A Curriculum For Education

1. The Idea of a Dual Curriculum

A school in India has a dual responsibility:
I.

To help the young do well in board exams and entrance tests.

For this, we need to identify the repeated question types (patterns) in the examinations and
tests over five to ten years, and provide intensive practice in producing what the examiners
judge as correct answers.

II.

To help the young become educated.

For this, we need a clear vision of (a) what would be of value to them in their future
personal, professional, and public lives; (b) what would help them grow into adults who lead
a fulfilling life; and (c) how to nurture in them the inclination and capability to contribute to
the wellbeing of humanity, other creatures, and the planet.

If we accept both I and II as the responsibility of school education, we need to develop a dual
curriculum, one oriented towards I, the other towards II. We will refer to a syllabus for A as the
coaching syllabus, and that for B as the education syllabus. Their place in the curriculum can be
diagrammed as follows:

Curriculum

2. A Multidimensional School-Final Core Syllabus: A Broad Outline

By around the age of sixteen, we expect children to have developed certain traits, at least to some
extent (depending on the individuals personality, strengths, talents, and inclinations). Here are
some such traits, tentatively grouped into three broad categories: (i) knowledge and
understanding; (ii) abilities and capacities; and (iii) attitudes, values, and habits of mind.

Understanding
A

A broad understanding of the ideas that constitute the so-called modern worldview (e.g.,
human rights; sustainability; Marxism; theory of gravity and motion; evolution, and so on)
in an integrated manner (e.g., integrating evolution in the physical, biological, and human
worlds, including the evolution of classical music and dance). (general knowledge)
An understanding of the relevant evidence and arguments for and against the ideas in A
above, and S (critical reading) and T (critical thinking) below. (critical understanding)

Knowledge and Abilities

C

A rudimentary familiarity with the knowledge and information relevant for the challenges of
practical life, and the ability to use appropriate strategies to accomplish ones goals (e.g.,
knowing what to look out for, and what questions to ask, in various situations: finding a
good doctor, or a good school for ones child, and so on). (pragmatic capacity)

Abilities and Capacities

D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K

The capacity to learn independently of teachers and classrooms.1, 2

The capacity to observe and interpret (listen to and read) the world within and around us,
and to connect/integrate all aspects of body, mind, and heart in our learning, including the
senses, instincts, and experience.
The ability to read and listen to, and understand written and spoken material meant for
educated non-specialists (e.g., newspaper articles; TED talks; videos at Beyond Belief:
http://thesciencenetwork.org/programgroup/beyond-belief ).
The capacity to articulate and communicate ideas through speech, writing, and visualdiagrammatic-symbolic means (models, diagrams...) with clarity, precision, and coherence.
The capacity to arrive at informed rational decisions and conclusions stemming from the
values in W below.
The capacity to engage in independent inquiry, both at the individual and collective levels.
The capacity to arrive at conclusions through careful reasoning.
The capacity to appreciate beauty (aesthetic sensibility) in a wide range of forms including
literature, painting, sculpture, film, theatre, music, dance, mime, and so on, across a range of
cultural traditions, through systematic exposure, and where feasible, through hand-on art
creation.
The capacity to appreciate the world of ideas, including the beauty of a mathematical proof,
the wonder and elegance combined with the uncertainties and heartaches of the process of
discovery (e.g., the journey from classical mechanics to quantum mechanics and relativity)

We use the words capacity, ability, and skill as follows:

CAPACITY: includes skills, abilities, knowledge & information (all of which interact closely), needed to
perform a complex task. Elements of a capacity are often transferable across domains. (e.g., the
capacity to contribute to the current pool of knowledge)
ABILITY: does not include knowledge & information; less complex than capacity; abilities, especially
abstract ones, are often transferable. (e.g., the ability to communicate ideas clearly and precisely)
SKILL: less complex, more specific, achievable through repeated guided practice. (e.g., the skill of highspeed multiplication)
In this scheme, from skills to capacities is a continuum, with no sharp boundaries.
An important consequence of accepting C is that everything that students should know need not be
crowded into the 10-year syllabus; much can be left for them to learn independently.

N
O

P
Q
R

The ability to perceive and contemplate on different values along the intellectual (e.g., value
of rationality), epistemic (e.g., value of truth), ethical (e.g., value of non-violence), aesthetic
(e.g., value of angashuddhi), pragmatic (e.g., value of physical health), and other
dimensions; to choose and practice personal and collective values to guide our lives.
The ability to work harmoniously in teams towards shared goals.
The capacity to work towards the vision of a better world (human and non-human) rooted in
respect, peace, equity, justice, eradication of suffering, and so on. This includes the capacity,
along with the necessary information, knowledge, and awareness, to actively engage with
public issues of the environment and of sustainability, and contribute to the wellbeing of
humanity and the earth through ones choice of way of living. (collective wellbeing)
The capacity to choose and pursue paths of higher learning, professional/vocational
training, and careers that resonate with ones inner being; and to overcome pressures to
conform to parental, societal, and peer expectations.
The capacity to attract, inspire, influence, and lead others to work together towards a shared
vision and goal in all domains of life.
The capacity to communicate ideas interestingly and persuasively.

