A nation should require all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position

We often think of education as the key to success in the future. The higher education one gets, the better job he/she can find in the future. Education is the key to success and it develops our brains to analyse, synthesis and doubt different elements in life which can bring to innovations and new discoveries. This relates mostly to higher education in Colleges and Universities. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to require that all students study the same national curriculum until they enter college as it makes it a lot easier to the Colleges to examine the level of the students they accept. Moreover, if all schools have the same curriculum, students that have to move from one state to another will have no problems in integrating in the new school. For examples, there are many families that travel a lot due to the duties of the parents. Parents who serve the army and need to move from one state to another during their service, or parents who are in politics and even actor parents and children who travel a lot while having to shoot a new movie. By making sure that all schools follow the same curriculum, this makes it a lot easier to the families and the schools at once. Teachers do not have to worry about figuring out the level of their new students and what they covered in their old schools since the material is the same everywhere.

This could be heaven on earth if we only considered the needs of the schools. However, what about the needs of the children? There are many different educational and psychological theories that talk about the psychological and emotional development of the students which can change from one student to another. One theory that might come against this claim is the Intelligence theory of Howard Gardner. In this theory, Howard Gardner claims that we all have different strengths in different areas of intelligences. For example, one child can be very strong at Math when another child is great at physical education. Gardner claims that we all have more than one area which we control better than others. This brings me to think that the claim of having same national curriculum for all might be great in supporting the schools and the colleges however, it could also block the future generation from becoming more creative and innovative. By having all study the same skills it resembles computers programming, however humans brains are a lot more developed than computers. We must also remember that there are many different communities that require different kind of curriculum. For example, religious schools.

In the United States there are many different religious schools: Jewish, Christian, Muslim and others. Each community requires different curriculum and values based on the religion and tradition of its families. For example, Milken Community High School is a Jewish religious school that requires 4 years of learning Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Even though many families complain that their children’s GPA score get affected negatively by those two subjects, and demand that those subjects will be annihilated from the curriculum, they still send their children to that specific school and pay around $40,000 per year for each child. The conundrum about the Jewish curriculum comes up often due to the fact that in the business side of it, Milken loses many other families who prefer to go to other schools that focus on the curriculum required to enter good colleges only. However, in order to support the Jewish community and many families who send their children to Milken, the Jewish curriculum does not change after all. Milken High School is one among many other religious schools that was founded to support a specific religious community. Therefore, it is required that the extra curriculum stays no matter the competition out there. This is one example of a school that is based on a specific religion, however there are many other different kind of schools out there that need to support the needs of the community of the families who chose to go there.

Based on the Howard Gardner’s theory which I presented above, there are many students who have special talents and intelligences. For example, children who major in some kind of art. Music, dance and painting schools are all over the country to support special talented children who want to go through high school and at the same time focus on developing their interest. In these special schools, the majority of learning hours is on the specialty of the student rather than the core study of Math, English and Physics. Most likely these students will continue their education in special colleges and universities that are based on those specific areas as well. The same story happens when students show extreme talent in a specific area like Math, Physics, Biology and others. These students can go to a special school to major in those areas more than others which supports developing genius minds.

Different curriculums support creativity and encourages different minds. This brings up the level of education in all aspects rather than focusing on one only. We live in a heterogeneous society which supports heterogeneous minds, this should stay and continue to be supported in higher education as well. All students should be exposed to the basics and cover a certain level of education in order to go to college but at the same time, young minds should be able to explore and excel in different areas of their interests as well. Allowing different curriculums in different schools will enhance our society to grow in various directions and will support humans to be different from one another rather than all the same. Moreover, by allowing schools to create different curriculums, it creates competitions and growth. Schools will focus on exploring different knowledge and this will bring growth in many different aspects and fields.