Principles and Aims of Education

That education should be a principled endeavor seems obvious. Nevertheless, in order to eliminate opportunity for deviance from the desired principles, definition and articulation are useful agents of preservation. Education must be based on social justice, progress, and the development of productive, democratic citizens. Students must leave our system with not only knowledge and basic skills, but also with the ability to think critically, analyze, evaluate, and, perhaps most importantly, to empathize. These aims and principles must be mirrored by the design of schools and systems, as well as the intentions of educators and administrators.

Definition of Curriculum

Curriculum is a course of study containing a deliberately planned set of objectives, materials, teaching strategies and evaluative criteria based on knowledge or values important to the controlling factions of any society. Whether society desires to maintain the status - quo or to attempt to progress, its primary tool is the curriculum as disseminated, both explicity and implicitly, by the education system.