The Lebanese Curriculum:   

            The Need For An Urgent Shift!

 

      The Lebanese Curriculum is definitely in need of a big radical change. Our current curriculum with all its aspects concerning goals of education, strategies and content in all of its practices needs an urgent shift. We need to develop a new curriculum that should be viewed according to the new contemporary educational philosophies that have emerged which concentrates on the learner as a whole and to keep up with the continuous arising educational development across the world which has had a great impact on our society as a whole and the individual in specific.

  If I had been given the chance to participate in developing a new curriculum for Lebanon, I would consider choosing the contemporary philosophies as a base for the framework of the new curriculum. I would go more into progressivism and reflect some aspects of reconstructionism that can be applicable in our society and without neglecting some ideas that can be adopted from traditional philosophies which are highly reflected in the current Lebanese curriculum such as drilling and recalling strategies that are important in some levels of learning especially in kindergarten. I would also add my own beliefs that education should be available for all and public schools should dominate over private ones. There should be equal learning opportunities for all. Learning should be fun and our message as teachers should be to teach,inspire and motivate. The question that may arise here is why we should shift to contemporary philosophies to guide us in building a new curriculum. We as curriculum workers should view things from various perspectives and should do our job in a coherent way while choosing the best foundation for our curriculum. It is very important to point out the fact that we should stress on the learner as a whole. We should be aware that the interests and beliefs of students are of great importance.

 Our Lebanese curriculum is overcrowded. It concentrates on the cognition of the learners rather than their interests. It depends highly on the traditional ways of delivering knowledge. The learner passively recalls the information since there is not enough time or space provided for students’ creativity and critical thinking. Ideas are great but students should test these ideas through experimentation. The goals of the new curriculum should be more student centered than teacher centered. Educators should be facilitators and guides where they guarantee that students are thinking and are playing an efficient role in the learning process. There should be space for practical methods and active experiences that reflect real life of the students to make them better change makers in the future. We should inspire our students which will help the community become a better place for all. The curriculum should include new strategies like problem solving and project learning methods and all that can promote their critical thinking which can make them successful citizens in the future. Through our curriculum students should be taught not just to know but how to apply what they learned. For all of this we need to shift and reshape a new curriculum based on contemporary views which serves for the best of our students and education as well.

 

 Importance of Assessment 

in the teaching and learning process: 

    Assessment is a powerful weapon it can either encourage students to learn, improve and succeed or else it might destroy their desire to learn or succeed. At the end , it is only the students themselves who are going to decide whether they are going to learn or not and our job is to help and motivate them to learn and benefit from our teaching.

So an educator must pay attention to his assessment practices in every step in the teaching and learning process and try to use what best fits his students, what motivates them and what make them feel that they are capable to learn and to value what they have learned. 

Build positive relationships with  students should be the concern of teachers to assure their engagement in learning. Teachers have to show their students that they love what they are doing.

On the other hand, the assessment methods teachers are going to use must have clear purposes and clear objectives that should be clear to the students as well. Teachers should assure to their students that all can succeed and that their success is important.

In addition to that, educators should understand the importance of quality assessment by putting it in sound practice that targets the best learning of their learners. At the end it is only through assessment with all its types that we can know and understand how our students are learning. This is why it is very important that educators should understand the importance of quality assessment and follow certain sound standards to guide their assessment practices in their classrooms. This can only start when we have our students understand that they shouldn’t be afraid of assessment. On the contrary, we should implement in them the motivation and love of assessment. So when teachers have clear purposes, clear targets and sound designs for their assessment and when they match their targets with their assessment methods, students understand how they are being assessed. They have clear idea of the criteria used in the assessment method and how are they are going to be judged which gives them a sense of motivation to work in a comfortable environment. Teachers should pay attention to the quality and type of questions she uses in her assessment. Teachers must also consider the different learning styles of students. So we have to work on improving our students’ desire to learn and sound assessment plays a very big role in achieving this purpose.