In a new era of Common Core State Standards (CCSS), teachers are expected to provide more rigorous, coherent, and focused curriculum at every grade level. To respond to the call for higher expectations across the curriculum and certainly within reading, writing, and mathematics, educators should work closely together to create mathematically…

Most students in America can graduate from high school without ever analyzing a piece of art. Perhaps these students will take an art history or an art appreciation course in college that may incorporate a few references to literature and history. Math or science connections will most likely remain entirely absent. Why do we treat art analysis…

Recommends curriculum clustering as a way of giving definition and meaning to secondary curricula lacking cohesiveness and academic depth. This approach involves the development of a cluster of courses outside of normal graduation requirements that form a general education core linking foundation courses and more advanced course work. Illustrates…

Since 1990, when a Fort Meyers (Florida) school became the nation's first core-knowledge site, over 50 other schools have taken pioneering steps to teach this curriculum. Core-knowledge guidelines include school-community understanding, acceptance, and involvement; alignment of curriculum with local and state guidelines; and collaboration and…

This article argues that liberal education instills a common understanding of past knowledge in students and warns against the pressures toward specialization. A core curriculum is recommended as a means of tying together various topics. (DB)

It is argued in this paper that the interdisciplinary course provides a setting for viewing the ordered relationships that exist among disciplines. The necessity of this approach is pointed out as it reflects the need for a highly disarticulated curriculum to address and find solutions to the complex problems facing the world community. A…

The vocational education program in middle schools should give early adolescents opportunities to explore careers and increase self-understanding. Interdisciplinary units presented cooperatively by academic and vocational teachers and a core curriculum that includes exploratory courses are ways to accomplish these goals. (SK)

Because of its exploration of human conflicts, its examination of the capability of society and the individual relationships within it, and its focus on universal moral issues, Sophocles'"Antigone" is a relevant addition to secondary school core curricula. "Antigone" is effective in responding to each of Philip Anderson's four…

In foreign language education where culture has been integrated as a core curricular component, a "categorical approach" to the concept of culture has been the mainstay. Depending on the orientation of the times, academic debate has been focused on what category of culture should be emphasized in the second language classroom. "Behavioral culture"…

A series of essays and lists of resource materials as well as courses relevant to peace studies at the University of California Berkeley are presented in the two guides. Topics of the 1982-83 guide include the undergraduate major in Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS), a proposed curriculum, core courses, concentration area courses (social systems,…

The core curriculum movement, as of 1981, is in crisis and apparently declining. Among the discouraging signs are the abandonment of core curriculum programs by many school districts and the conclusion of a long-time student of the core curriculum movement that the democratic goals of the core curriculum program conflict with the more autocratic…

A syllabus that shows the diversity of cultures should be the "core curriculum." A linear narrative of American history, a selection of significant periods and then a discussion of what was happening simultaneously in many places, and an attempt to dramatize the future are all suggested for a core curriculum. (MLW)

Proposes a science-oriented general education core, stressing the importance of serious scientific study in understanding contemporary human existence. Describes the four courses comprising the core, which use the evolutionary process as the unifying concept for the study of physics, astronomy, geology, chemistry, biology, anthropology,…

Core and other "soft" programs are vulnerable in the current educational and financial climate. Evaluation, communication, and involvement can help save them. (Author/MLF)

Argues that students benefit from a combined emphasis in general education on interdisciplinarity, civic responsibility, service learning, and writing. Describes an epidemics and AIDS course as a model for students wishing to enter the discourse and debates of society. (Contains 31 references.) (AUTH/NB)