By design this article contains three related, sequential studies. While there is some limited, unavoidable repetition, I believe that the three fold nature of the presentation offers a more three dimensional view of the issue of the art of curriculum planning that I am calling, Curriculum Animation. The first study is titled after a jazz piece, “Trying to Make It Real Compared to What.” This is the most personal study of the overall work, the piece that felt most inspired. It is also the most idiosyncratic. I would not imagine that anyone else plans curriculum with such specific artistic influences as I describe that influence my own curriculum planning. Unlike most professional literature about curriculum planning and curriculum development, the emphasis here is on the unique. Certainly art celebrates the unique.

      The second study is still personal, but more systematic. Having realized that in my own curricular work I try to make the curriculum as “real” as possible, in this section I name that process “Curriculum Animation.” The emphasis of curriculum animation is on bringing the curriculum to life, making the curriculum vital. In this part of the overall project I thought more specifically and systematically about the artistic criteria that I could identify that inform my own work in curriculum. I derived a list of five such abiding concerns or criteria.

      In the third study I wanted to discover how common my own concerns were with regard to other teachers. I undertook interviews with twenty-five teachers who have reputations for excellent success in the artistry of their own curriculum planning. Their comments and observations expanded the view of “curriculum animation” into a surer perspective, one that suggests much more representative generalizations about this persistent concern for bringing the curriculum to life, this curriculum animation.

STUDY ONE:     TRYING TO MAKE IT REAL COMPARED TO WHAT

      Academy Award Oscar winner for best actor, Rod Steiger, visited the undergraduate film class that I teach. In discussing his best actor performance nomination in “The Pawnbroker,” and his ineffable scream at the film’s end, Steiger told my class that the image that entered his mind in this one take scene was that of Pablo Picasso’s famous anti-war painting, “Guernica.” Steiger then encouraged my class to learn absolutely as much as possible about everything because you never knew what might enter your mind to inspire you.

      I occasionally wonder how many of my students remember his having said that, but not very often. I know that his personal example has stayed with me. The “lesson” may not have been a part of “prescribed objectives” for my course, but as Elliot Eisner (Educational Imagination) has suggested, I can “express the outcomes” of this encounter with Steiger. Steiger’s recollection about his art led to my own thinking about what non-discursive ideas/images/pictures enter my own deliberations when I am practicing what I consider to be my own art medium--curriculum development. While there has been some limited attention to the art of teaching in the professional literature, very little, if anything, has been written on the art of curriculum development. Certainly curriculum planning and development does not always reach the level of “art” for me, but sometimes I think I am fortunate enough to ascend those lofty heights of aesthetics. I think I occasionally achieve those four senses of art that Eisner uses to describe teaching as art. I think that sometimes my curriculum work is so well conceived that it is truly aesthetic; that “qualitative judgment is exercised in the interests of achieving a qualitative end”; that the curriculum has to have those qualities of both repertoire and inventiveness to allow the person who teaches the curriculum to make it an artistic experience; and that the ends of the planning are emergent not entirely preconceived and prespecified.

      I have at times felt a sense of aesthetic pleasure and even accomplishment in planning individual lessons, units, courses, frameworks, programs. I have often felt that the notepad on which I doodle with my curricular ideas has been my canvas. Perhaps such observations about my work seem self serving. Perhaps they seem “soft” in the face of the rigor one can use in implementing National Curriculum efforts, State frameworks, new textbooks with accompanying Teacher Guides, professional work by time honored scholars like Hilda Taba and Ralph Tyler, and cutting edge ideas based on research like “cognitive pluralism.”

      In actuality I am very conscious of the myriad of contingencies, perspectives, data bases, research findings, that I systematically consider in my own efforts at curriculum planning and development. Just the word “curriculum” makes me automatically think of Ralph Tyler’s four questions from Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (and that I was fortunate enough to ask him personally that if he could add a fifth question, what would it be, and that he told me it would have to be a question about student motivation). But I also am aware that I consciously process dozens (if not hundreds) of additional ideas while engaged in curriculum planning and development. Ideas associated with Eisner, Noddings, Shaftel, Walker, Freire, Giroux, Jackson, Apple, Bloom, Bruner, Piaget, Gage, Berliner, Dewey, etc., are all there in my mind and in varying ways elucidate my work in curriculum.

