizations or international bodies like UNESCO also recommends curricula in
schools.

2. Written Curriculum
The written curriculum refers to a lesson plan or syllabus written by teachers.
Another example is the one written by curriculum experts with the help of subject
teachers. This kind of written curriculum needs to be pilot tested or tried out in sample
schools to determine its effectiveness.

3. Taught Curriculum
This is about the implementation of the written curriculum. Whatever is being
taught or an activity being done in the classroom is a taught curriculum. So, when
teachers give a lecture, initiate group work, or ask students to do a laboratory
experiment with their guidance, the taught curriculum is demonstrated. This curriculum
contains different teaching styles and learning styles to address the students’ needs and
interests.

4. Supported Curriculum
This is described as support materials that the teacher needs to make learning
and teaching meaningful. These include print materials like books, charts, posters,
worksheets, or non-print materials like Power Point presentation, movies, slides,
models, mock-up and other electronic illustrations. Supported curriculum also includes
facilitates where learning occurs outside or inside the four-walled building. These
include the playground, science laboratory, audio-visual rooms, zoo, museums, market
or the plaza. These are the places where authentic learning through direct experiences
occur.

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 Republic of the Philippines
NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY
NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

5. Assessed Curriculum
Taught and supported curricula have to be evaluated to find out if the teacher
has succeeded or not in facilitating learning. In the process of teaching and at the end of
every lesson or teaching episode, an assessment is made. It can either be assessment
for learning, assessment as learning or assessment of learning. If the process is to find
the progress of learning, then the assessed curriculum is for learning, but if it is to find
out how much has been learned or mastered, then it is assessment of learning. Either
way, such curriculum is the assessed curriculum.
Taking an exam is part of assessed curriculum. When students take a quiz or the
mid-term and final exams, these evaluations are the so-called assessed curriculum.
Teachers may use the pencil and paper tests and authentic assessments like portfolio
and performance-based assessments to know if the students are progressing or not.

6. Learned Curriculum
How do we know if the student has learned? We always believe that if the
student changed behaviour, he/she has learned. For example, from a non-reader to a
reader or from not knowing to knowing or from being disobedient to obedient. The
positive outcome of teaching is an indicator of learning. These are measured by tools in
assessment, which can indicate the cognitive, affective and psychomotor outcomes.
Learned curriculum will also demonstrate higher order and critical thinking and lifelong
skills.

7. Hidden/ Implicit Curriculum

This curriculum is not deliberately planned, but has a great impact on the
behaviour of the learner. Peer influence, school environment, media, parental
pressures, societal changes, cultural practices, natural calamities, are some factors that
create the hidden curriculum. Teachers should be sensitive and aware of this hidden
curriculum. Teachers must have good foresight to include these in the written
curriculum, in order to bring to the surface what are hidden.
In every teacher’s classroom, not all these curricula may be present at one time.
Many of them are deliberately planned, like the recommended, written, taught,
supported, assessed, and learned curricula. However, a hidden curriculum is implied,
and a teacher may or may not be able to predict its influence on learning. All of these
have significant role on the life of the teacher as a facilitator of learning and have direct
implication to the life of the learners.

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 Republic of the Philippines
NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY
NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

LESSON 2: THE TEACHER AS A CURRICULARIST

What specific roles do teachers play as a curricularist? Should they do these
roles? This lesson will bring you to an understanding of the multifaceted roles of the
teacher which relate to the curriculum.
Look at the words below. Read each one of them. Which one describes the
teacher as a curricularist?

Facilitating
Exciting Planning Frustrating
Knowing

Growing Evaluating
Growing
Initiating Innovating

Broadening Building Rewarding Believing

Recommending Showing Copying

Is the teacher’s role in school very complex? Teachers do a series of interrelated

actions about curriculum, instruction, assessment, evaluation, teaching and learning. A
classroom teacher is involved with curriculum continuously all day. But very seldom has
a teacher been described as curricularist.
Curricularist in the past, are referred only to those who developed curriculum
theories. According to the study conducted by Sandra Hayes (1991), the most influential
curricularist in America includes John Dewey, Ralph Tyler, Hilda Taba and Franklin
Bobbit. You will learn more of them in the later part of the module.

