The History of Curriculum In American Schools

            Educators today find themselves discussing what schools should teach, just as educators in the past.  This topic has existed as long as schools.  Curriculum has been an important topic for centuries.  Confucius became the first private teacher in history around 561 B.C.  In the 1^st century A.D., Quintilian, a Roman educator, wrote that students ought to be able to study what interests them.  Plato, a Greek philosopher from the fourth century B.C., believed that a person’s knowledge is innate, and all a teacher needs to do is help the person recall the inborn knowledge and ideas. 

            While today’s public schools scarcely resemble their colonial beginnings, many of our current controversies are rooted in the past.  We continue to dispute the role of religion in schools, the differences in state government education policies, and the inequities in educational opportunities for women, people of color, and the poor. 

            This book tracks the curriculum changes throughout history, starting from the colonial beginnings in the seventeenth century to the present curriculum debates with the No Child Left Behind Act.  Throughout these centuries, people have debated how to educate American children.  Curricula have come and gone, only to reappear decades later.  The important educational ideas and events of each century will be evident in this paper, thus showing that not much has changed in the American educational system since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.  America still cannot agree on how to best teach children, which produces endless curriculum wars.