Blog prompt 10

Reflections on should students be granted the autonomy to develop their own curriculum


          Freedom is not always good. Students given the liberty to develop their own curriculum would not work out well due to the possible mistakes these students make when developing their curriculum. When a student develops a curriculum wrongly, his academic grades may be affected and his studies would be affected too. Therefore, students should not be granted the autonomy to develop their own curriculum.
          Mature thinking is something very important in decision making. If someone lacks maturity and makes a decision, the decision is highly likely to be an immature one and may be of limited benefit. Likewise, if a mature person makes a decision, his or her decision would be a mature one. Young students have a low level of maturity. Should they be allowed to develop their own curriculum, they may choose to study the wrong subjects and less important subjects. He or she may choose to slack and choose to spend more time on subjects which are more relaxed like art and craft and music instead of things like Math and Science. Later on, he or she may realize that the arts is no place for him, and that he has chosen the wrong subjects to major in. By then, choosing another subject to major in would be slightly too late, as  students majoring in that subject would know a lot more than he or she does about it, and there would be huge pressure put on the student, which is bad.
           Students being able to develop their own curriculum would not be beneficial to the nation. If every school allows students to develop their own curriculum, the students may like school better as they get to study what they want. However, the government may require more engineers at one point in time. If students then are more inclined towards the arts, then the government would face difficulties finding these engineers, and may have to resort to foreign labor to help "supplement" for the missing engineers.
           On the other hand, some may argue that more mature students or elite students should be given the freedom to develop their own curriculum to better enable them to pursue their dreams. This is true. The more mature students and elite students have supposedly higher mental capacity and are supposedly able to make better decisions. This may not apply to every mature or elite student. Therefore, I feel, the teachers should recommend few students to the school that are capable of making mature decisions beneficial to each individual, and grant them the liberty to develop their own curriculum.
           As a whole, I feel that only few students, preferably the more mature ones, be given the liberty to develop their own curriculum as the development of one's curriculum requires mature thinking and it would have a negative effect on the nation if every student is allowed to develop his or her own curriculum.