Curriculum Development

Ramonito N. Abesar, LPT, MAEd-PES

 “The Sabre- Tooth Curriculum “
By: Harold Benjamin (1939)
• A man by the name of New-Fist-Hammer-Maker knew how to do things his
community needed to have done, and he had the energy and the 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….. New-Fist 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…

• New-Fist thought about how he could harness the children’s play to better
the life of the community. He considered what adults do for survival and
introduced these activities to children in a deliberate and formal way. These
included catching fish with the bare hands, clubbing little woolly horses, and
chasing away-sabre-toothed-tigers-with-fire plenty of foods, hides for attire and
protection from threat.” It is supposed that all would have gone well forever
with this good educational system, if conditions of life in that community
remained forever the same.” But conditions changed.
 “The Sabre- Tooth Curriculum “
By: Harold Benjamin (1939)
• The glacier began to melt and the community could no longer see
the fish to catch with the bare hands, and only the most agile and
clever fish remained which hid from the people. 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 arrived who would not be chased by fire. The
community was in trouble.

• 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
of traps on the path to snare the bears. Attempts to change
education system to include these new techniques however
encountered “stern opposition”.
• These are also 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, smile 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… and so on.

• “if you had any education yourself, 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 ragging torent”.
• The story was written in 1939. Curriculum then was seen as a
tradition of organized knowledge taught in schools of the 19th
century. Two centuries later, the concepts of a curriculum have
broadened to include several modes of thoughts or experiences.

• No formal, non-formal or informal education exists 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 secondary, Grade 7 to Grade 10, for the Junior High Grade 11
and 12 for the Senior High. 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 education and training taken care of the Technical Educational and
Skills Development Authority (TESDA). For the TEchVOc track in SHS of
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) which are under the
regulation of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).
Types of Learning Environment according to
Allan Glatthorn (2000) and Bilbao(2008).
1. Recommended Curriculum. Almost all curricula found in our
schools are recommended. For Basic Education, these are
recommended by the DepEd for Higher Education is CHED and
for vocational education by TESDA. These three government
agencies oversee and regulate Philippine Education. The
recommendations come in the form of memoranda or policies,
standards and guidelines. Other professional organizations or
international bodies like UNESCO also recommend curricula in
schools.
2. Written Curriculum. This includes documents based on the
recommended curriculum. They come in the form of course study,
syllabi, modules, books or instructional guides among others. A
packet of this written curriculum is the K to 12 for the Philippine
Basic Education.
3. Taught Curriculum. From what has been written or
planned, the curriculum has to be implemented or taught.
The teacher and the learners will put life to the written
curriculum. The skill of the teacher to facilitate learning
based on the written curriculum with the aid of
instructional materials and facilities will be necessary.
The taught curriculum will depend largely on the teaching
style of the teacher and the learning style of the learners.
. 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, PowerPoint, movies, slides ,
models, mock-ups. Supported curriculum also includes
facilities where learning occurs outside or inside the four-
walled building. These include the playground, science
laboratory, audio-visual rooms, zoo, museum market, and
plaza. These are the places where authentic learning through
direct experiences occurs.
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.
Assessment for learning – is to find progress of learning
Assessment as learning or assessment of learning – to find out how
much has been learned or master.
6. Learned Curriculum – The positive
outcome of teaching is an indicator of
learning. These are measured by tools in
assessment, which can be 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 behavior of the learner. Peer
influence, school environment, media, parental pressures, societal
changes, cultural practices, natural calamities are some factors that
creates the hidden curriculum. Teachers should be sensitive and aware of
this hidden curriculum. Teachers must have good foresight to include
these written curriculums, in order to bring to the surface what is hidden.
Teacher may or may not be able to predict its influence on learning.

In every teacher’s classroom, not all these curriculum may be present at

one time. Many of them deliberately planned.