What is curriculum to you?

Question

What is curriculum to you?

Answer 1

Curriculum is anything that is used as a learning tool.  It could be a textbook, a trip to the nature center, or even things that happen in normal life.  

When my son watches his math DVDs, those lessons are part of his curriculum.  When he learns to cook according to a new recipe, that recipe and process are part of his curriculum.  When he does his chores or helps his dad with repairs, those are part of his curriculum.  When he goes to the nature center and meets a birder who tells him all about the native birds of the area, that is part of his curriculum.

Curriculum is simply a tool that allows a child to learn...and I second ysn's vote for "eclectic" :)

Answer 2

Curriculum is many things to many people.

To some it's textbooks, teacher's guide's, and tests.

To me it's we use a literature approach so it's books books to read, very few textbooks, and teacher's guide's to enable me to explore more in-depth rather than telling me what to study.

Answer 3

Nothing. We're unschoolers so we don't use one. I've never seen one and I'm pretty sure I couldn't name any!

Answer 4

Your curriculum is your program of work to be taught/learnt. It determines what you will teach and how the learning will be evauluated and assessed.

Answer 5

I like this definition:

"A program of courses to be taken in pursuit of a degree or other objective."

So for us curriculum is not a particular set of materials for a specific course but rather an overall course of study leading towards a goal.  It is the forest not the trees.

Our curriculum, therefore, is an eclectic college preparatory course of study.  We use a wide variety of materials for different courses: coop, college, computer, traditional at-home with texts, experiences, etc.  

This seems to be a "homeschool initiation" question: "What curriculum do you use?"

I quickly learned to simply say: eclectic.