      However, what I have been more intrigued by, especially since the Steiger visit and comment, is what is it that has come into my mind, in a sense uninvited, that has had an influence worth recalling, especially about the artistry of curriculum development? I am well aware that such seeming dichotomies as the left brain/right brain; cognition/emotion; reason/intuition, have been over simplified. Nonetheless I think I can report, with more than some humor, that it is something of an odd experience, for such a logical person as I present myself to be, to try to catch images or icons that slip into my curriculum planning mindfulness that are not, somehow, a part of my own professional preparation.

      In these ruminations I have “discovered” two recurrent motifs or artistic impressions that repeatedly make their way into my curricular deliberations. Metaphorically, the record player in my mind (I know that the image of the record player dates me, but it is, somehow, a record player, not a tape or CD) consistently plays a Les McCann song, “Compared to What.” My mind hears the key board, the electric bass, the American drums, the African drums, the jazz, and particularly the refrain, “Trying to make it real compared to what!” This line is somewhat enigmatic, but I realize that it has been a constant theme of both my teaching and my curriculum planning. Of course any academic work has a classroom artifice about it, but it can be made “real compared to what.” Some classroom experiences seem more “real” than others. Thus I have always tried to make the curriculum more ‘real’ than the simple words in the text. By using guests, field trips, examples from television, the movies, the newspapers, web sites, role playing, simulations, anecdotes, etc., I try to make the curriculum more real, more vibrant, more alive than the (invaluable, indispensable) printed texts and lectures. As I simultaneously work through my course objectives, I am also hearing the music of Les McCann challenging me to make the curriculum as real as possible.

      Even more influential on my curriculum planning in terms of images that frequently come to mind as I plan and replan curriculum are the images of various Impressionistic Paintings. Particularly the various paintings Monet completed in London come to mind. I think the task of curriculum planning is very much like the task of the impressionistic painter. By looking at the canvas as a whole, one must gain a perspective on the field of vision. It is not a photograph, but it is a definite impression of what is being looked at. The vision must be framed, necessarily limiting what is being looked at. The entire canvas must be covered with individual strokes of color, the strokes will be individual and different. The art is not the same as reality, but someone else would be expected to be able to recognize the scene. Invariably, there is something “superficial” about the representation, yet the painting captures something authentic about what the artist has viewed. (Monet also said that when he quit working on the canvas as a whole, he quit working, I think an another apt “lesson” for curriculum developers.) Likewise, in any curriculum work that I do I will want the student to have an overview, a full impression of the field we are studying; that I will have planned each individual part of the curriculum with brilliant strokes; that any other expert in the field would recognize this impression of the field, although they may have had something of a different perspective; that the treatment will be authentic; that besides learning the material, the students will have a sense of aesthetic pleasure in having viewed this curriculum.

      Certainly after I have created new curricular material, I also expect to be able to complete the more obvious aspects of curriculum planning. I will define the objectives, identify the teaching methods, sequence the lessons, and plan to formally evaluate the learning. In fact I actually have pages of check lists I have written for myself to help keep me from overlooking any of the more logical and conscious considerations in curriculum planning. However, after I am otherwise finished with the creation of such work, my last act is to stand back from the creation and to see whether the overall impression is pleasing. My self analysis is that my best work in curriculum planning is, indeed, the most artistic.

STUDY TWO:     CURRICULUM ANIMATION: A MISSING LINK

      While it has been relatively rare in our professional literature, compared to the material on the “science of teaching,” the case has also been made for the “art of teaching.” Elliot Eisner has argued that both are “necessary to have depth perception.” In the systematic and scientific tradition most teachers have benefited by such educational perspectives as Bloom’s identification of the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains and especially from his taxonomy of educational objectives (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation). As influenced by Ralph Tyler, probably most if not all of us have described our curriculum in terms of objectives, learning experiences, organization of learning experiences, and evaluation.

