Voice: School Snapshots in Summer

What is an Integrated Curriculum?

by Sue Katz Miller

The most engaging educational experience my children ever had was probably in preschool. The theme-based "integrated curriculum" focused multisensory learning on one theme each month. When they spent a month studying the Old West, the students churned butter out of cream, dressed in pioneer clothing, learned Native American songs and stories, and forded Sligo Creek with their handmade covered wagons. When they got to kindergarten, this type of multisensory, content-rich learning was largely abandoned to begin the long climb up a double helix composed of repeating units of reading and math, reading and math, reading and math.

Now, Montgomery County Public Schools have begun to phase in an "integrated curriculum" in the elementary schools. Some county kindergarten classrooms piloted the program this past year. Unfortunately, any discussion of the actual content of the curriculum has now been overshadowed by a debate over the process through which this curriculum is being developed and funded. The Board of Education voted in June to approve a deal between MCPS and an educational publishing company called Pearson, in order to speed up the development of the curriculum and market it to other school districts...