Curriculum as Subject Matter
Curriculum as Subject Matter
The seven images at a glance
- Subject matter or content.
- Program of planned activities.
- Intended learning outcomes.
- Cultural reproduction.
- Experience.
- Discrete tasks and concepts.
- Agenda for social reconstruction.
Image 1: subject matter
- Curriculum equals the subjects taught.
- Oldest image, back to the seven liberal arts.
- Trivium: grammar, rhetoric, logic. Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music.
There is no single picture of what a curriculum is. Across the field, seven different images compete, and each one steers planning in a different direction. The full set is worth knowing before going deeper, because most arguments about curriculum are really arguments between rival images on this list.
| # | Image | Curriculum is seen as… |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Subject matter | The subjects and content to be taught |
| 2 | Planned activities | Everything planned in advance for delivery |
| 3 | Intended outcomes | The specific ends learning should reach |
| 4 | Cultural reproduction | The way a society passes on its culture |
| 5 | Experience | What the learner actually lives through |
| 6 | Discrete tasks | A set of skills and concepts to master |
| 7 | Social reconstruction | An agenda for improving society |
- Subject matter
- Planned activities
- Intended outcomes
- Cultural reproduction
- Experience
- Discrete tasks
- Social reconstruction
Curriculum as the subjects taught
The oldest and most common image equates curriculum with the subjects taught. Ask a learner what their curriculum is and they will likely name their subjects: a language or two, mathematics, science, social studies. On this image, the curriculum simply is that list.
The image runs deep in history. It goes back to the seven liberal arts of the ancient and medieval world, which were split into two groups.
The trivium held grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The quadrivium added arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Together these seven subjects were the whole course of study for an educated person, and curriculum meant exactly those subjects.
graph TD
SLA["Seven Liberal Arts"]
SLA --> TRI["Trivium"]
SLA --> QUA["Quadrivium"]
TRI --> GRA["📝 Grammar"]
TRI --> RHE["🗣️ Rhetoric"]
TRI --> LOG["🧠 Logic"]
QUA --> ARI["🔢 Arithmetic"]
QUA --> GEO["📐 Geometry"]
QUA --> AST["🔭 Astronomy"]
QUA --> MUS["🎵 Music"]
classDef sla fill:#c7d2fe,stroke:#4f46e5,color:#312e81
classDef tri fill:#fde68a,stroke:#d97706,color:#78350f
classDef qua fill:#99f6e4,stroke:#0d9488,color:#134e4a
classDef triLeaf fill:#fef3c7,stroke:#d97706,color:#78350f
classDef quaLeaf fill:#ccfbf1,stroke:#0d9488,color:#134e4a
class SLA sla
class TRI tri
class QUA qua
class GRA,RHE,LOG triLeaf
class ARI,GEO,AST,MUS quaLeaf
Educators who hold this image do careful work: they spell out the network of subjects, the meaning given to each, the knowledge needed before a subject can be studied, and the reasons the subjects at a given level fit together. Most schools today still run on this image. The curriculum arrives as a set of subjects, and not much about that has changed in a very long time.
The two groups of the seven liberal arts
The trivium is grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The quadrivium is arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Together they were the subject-based curriculum of the medieval world.
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