      While more artistic views of teaching are inherently less standardized, there have also been artistic views of teaching that have the potential to complement the more scientific views and to provide the depth perception of a “binocular” view of education. Examples of such prominent artistic views have included Postman and Weingartner’s “teaching as a subversive activity,” Paulo Freire’s “pedagogy of the oppressed,” James Herndon’s “the way it spozed to be,” Elliot Eisner’s “educational imagination.”

      This paper is most respectful of both the scientific and artistic traditions in education, the discursive and non-discursive. However, an element of the art of teaching that has been virtually completely neglected is the art of curriculum planning and curriculum development. The emphasis on the art of teaching has tended to be placed entirely on the teacher’s work in the classroom. My experience, and I am deliberately switching to the more obviously subjective first person, has been that there can also be an art to curriculum planning and curriculum development.

      Certainly the case for the importance of curriculum planning has been made, especially in Wittrock’s Handbook of Research on Teaching. And concepts like Schwab’s “the practical,” and Walker’s “the platform,” are invaluable discursive considerations in the preparation of curriculum. There is also a study of metaphors used by teachers that shows that the group of teachers interviewed all used metaphors of control. Certainly in my own teaching of our “Curriculum and Methods” course I urge prospective teachers to look first at their curriculum if they are having problems with discipline.

      However, once a class is under control, and is making sure academic progress some teachers transcend instruction and seemingly bring their classes alive. This ability is often the in-class charisma of the teacher. I do not argue that the art of curriculum planning is as important as those teacher qualities. I do argue that there is an art to curriculum development, that it needs to be discussed metaphorically, and that ‘Curriculum Animation” is a place to start.

      I came upon the term “curriculum animation” while puzzling over a questionnaire that I had labored over, sent out on a trial basis, and found had failed in trying to identify the qualities of artistic curriculum development. I had gone back to Suzanne Langer’s work in the philosophy of art, appropriated her descriptions of art, and then asked teachers if her descriptions fit their own experiences in curriculum development. While each teacher in my small sample was willing to entertain the idea that they might be artists in their curriculum work, there was no pattern to their specific responses, except to my agree/disagree question on whether “good curriculum is ‘vital,’ bad curriculum is ‘lifeless?’” Each respondent weighed that item with the highest level of agreement. Of course this probably should have seemed rather obvious, but in the context of months pondering the problems of considering curriculum planning as a possible art form, I suddenly realized that this was the central issue--good curriculum is vital, good curriculum is animated. This does not separate the curriculum from the teacher and the teaching process. It does suggest that the curriculum must have the prospect of being brought to life and that the curriculum planning must match well with the particular teacher’s pedagogical strengths.

      For my own part I love the planning of curriculum, in some ways even more than teaching. (While I am very vain about my teaching, and have had very favorable teaching evaluations over the years, my plans can seem perfect, while reality is never quite so blissful.) In college one of our professors required us to plan a new curriculum. My first year of teaching I planned an innovative unit on short stories (that my internship supervisor insisted was too ambitious to succeed--wrong!). The summer after my first year I was included in a project to redesign the school’s English program. I designed the Reading Program for Vista High School, started an experimental school for the Rowland Unified School District, a college Great Books Program, a new film class, a College Honors Program. Having considered Eisner’s, Aristotle’s, Langer’s, Webb’s criteria for art, I have come to feel that curriculum planning has become an aesthetic experience for me.

      Thus, as a subsequent step in this line of inquiry into the art of curriculum development, I determined to reflect back upon what issues had primarily preoccupied me in my efforts at curricular innovation. This is admittedly a simplification task. There are always untold numbers of considerations that can well influence and inform a particular bit of curriculum planning or curriculum development. After reflection, rumination, ratiocination about making curriculum “vital,” I became very comfortable with the idea that the artistic task is, indeed, curriculum animation. I also thought it would be useful if I could derive a list of basic questions about curriculum innovation, comparable in number between Tyler’s “4” from Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, up to the “7” of Madeline Hunter’s expansion of the “Tyler Rationale.”

