Expanding the Curriculum With Creativity

Content Standards And Testing

Noddings (2013) argued for systemic changes in standardized education. She suggested that educational policymakers must embrace and inspire creativity in curriculum design and diverge from a standardized system (Noddings, 2013). Despite the educational equity goals of content standards, one of the consequences of standardized education is to regiment the process, to siphon all students through college for economic prosperity purposes (Noddings, 2013). She argues that politicians involved in developing curriculum often ignores diversity, including students’ interests and their personal goals; forcing students into college preparation courses reduces their opportunities to follow their heart and allows educational institutions to easily rank and label them (Noddings, 2013). According to Noddings, (2013), to remain true to their original purpose, content standards should be designed with general goals to ensure educational equity while providing classroom teachers the flexibility to modify existing curriculum to meet their students’ needs. The implementation of these standards would benefit from a local control that ensures resources are appropriately allocated to each individual classroom (Noddings, 2013). Additionally, students should also have some control over how they learn and demonstrate their learning of these content standards, which is currently nearly impossible within the established narrow and specific understanding of the content standards and their high-stakes consequences (Noddings, 2013). Noddings (2013) maintained that the curriculum should be designed relevantly to meet student’s interests and provide them with skills that will allow them to pursue their passions.