Emergent Curriculum

Whereas teachers and school boards typically decide in advance what knowledge children should receive based on their age, emergent curriculum is the technique of letting topics for study arise out of student interests and actions. Curriculum becomes what actually happens, rather than what was planned to happen. After all, children design their own “curriculum” all the time, simply by playing in, exploring, and studying the world. In schools inspired by the Italian Reggio-Emilia approach, all lesson plans are tentative and open to change. Reggio-Emilia teachers believe that the interests and inquiries of the child are of equal value to those of a teacher or school board, and therefore let the students invent the topics of study. You can do this by carefully observing and documenting the children’s responses to events around them. Then, design instruction from the bottom up. For example, if you notice a construction project going on across the street from the school, bring the children outside to watch the big machines at work. This could lead to a lesson on machines or demolition or local architecture or the layers of dirt underneath them, all depending on what the children show interest in. Reggio-Emilia teachers allow students to work at their own pace, in their own way (rather than by the clock), and to redirect themselves if they are disengaged. The result is a love of learning and an explosion of motivation (Wurm, 2005).