Abilities and Mindset

S
T

The ability and the mindset to engage critically with what one reads/listens to, and decide
for oneself whether to accept, reject, or set aside for later review what the writer/speaker
claims. (critical reading) 3
The ability and the mindset to think critically, to examine the relevant considerations for
assessing the merit of knowledge claims, proposals for action, policies, products, and so on,
where merit includes truth, ethical goodness, usefulness, relevance, significance, and
beauty. This calls for the mindset of doubting and questioning oneself as well as others; the
ability to encourage and accept reasonable (and reasoned) objections. (critical thinking)
The capacity and the mindset to accept oneself; to work with others in a spirit of
cooperation, and also of healthy competition; and to find happiness (aananda / eudaimonia)
within oneself, without looking for it in the external world. (individual wellbeing)

Attitudes, Values, and Habits of Mind

V
W
X
Y
Z

A joy of learning, and curiosity.

The emotional mindset of ethics (empathy, compassion, consideration for other creatures,
) combined with a set of ethical values.
A deep sense of citizenry, dignity of labour, and issues of safety (ones own and others).
A commitment to gaining and maintaining physical and mental health (paying attention to
hygiene, participation in sports and so on), together with emotional balance (e.g., practice of
yoga), not only ones own but also of others (civic sense).
The spiritual bend of mind (regardless of theism and atheism) to explore the purpose and
meaning of life, beyond ones self.

A consequence of S is the commitment to developing the students abilities, and then giving them
freedom: the commitment to not tell them what to believe and what to do.

3. Guidelines for Making Choices

A curriculum has only finite time and resources available to it, so we have to select syllabus items
carefully, excluding those that are not essential, and finding the relative importance among the
included ones. Both these considerations would require paying attention to at least two factors.
How well do they lend themselves to the educating function?
Take the challenge of designing a syllabus for the education function along the intellectual dimension.
There is no reason why an educated adult should: be familiar with the workings of a dynamo; be able
to find the Lowest Common Denominator or Highest Common Factor; or remember the molecular
formula of common salt, the year of the first battle of Panipat, or the traditional definitions of noun and
verb. After ten years of schooling, most individuals, even those who have tertiary degrees in math,
physics, or engineering, dont ever need to solve quadratic equations or use calculus. So, unless there
are compelling reasons to include these in the syllabus for education, we should leave them out.

How much time and resources does each syllabus item require?

We have to address questions like: If we allocate ten hours to help students understand the evidence
and arguments for the statement that the earth revolves around the sun and spins on a tilted axis, what
should we remove from the syllabus to free up those ten hours?

A commitment to items A-Z in the previous section has far-reaching consequences for the choices
that we make in syllabus design. For instance:
Choice between (i) and (ii):
Guided by Choice
(i)
the structure of atoms;
item A
(i)
(ii) the structure of a motor
(i)
understanding of the evidence and arguments that have
a bearing on evolutionary theory;

(ii)
(i)
(ii)
(i)
(ii)

familiarity with the names of plant hormones and

the biological names of plants
the distinction between causal and correlational hypotheses;
series and parallel resisters
the ability to engage in different modes of reasoning;
the ability to calculate the trajectory of a cannon ball

item B

(i)

item I

(i)

item J

(i)

If we expect students to develop intellectual curiosity and joy of learning (V), and the capacity for
independent learning (D), then we should also expect them to continue learning on their own after
graduation. This means that we should adopt (1) as a general principle:
(1) For a specific concept or body of knowledge, if students can acquire it from documented
sources of knowledge after their schooling, then it should be left out of the syllabus, unless it
is a pre-requisite or is helpful for some other concept or body of knowledge required in the
syllabus independently.
Arising from all the considerations examined above, we can state the fundamental criteria for
inclusion of an item in the syllabus, and for allocation of time and resources, as follows:
(2) Every item we include in the syllabus should be defended on the basis of:
(i) its value for the learners subsequent life, or for collective wellbeing; or
(ii) its usefulness to some other item included in the syllabus.
(3)

The syllabus items resulting from the above process should be allocated time and
resources based on their importance along (1) and (2). This would mean allocating less
time for certain items, and leaving out others for independent learning after schooling.