      I found that I could reasonably identify five recurring questions that pre-occupied me, informed my decision making, have the prospect of being made meaningful to others considering the art of curriculum development and curriculum animation. Four from my list are fairly easy to discuss while the fifth is more elusive.

      Whether working on a lesson, unit, course, new program these are the issues that continually arose for me. First, and this is more a caveat than an artistic question, “Is the material academically responsible?” For example, many classroom games are fun, but indefensible in terms of the coverage of important material.

      Second, and this is a direct influence of a Mario Fantini essay on “A Contact Curriculum,” “Would the curriculum connect with the intended students?” For example, I have had the good fortune of teaching in London on occasion. It was likely that at the British Museum I would start my students with the Beatles’ writings that are held in the Manuscript Room, or “The Groteseque Old Woman” in the National Gallery. Neither of those works were guarantees of student interest, but they were likely places to first connect with something that my students could identify with in some way.

      Third, and this question has been highly influenced by the person and work of Elliot Eisner, “Will the curriculum have the potential of capturing the student’s imagination?” Anatole France has said, “The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.” Goethe has said, “A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.” Certainly not every component of the curriculum can inspire, but the overall impact of a full unit of curriculum should have that potential.

      Fourth, and this question emphasizes the connection between the curriculum and the teacher, “Would this curriculum material be fun to teach?” Again, not everything is fun to teach per se. I ran into this problem my first year of teaching with grammar. The students had to pass the school’s grammar test. I wrote a programmed booklet using cartoons, names of students, school situations, and then I promised the students that we would be through with the drill once they could pass the school test. They passed in less than a month. A colleague spent the entire year on the grammar and never got to literature, creative writing, poetry...James Herndon points out that we each, student and teacher, go to school first and foremost to live out our day. Why not have the prospect of making it fun?

      Fifth, and this is the most elusive, reminds me of Jane Austen’s distinction between sense and sensibility and is a sensibility issue, “How does the energy flow?” My answers to this question are usually intuitive. And sometimes intuition cannot be relied upon. I teach a large film class. I spend hours and hours on my list of films. I am yet unable to define the way I look for a rhythm, but I do look for an energy ebb and tide among the classic and new films, domestic and foreign, epic and ensemble. The schedule has to be predetermined. When I have been “on” with my planning there is an exciting flow of point and counterpoint from week to week. However, one year logic must have intervened to ill effect. The film “A Man for All Seasons” is at the top of my list of all time great films. My left brain told me what a great climax this film would be for my film class. WARNING: do not show a two and one half hour film in which the star is beheaded during Finals Week! How could I have been such an idiot? Thematically the film made sense, but my sensibilities should have warned me that the energy flow would be all wrong. I should have known that as I looked over the planned curriculum as a whole.

      Do I think these questions are fundamental to artistically successful curriculum making? Yes! Do I think they are exclusive of the more systematic, scientific concerns of objectives, instruction, evaluation? No. I still produce a course syllabus and students appreciate and even benefit from it. But a curriculum that does not respond to both the artistic and scientific concerns lacks depth perception, inspiration, animation.

STUDY THREE:     CURRICULUM ANIMATION

      For the concluding part of my inquiry I asked educational leaders that I knew and whose judgment I trusted to recommend teachers who had exceptional reputations for creative curriculum planning. I compiled a list of twenty-five teachers in numerous schools and districts in both southern and northern California and then scheduled one hour interviews with these teachers over the course of a semester. I met with them, usually during a preparation period, usually in their classroom or office, and had a “conversation’ with them about what they were thinking about when they planned curriculum. What I found was much like what I had already found about what I was beginning to call my own criteria for curriculum planning, but with significant clarifications. I distilled the our conversations into five new statements of criteria used in a teacher’s curriculum planning.

