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Show Know Your Schools . . . . What Bo We Nlean, Curriculum? .... By Arietta Williams The term curriculum used to mean reading, writing and arithmetic arith-metic with a smattering of history his-tory and geography mixed in. This was because it was thought that all the school was concerned with was training the child's mind. All this has changed. The child brings more than his mind to school. He brings all his past experiences, ex-periences, his attitudes, emotions, values, habits, sickness or health in fact his "whole" self into the classroom and one part of him cannot be separated from an other. He reacts as a "whole" to every situation. The fact that we cannot educate just mind and disregard dis-regard all other areas of a child's make-up necessitated a changing point of view as to the purposes of education or content of the curriculum. cur-riculum. Also, parents began to see the school as more than a training laboratory for children's minds. They began to ask that schools teach their children to work and play well with his playmates; they wanted him to learn to accept ac-cept responsibility, to do his share in work and play. They wanted him to have wide interests in art, music, science and the world around him and above all to understand un-derstand and appreciate his heritage. heri-tage. They wanted him to be able to read well, to speak clearly and correctly, to write legibly, to understand un-derstand his world of numbers, to know how to locate what he wants to know and to understand how his body functions and how to keep it strong and well. They wanted him to be happy in his school environment. At the present pres-ent time the curriculum is re- garded as all the experiences of the child for which the school assumes responsibility.. Again we cannot separate the child's school experiences from those out of school and these home - community experiences play a very important part in his learning. The home, school, and community become partners in the total education of the child. This makes it imperative that all these agencies work together in planning for the good of their children. Conflict between these (Continued On Back Page) Know Schools . . . I (Continued from Page 1) agencies results in frustration and conflict in the child. Children and youth who live by one set of values in the school and another at home and in the community cannot be expected to develop consistent ways of behaving. The home, school and community must therefore plan together for the kind of a program which will prepare the child to take his place in the community of which he is a part. The Duchesne County School Board has recognized this need and has worked to provide opportunities oppor-tunities where parents and teachers teach-ers can plan together. At the present time plans are under way to organize a rural education conference. con-ference. The purpose of the conference con-ference is to provide an opportunity oppor-tunity for parents and teachers : to participate in establishing the goals of education in Duchesne . County and in the State of Utah, j |