Community changes have strong impact on the education both on content and methodology. This implies the following basic needs from the curriculum development point of view
- Need for a new common sense.
- Realistic social understanding.
- Eliminate class bias from the curriculum.
- Methods and techniques of resolving social conflicts.
Need for New Common Sense
In a period of gradual change the common sense of the people is enough to deal with new problems. Simply, community problems used to be solved with the help of common experience of the group and mature judgment of older people. But the cultural changes described above have made the old common sense inadequate for the solutions of today’s problems. This common sense is, no doubt, enough to deal with relations among neighbour but insufficient for dealing with relations between individuals and huge social organizations. The social organization works on the basis of uniform policies formed in favour of the organization.
The new common sense must be broad enough to include rules and ideas for relationships between men and organizations, between organizations themselves. What is needed is a set of new ideas to tell what is right and wrong, desirable and undesirable with respect to policies and actions.
It is desirable for those responsible for curriculum building to provide opportunities for children, young people and adults to engage in tasks of rebuilding ideas and attitude. This will improve social judgment and develop ability to make decisions about action is a period dominated by complex relations.
Need for Realistic Social Understanding
It is very important for every individual to understand what is happening around him. Only then he will be able to deal with the social problems. Schools now-a-days have failed to provide the opportunity and knowledge to face the basic issues. In the absence of accurate facts and dependable values, students are unable to lead a very successful life in future. There is a dire need to include the study of the causes of social problems in order to have basic knowledge of solutions in real life situations.
Need to Eliminate Class-bias from Curriculum
The knowledge about, social strata in common life needs that the teaching profession should become aware of its own class bias. At most of the places teaching profession has been recruited from the lower middle and middle class. Moreover, the professional training of teachers has not been such as to awaken them to the values and views of various social strata.
Partly because of the defect in professional training and partly because of the background of the teachers, the curriculum of school today is largely designed to middle class values and modes of conduct.
For example, the fact that those who dropout of school are largely from the lower social classes, indicates that the holding power of school is weakest among the lower classes and strongest among the middle and upper classes.
So there is a dire need for careful consideration of values of all. Social classes before developing the curriculum. This ‘requires full, attention to the biases found in the school programme, teaching profession and the social classes. In addition the curriculum must be planned to include a wide range of experience and to develop flexibility. For an average person must have an ability to adjust himself successfully to a wide variety of circumstances. He should also have the skins- and ability to adjust to a world of shifting occupations and. employment opportunities.
Need for Methods and Techniques of Resolving Social Conflicts
Increasing conflicts growing out of social issues indicate the importance of stressing effective methods and techniques of resolving social issues. In a society devoted to the resolution of differences among people with the help of reason and fact, it becomes important to place the emphasis upon the effective group deliberation actions. An effective way of solving such problems is to formulate curriculum effectively and to plan education system properly.