1. The curriculum must be significant, worthy, important. I had used the word “responsible” in my previous study. Despite my own affinity for artistry in curriculum development, I think that I may have secretly harbored the suspicion that this group of teachers might de-emphasize the importance of their respective subject matter areas. I think I may have had something of the same prejudice that I have sometimes felt victimized by, that those who are enjoying themselves in the classroom are not as serious about their subject. This group of teachers known for their artistry in curriculum planning was unanimous in their assertion of the importance of teaching significant material to their students.
2. The curriculum must make for quality life in the classroom. This realization amused me about myself. In my own take on my own criteria in my earlier study, I had emphasized whether the curriculum would be fun for me to teach. I felt very self conscious when I realized that these teachers with whom I conversed emphasized that the students should enjoy the curriculum. Surely I meant to have thought it that way myself...
3. The curriculum must be fitted to a teacher’s students. I had found that this question covered two of my own questions. I had asked of myself the questions, “would the curriculum connect with the intended students?” and would it “capture my students’ imaginations?” In my conversations I did not find that these were truly separate questions. These were but two of many considerations in assuring a match between the curriculum and the students. What I was impressed with in interviewing these twenty-five teachers is how many concerns teachers consider in trying to match the curriculum with their respective students. The list of concerns raised was extensive. Issues that were mentioned included, how to handle special education students, the cultural backgrounds of their students, the time of day, how tired their students might be, the class size, the range of student abilities, the class personality, how competitive a class might be, the character of the male/female student interactions, the learning styles, previous academic work. The list goes on and on. The point to be emphasized here is that each of these concerns was about a characteristic of the students and that this list had comparable weight in planning to the teachers’ subject matter considerations.
4. The progress of the curriculum must have a flow of energy. The teachers did not necessarily use the expression “flow of energy,” I had used in my earlier study, but they consistently verified that they pay particular attention to the pacing of the curriculum to keep it interesting. Many of them said that they moved on to the next piece of curriculum when they were becoming bored, that they wanted to leave a piece of curriculum while it was still interesting and before it became boring. This suggested to me that these teachers had become very attuned to such rhythms in the classroom, and planned for them. The overall theme was that diversity is the spice of life, and the secondary theme was the concern to involve students as actively as possible with the curriculum.
5. The curriculum must evidence the teacher’s own signature. I probably should have anticipated this concern and theme because of my original self study, “Trying to Make It Real Compared to What.” Each teacher brought her/his special qualities to planning curriculum. Each teacher shared a special vision of teaching that went above and beyond the subject matter. One teacher wanted the students to become “stronger intellectually, morally, spiritually.” Another emphasized her goal as helping become better human beings that care for each other. Another talked of preparing students to “participate in a democratic society.” Another emphasized “multiple intelligences.” Another used the metaphor of the rainbow and that the class relies on each student like the rainbow relies on each and every color. Another said “I want to increase their awe of the planet.” While each of these concerns has a mainstream appeal, what I would emphasize here is my sense that each teacher brought separate and special qualities that differentiated him/her from other teachers. Incorporating these personal visions is an instrumental part of planning curriculum particularly for animating the curriculum.

      Additionally, although not a criteria for curriculum planning, I was also struck by the fact that nearly every teacher mentioned “intuition” in a way very much like that described by John Dewey. Dewey says that,

      In concluding this third phase of the overall study I would emphasize that I became increasingly convinced that there needs to be a dynamic relationship between the more commonly recognized tradition of logical, systematic curriculum planning and the artistry of curriculum animation. I am hopeful that these five criteria for Curriculum Animation will be considered complementary to the concern for objectives, sequence of instruction, and evaluation. Certainly my own experience and that reported by the twenty-five teachers I interviewed is that it is the artistry that bring the curriculum to life--curriculum animation.

CONCLUSION TO THE OVERALL STUDY       Why not limit this report of the overall project to the findings of the third study? I hope the answer is implicit to the study itself--excellent curriculum planning is based both on what is unique and what is generalizable. The personal “stuff” of the first study recognizes the unique qualities a teacher brings to curriculum planning. Nonetheless, the second study recognizes the need to move beyond the idiosyncratic. The third study recognizes the generalizations that might inform the practice of the individual and the profession. Perhaps the three studies taken together give the fairest perspective on the process and the criteria of Curriculum Animation.

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