Does Your Curriculum Dictate or Provide Direction?
Given the innumerable different kinds of locations, classroom shapes, sizes, and building designs, it would be almost impossible for a curriculum to dictate exactly what a classroom or care space should look like. Curricula do, however, to varying degrees, implicitly or explicitly suggest and guide decisions about what equipment and materials are needed and how activity spaces should support childrens play, learning, and development.
For example, Montessori programs are expected to have at least a minimal set of designated materials arranged in a defined sequence and according to particular design principles. Creative Curriculum identifies ten distinct activity centers and gives teachers guidance about suggested materials for each. High Scope and Creative Curriculum teachers are also expected to label shelves and materials with pictures and/or words. The literacy curriculum mentioned in the opening vignette might come with a particular set of books, manipulative materials, and teacher resources with directions to store or display them in a prescribed sequence or order.
Other curriculum approaches set forth desired goals for what the environment should be designed to achieve as well as the particular elements it should include, but they assume that each classroom will also have its own unique character. For instance, the atelier or miniatelier feature of Reggio Emilia programs and classrooms (introduced in Chapter 2) is expected to include art and an array of interesting recycled materials arranged in an organized and aesthetically pleasing manner (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998).
In Waldorf education, according to teacher Sarah Baldwin (2012), “A Waldorf kindergarten is typically furnished to look much like a home, with silk curtains, wool rugs, a rocking chair, and wooden tables and chairs. Teachers consciously choose playthings for the classroom that will nourish a young childs senses and sheathe them in beauty. Toys found in the classroom are made from natural fiber and materials.”
Regardless of a curriculums specifics, the teacher will plan the environment according to generally accepted ideas about good design for developmentally appropriate spaces to be used by young children.