Asmahan Saleh Education 292 Reflection Paper 9 Curriculum When discussing the aims of the curriculum, we take into

consideration what kind of citizen we want. The aiming is for a responsible citizen who is an individual with responsibility when given freedom. The problem faced with our curriculum is that what is taken into consideration is how to be a good citizen according to the world rather than a good citizen according to our country Lebanon. Also, there is an aim to have a united Lebanese community that has national pride and committed to the Arabic language. Though all these aims seem to be good, in fact when you go deeply inside you find that these aims are not applicable. For example, foreign languages are seen to be compulsory. The new strategy for education in Lebanon, in order to implement all these aims of the curriculum, was based on four aspects: curriculum subjects, methods of teaching which focuses on improving school book in order to talk about the current events (this is unfortunately not true since all what is mentioned is from history), ongoing preparation and practices for schools principals and teachers, methods of evaluation which is based on competence (how successful you are) so it is qualitative more than quantitative. Educating a child to be a responsible citizen is a mutual responsibility found between family, society and the state and rising the child begins from the day he/she is born at home then school and university. For that reason we must have a background about the different life stages that he/she goes through. For example,

looking at the stage before birth where parents prepare for a secure, peaceful environment; psychological, educative, healthy and social programs are made to help in providing such environments. I think this is very idealistic and tend to look as wishes not applied at all in Lebanon. Looking at table 1 about the weekly distribution of subject matters and the school hours for the elementary stage, I notice that the number of science hours is almost the same as sports and only 3 hours where given for social sciences (geography, civics, history) and this is not enough. Social sciences are very important to build citizens that care for their country. I suggest decreasing the activities number or decreasing the Arabic and English subjects by one hour and add it to social sciences. I truly believe that social studies should be implemented at early. This curriculum directs to freedom but in fact doesnt solve problems in the society, it only discusses ideal points. Moreover, we notice that the word freedom was repeated a lot and in fact there is too much freedom and little democratie. For example, a KG child of age 5 is able to give his opinion about colors; he refuses to use the orange color. In other words, freedom and bias about other groups develop from very early stages. As a solution, the curriculum needs changes. In my opinion I suggest to: 1- restart it from early ages, 2- emphasize more on social studies, 3- retake into consideration the distribution of hours, 4- integrate math and sciences and literature also at early stages. My opinion about the new curriculum is that high school gives more importance to religious studies, rituals, responsibilities and duties. These should be implemented

in elementary school which only focuses on languages, technology and mainly academics. If the new curriculum was actually implemented word for word it would promote what is defined as an ideal citizen, unfortunately is does not promote what is defined to be a Lebanese citizen. The new curriculum is not fully implemented in schools in Lebanon. It says that Arabic should be implemented the most than other languages but Arabic is treated as a foreign language. It isnt taught seven hours a week as said in the new curriculum. Again if the new curriculum was implemented word for word a unified and civilized society would be the result.