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

Scholars, practitioners, and policy makers have divergent views on the content of the national curriculum. One dominant approach is to require all students to study the same content until they enter college. While this does have some advantages, this approach is an overly facile, quixotic, and imprudent one for three reasons.

To begin, children's curriculum should be diverse enough to address the different needs and gifts of our children. Yet, applying a national-level curriculum to all children would not do justice to their various idiosyncrasies. For instance, some children are more academically challenged than others. Conversely, there are other children who are extremely gifted. Given this, one could not expect the former to learn at the same pace and same content as the latter. Similarly, children also differ in where their gifts and talents lie. For example, Betsy may have the potential to be a phenomenal actress, while Lara could be an exquisite writer. By not catering to these unique gifts, our society will lose out on great potential. Hence, it is vital that our school curriculum be flexible enough to cater to children's' unique abilities.

Furthermore, adopting such a recommendation would likely have deleterious effects as it would make school and education less appealing for some students. It is even possible that some children may not even reach the college level as their interests waned at some point in their secondary education. For example, Lisa may be thoroughly engaged in her school's fashion courses, while Paul is attracted to animation courses, and yet Diana takes considerable interest in her anthropology courses. Under one national curriculum, it is likely that these students would not be as engaged with school as they were earlier. Indeed, reports from the New York Times and The Economist further substantiate this claim as they found that one of the key aspects many high school students look forward to is the ability to choose their own courses. Yet, school would no longer hold this appeal should this recommendation be implemented.

Thirdly, such a policy would not allow students to learn about the nuances and histories of their provinces, cities, and towns. While one may credulously assume that there are few and trivial differences across a nation's various regions, this does not hold true as history has shown myriad times. For instance, the stories of the people of Ontario differ considerably from the stories of Quebec's people. By not addressing these differences, a national-level curriculum would do injustice to these histories. Furthermore, it would also likely be substantially harder for students to connect with their local and national-level communities if they are not educated about them. For example, children in Manitoba may be less inclined to engage with their province's government if the national curriculum focuses largely on Ontario's history. Perhaps, those children may feel that they are second-class citizens in Canada. Hence, such a policy would also potentially lead to less engaged, concerned, and well-rounded civilians.

Lastly, it would be fair to concede that the prompt's recommendation would enable a government to better promote equality in education, especially with regards to fundamental skills (e.g. math and English). As has been well discussed in the press and scholarly studies, there is a clear gap in the quality of children's education based on children's' income, status, and ethnicity groups. For instance, children from rich suburbs often tend to receive higher quality education than children from impecunious areas. Yet, by adopting a nation-wide curriculum for all students, it would seem that this gap would be made narrower. While this may be true, several other problems would have been created by this policy as argued earlier. Hence, the government must find a more viable approach to better filling this gap.

In summary, the educational policy of a nation-wide curriculum will likely do more damage than good. While one cannot deny the principle of equality inherent in this policy, it is likely to have devastating effects as it not only neglects children's and regions' idiosyncrasies, but also likely makes school less appealing for students. In order to have a better world, we must be able to adopt policies that help our children reach their potential. Unfortunately, this policy fails to do so.