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 Republic of the Philippines
NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY
NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

The word curricularist will be used in this lesson to describe a professional who
is a curriculum specialist (Hayes, 1991; Ornstein & Hunkins, 2004; Hewitt, 2006). A
person who is involved in curriculum knowing, writing, planning, implementing,
evaluating, innovating, and initiating may be designated as curricularist. A
TEACHER’S role is broader and inclusive of other functions and so, a teacher is a
curricularist.
What does a TEACHER do to deserve the label curricularist? Let us look at the
different roles of the teacher in the classroom and in the school. The classroom is the
first place of curricular engagement. The first school experience sets the tone to
understand the meaning of schooling through the interaction of learners and teachers
that will lead to learning. Hence, curriculum is at the heart of schooling.
Let us describe the teacher as a curricularist.
The teacher as a curricularist . . . .
1. Knows the curriculum. Learning begins with knowing. The teacher as a learner
starts with knowing about the curriculum, the subject matter or the content. As a
teacher, one has to master what are included in the curriculum. It is acquiring
academic knowledge both formal (disciplines, logic) or informal (derived from
experiences, vicarious, and unintended). It is the mastery of the subject matter.
(KNOWER)

2. Writes the curriculum. A classroom teacher takes record of knowledge concepts,

subject matter or content. These need to be written or preserved. The teacher
writes books, modules, laboratory manuals, instructional guides, and reference
materials in paper or electronic media as a curriculum writer or reviewer.
(WRITER)

3. Plans the curriculum. A good curriculum has to be planned. It is the role of the
teacher to make a yearly, monthly or daily plan of the curriculum. This will serve
as a guide in the implementation of the curriculum. The teacher takes into
consideration several factors in planning a curriculum. These factors include the
learners, the support material, time, subject matter or content, the desired
outcomes, the context of the learners among others. By doing this, the teacher
becomes a curriculum planner. (PLANNER)

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 Republic of the Philippines
NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY
NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

4. Initiates the curriculum. In cases where the curriculum is recommended to the

schools from DEPED, CHED, TESDA, UNESCO, UNICEF or other educational
agencies for improvement of quality, the teacher is obliged to implement it.
Implementation of a new curriculum requires the open mindedness of the
teacher, and the full belief that the curriculum will enhance learning. There will be
many constraints and difficulties in doing or leading things at first, however, a
transformative teacher will never hesitate to try something novel and relevant.
(INITIATOR)

5. Innovates the curriculum. Creativity and innovation are hallmarks of an excellent

teacher. A curriculum is always dynamic, hence, it keeps on changing. From the
content, strategies, ways of doing, blocks of time, ways of evaluating, kinds of
students and skills of teachers, one cannot find a single eternal curriculum that
would perpetually fit. A good teacher, therefore, innovates the curriculum and
thus, becomes a curriculum innovator. (INNOVATOR)

6. Implements the curriculum. The curriculum that remains recommended or written

will never serve its purpose. Somebody has to implement it. As mentioned
previously, at the heart of schooling is the curriculum. It is this role where the
teacher becomes the curriculum implementer. An implementer gives life to the
curriculum plan. The teacher is at the height of an engagement with the learners,
with support materials in order to achieve the desired outcome. It is where
teaching, guiding, facilitating skills of the teacher are expected to the highest
level. It is here where teaching as a science and as an art will be observed. It is
here, where all the elements of the curriculum will come into play. The success of
a recommended, well written and planned curriculum depends on the
implementation. (IMPLEMENTOR)

7. Evaluates the curriculum. How can one determine if the desired learning
outcomes have been achieved? Is the curriculum working? Does it bring the
desired results? What do outcomes reveal? Are the learners achieving? Are
there some practices that should be modified? Should the curriculum be
modified, terminated or continued? These are some few questions that need the
help of a curriculum evaluator. That person is the teacher. (EVALUATOR)

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 Republic of the Philippines
NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY
NISU Concepcion Campus
D. B. Oñate Street, Poblacion, Concepcion, Iloilo
[email protected]
Reg. No. 97Q19783

PED 109: The Teacher & The School Curriculum

The seven different roles are those which a responsible teacher does in the
classroom every day! Doing the multi-faceted work qualifies a teacher to be a
curricularist.

To be a teacher is to be a curricularist even if a teacher may not equal the likes of

John Dewey, Ralph Tyler, Hilda Taba, or Franklin Bobbit. As a curricularist, a teacher
will be knowing, writing, implementing, innovating, initiating, and evaluating the
curriculum in the school and classrooms just like the role models and advocates in
curriculum and curriculum development who have shown the way.

Summary
This module clearly discussed the school curricula and the important role of the
teacher as a curricularist who engages in the different facets of curriculum development
in any educational level.

References
Bilbao, Purita P., Filomena T. Dayagbil, and Brenda B. Corpuz (2020). The Teacher and
the School Curriculum. Lorimar Publishing Inc., Cubao, Quezon City, Metro Manila.
https://ideasourceschool.wordpress.com/the-saber‐tooth-curriculum/ Date Retrieved
April 13, 2021.
https://simplyeducate.me 2015/01/07/types-of-curriculum/ Date Retrieved April 13,
2021.

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