The Ingredients of a Sound Cirriculum

The latest book I'm reading is called Home Style Teaching by Raymond and Dorothy Moore. It has lots of gems in it to quote, but I'll just put the one that I read today. This book is focused on teachers in schools, as well as parents at home, and sums up what things are most important in teaching children in various settings. To quote from the curriculum chapter: (I will italicize what I think is most important)

"A common mistake made by some educators is to think of the curriculum only in terms of the basic skills, liberal arts and sciences, and similar so-called academic studies. But this would be like trying to bake a loaf of well-risen bread without yeast. Perhaps the most important ingredients of our curriculum should be those factors that make up sound character- integrity, dependability, industry, initiative, order and concern for others more than self. Of what use is a student brilliant in sciences or a genius in mathematics if he has not learned to practice the Golden Rule? ....

"Dr. Florence Stratemeyer of Columbia University, at the time considered the nation's leading curriculum authority, once said:
"The education that consists in the training of memory only and which tends to discourage self direction and independent thought has a moral bearing which is too little appreciated. The student tends to look to his peers instead of to sound behavioral standards. As this student sacrifices the power to reason and to judge for himself, he becomes incapable of discriminating between truth and error, and falls easy prey to deception. It is a fact widely ignored, though never without danger, that error rarely appears for what it really is."

"It is crucial in the development of the curriculum that both the teacher and the student have some idea why each is doing what he is doing. There must be some absolutes, lest the teacher or student be like waves which are driven and tossed by the wind. Most of us are easily led to follow tradition and customs. We adults, too, have become afflicted with the social cancer of peer dependency."

"For curriculum goes far beyond the 3 R's, ABC's and normal requirements for health and safety; it must center on the character education of the child. When this takes place, all the conventional items follow...Books are less important than practical and manual work, and service to others in the home, community and nation. No curriculum builds self-worth without this balance, nor does it bring fulfillment so complete."