SYNTHESIS PAPER 2
Social Forces
According to Parkay et al (2010) curriculum leaders must understand how the school
system and the schools mirror society. School is the foundation for students to understand how to
act in society and how to be an abiding citizen. Since society is constantly changing, Parkay et al
(2010) noted that current and future social forces need to be analyzed regularly to understand
their impact on the curriculum from kindergarten through high school. It’s important for the
curriculum to mold the students for society, making sure they have the tools to ensure academic
success in college. For example, the math curriculum is constantly changing due to the rigor of
standardized testing. Students learn math differently than they learned many years ago.
Parkay et al stated there are trends and topics that influence curriculum leadership (2010).
The trending topics also affects the students and the curriculum, as curriculum leaders look
closer into the topics including ethnicity, cultural diversity, the environment, changing values and
morality, family, technology, equal rights, crime and violence, lack of purpose and meaning and
global interdependence, they need to understand their influence on education at all levels in the
present and in the future. In chapter 2, according to Parkay et al understanding a family’s
diversity and how to communicate with them is important (2010). This was significant because
educators and leaders communicate with families daily. Therefore, leaders and teachers need to
know how to communicate with families from different cultural backgrounds.
As having read chapter 2, it’s important for families to keep their cultural when they
come to the United States. However, according to Parkay et al, students assimilate to the
languages and cultures of the Eurocentric people (2010). After reading that sentence, there is
truth to this sentence because the United States is supposed to be a “salad bowl” mixing different
cultures and ethnicities into one. Nonetheless, students are assimilated, and they learn the
SYNTHESIS PAPER 3
Eurocentric lifestyle in school. After reading this, I realized that student’s diversity is cut to a
minimum in U.S. public schools. Students cannot learn in their own native language and some
parts of the curriculum are watered down to include certain parts of diversity. It’s important to
keep diversity in the school system and to give those students an opportunity to learn the material
in their language. Students shouldn’t have to assimilate to a Eurocentric culture.
Human Development
Human development as Parkay et al (2010) described has stages of development
including infancy, childhood, early adolescence, middle adolescence, late adolescence and
adulthood. Throughout these stages of development, the mind changes along with the maturity
level. There is a significance between human development and curriculum development because,
according to Parkay et al curriculum leaders must understand the knowledge of human
development to create a curriculum that is shaped for the needs and nature of the individual
learners (2010). Curriculum leaders must ensure the curriculum is designed for learners in that
specific developmental stage, as Parkay et al stated, there is a connection between learner
development and the explicit curriculum (2010).
Chapter three brought attention to human development being an important aspect in
curriculum development and leadership. For example, Parkay et al examined the different
theories of human development from theorist, Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson and Lawrence Kohlberg
(2010). As curriculum developers, it’s important to have an understanding about what age group
is the content for, what should the learner have learned and what should they be able to
demonstrate on their own and where are the learners on the human development scale. Questions
to infer can guide how to write the content for learners. As I continued to read, I understood that
schools have an impact on student’s human development.
SYNTHESIS PAPER 4
Schools have a significance on student’s human development because as Parkay et al
analyzed, the purpose of education to ensure students are prepared to be successful workers,
family members, and citizens of society (2010). To create support for developmental growth
according to Parkay et al, schools need to have a wide support of teachers and administrators
who are knowledgeable with their discipline and who understands how children develop
academically and how to support them (2010). As a current educator, it is important to have
understanding in your pedagogy to support students academically and mentally. These
guarantees students receive an adequate education with knowledgeable professionals. When
there is a lack of knowledgeable teachers, students do not receive the support they need
academically.
Learning and Learning Styles
As curriculum leaders and developers create content for curricula, understanding students
learning style plays an important role in education. As Parkay et al stated, understanding how
humans learn is an important part of curriculum development (2010). Everyone learns differently
and as an educator it’s significant to know students need to be exposed to different learning
styles. Another meaningful outlook on learning and learning styles, is the ways boys learn.
According to Parkay et al, boys learn differently, and should boys continuously be changed along
with their energy or should the education environment that they learn in be changed (2010). As
an educator, health professionals are quick to classify a child as ADHD because of their energy
level. However, boys need to have learning environments that are surrounded by their energy to
help with their learning.
Curriculum developers and leaders need to take into consideration that boys’ way of
learning is different from girls. Another area that impacts education from chapter four is the
SYNTHESIS PAPER 5
examination by Parkay et al about gender equity in education. As Parkay et al stated, girls’
success doesn’t come at boy’s expense (2010). Girls’ education does not rely on boys, in fact
girls have higher scores on certain standardized testing. Girls are more likely to graduate high
school and to attend college than boys (Parkay et al., 2010). This is important statistics because
curriculum leaders should have implementations in place for boys to make sure they complete
high school.
After reading the chapters it is important for curriculum developers and curriculum
leaders to investigate social forces because the future and current trends determine how the
curriculum should be created for K-12 students. Human development is another area that’s
important because as a future curriculum developer, I can ensure students receive content on
their level and understanding the skills that they can do on their own. Sometimes in education,
the level of rigor can be too challenging for students and current curriculum developers don’t
realize all of the learners may not be the same developmental wise. Lastly, learning a learning
style is another important area as a future curriculum developer because when creating content,
one must think about all the learners. Everyone does not learn the same, when creating content;
creating it with different ways to achieve mastery depending upon the learners learning style.
