THE CHILD CENTERED CURRICULUM

The child centered curriculum is an educational design that belief that the child is the crucial source of all curriculum. During planning the curriculum should be developed in such a way that the childrens qualities dominate the curriculum. The child centre curriculum was view from several distinct perspectives in relation to the qualities ascribed among of which are the following: (a) (b) (c) (d) Jean Jacques Rousseauan perspective. The existentialist perspective The child-in-society perspective The psychological curriculum perspective.

(a) Under Rousseauian perspective of childhood, innate goodness is ascribed to the child as such protected for the vice and errors of adults. Jacques Rousseau proposed in 1762 that its the meddling of adults that undermines the goodness God has given children. Between age 5 to 12, sensory and concrete experiences should dominate the learning and after the age of 12, they could be introduced to abstract learning, only when children are nearing adulthood should adults other than the parents be allowed a truly active role in their education. (b) The existentialist perspective: Its origin lie in existentialism at birth, all that can be said is that we exist. All children at birth represent the perfection of God and may not be different from each other. The arts, drama and musical vehicles of self expression and development along with sensitivity training are likely components of child-centered curriculum of the existential variety. Subjective and Objective knowledge are considered important for an individual and self definition because every individual is a unique entity. For Neil 1921, the aim of life is to find happiness and education should be or life preparation purpose. Children must not allow the society to dominate them but rather be self developed to get along in the world. Education must be emotionally and artistically developed for a meaningful intellectual growth. The child-in-society perspective: Francis Parker and John Dewey (1875-1883) believed in the active involvement of children in real world experiences as the means of learning was to follow the way knowledge is experienced in life and the way children learn as their lives unfold out in the world parker crusaded against unnatural teaching method and isolated subject matter. The curriculum to him should be based in the child experience in the family and environment; self-realisation was to come through the learning of what was naturally interesting to the children.

The schools need to emphasize how children learning and what they are interested in learning to become more effective in their instruction. John Dewey 1916 Democracy and Education: He opined that education is fundamental to its reproduction and survival no matter how primitive and society is. Children need more formal education to master the complexity of living. Childrens first experiences are impulsive, disconnected, and relatively void of meaning. In 1896, established a school at the University of Chicago the school was an organised community where teachers represented the adult culture that harmonised the individuality of the child with adult ends and value. Discipline was encouraged. Teachers are to provide for individual differences as they arise. The Psychological curriculum perspective is not actually imbedded in any curriculum textbook but drawn from the notion that the true curriculum is an unwritten one that consist primarily of what learners internalise from their in-school experiences rather than what has been planned for them to learn about subjects. The curriculum is whatever had been added to or otherwise modified in childrens way of thinking and behaving because of schooling. Essentially this means that the psychological curriculum can be a product of any set of experience organised by the school. The psychological curriculum in the 1970s known as the Confluence curriculum according to Ornstein and Hunkins, stresses the integration of thinking, feeling and acting. However, the integration of the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains along with the attention given to socialisation make it a curriculum in which the teacher acts as an orchestrator rather than a facilitator or guide of student experience so that they are brought together within the student to make a profound under-the-skin difference. The curriculum must be judged on what children have internalized, its results are even more difficult to assess that the typical child-centered curriculum. THE CHILD-CENTERED MOVEMENT OF THE 1960s-1970s The movement was referred to as neo-progressive. The linkage that has often been made between progressivism and child-centered education was quite misleading. According to Goodman, the educational system is harmful to the development of a vast majority of children who would be better off if there were no system. Childrens innate potential should be encouraged. Learning, for Holt, is part of the growth process, a natural and holistic moving and expanding of children into the world around them. Holt attributed childrens failure to adults. His quest is to find ways to educate children so that the great potential that is in very child can be fostered rather than interfered with. However, he blames adults for intervening in childrens learning with less time to find and develop their own ways of meeting their needs which only they can truly know.

Open education: A child centered curriculum movement pointed out that the structure of open classrooms needed to be very complex if they were to accommodate the needs and abilities of the children as well as the teachers. Affective education emphasizing self-actualization very much in the existentialist vein received considerable visibility in the open education movement. Child-in-society movement ignored subject division by advocated integration. The content was established in its broad outlines by some combinations of school board members, administrators and teachers. The curriculum was to be fitted into each childs individual characteristics. PIT FALLS OF CHILD CENTER CURRICULUM In the publics understanding of misunderstanding of child centered curriculum, one can find strange combinations of ideas. For instance, children following a child-centered curriculum may or may not study the materials contained in a selected learning center, depending on how they feel. Another odd combination of ideas about the child-centered curriculum involves rational grading i.e. teachers are not supposed to discourage students no matter what the students have decided to study, and so they assign As to all their students, even the ones who cant pass the achievement test, youngsters who have learned almost nothing are promoted anyway. The child centered curriculum is an innovative curriculum design supported by fuzzy-thinking radicals with little practical understanding of the realities of life.