What Curriculum Should Be...Hmmm

Well I can't say that I have a solid answer even after reading the 3 articles. A common message that seemed to underlie all 3 articles is curriculum should be student centered. The Alvin Toffer article on edutopia.org had this to say: "you need to find out what each student loves. If you want kids to really learn, they've got to love something." The weblogg-ed article had this to say: "I think I’m finally getting to the root of my continued frustration with my kids’ education which is the system’s inability to help them find and nurture the areas they truly have passion for. It would be nice if the institution were the place that connected my kids to the experts they desired and needed to support their learning, wouldn’t it?" Finally the edutopia.org article about the virtual classroom had this to say: "Some form of blended learning -- online and in the classroom -- will likely become the norm, as students take one or two online courses to supplement their traditional schedule."

The idea of blended learning, with some learning occurring in the classroom and supplemental learning occurring online seemed an intriguing idea to me. I think this could be a solution to some budgetary problems when it comes to funding education. If I am not mistaken, Maine spends the most per pupil of any state in the nation. Where is all of this money going? I think a huge cost in Maine is the fact that we have vast rural areas requiring us to run schools with few students, but having the same heating and busing costs. Blended learning to complete online learning seems like an alternative worth looking at. Of course, just like the articles state, you have to make sure you TRAIN your teachers to do this kind of teaching. That this is important. I really don't have enough information from these articles to really give full support of this idea as a model that would work in Maine. My big question is how do you get around NCLB or integrate NCLB into this kind of model? How do you convince the "system" in Washington to change? Many of the people who lead us nationally and locally succeeded in the traditional curriculum because their very nature allowed them to. They often don't see or understand why it fails so many. Is this really as big an obstacle as I see it to be?