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

A topic that can be easily debated is the concept of a nation requiring all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college. Because this would mean all students would go into college with the same basic knowledge, students could still have opportunities for classes interesting to them, and this idea is already in place at the state level, I strongly agree with this statement.

From my experience, one of the major issues in a college classroom is that not every student has the same level of knowledge on day one of the courses. For example, I took a history class my freshman year of college where I had no previous knowledge regarding any of the concepts we discussed. Other students knew a plethora of information regarding the topics. This put me at a disadvantage in that particular class, and to this day that is the hardest class I have taken in college. It was so difficult for me because I only had one history class during high school and it only covered one specific span of time. Other students learned this material easier because they had already been exposed to it before entering college. If the nation required all students to study the same curriculum before they attend college, then everyone would have been exposed to the same material upon entering each course. College professors could then know what material could just be a quick review and what material needed to be taught in depth.

Another reason why I think this concept is an excellent idea is because regulating curriculum would still give students an opportunity to take courses that interest them. It could be arranged for only the core courses that will be studied by every student in college to be what is regulated across the nation. Having the core classes’ curriculum regulated would avoid the student from learning any information that the nation deems unnecessary and would not be beneficial for them to know going into college. This would leave room for students to still take courses such as fashion or sports management that may be interesting to them and their future career.

My final reason why I agree with the nation requiring students to study the same curriculum prior to college is because this is already taking place at the state level. Every state has a basic curriculum that each school in that state is required to teach and form lesson plans over. Therefore, making the curriculum nationally regulated would just be an easy transition opposed to the beginning of a whole new protocol. Also, the colleges in those states pay no attention to this information because they have students from all over the nation coming in to their programs. So having the curriculum regulated at the state level has no benefits regarding universities and student’s academic success upon high school graduation.

It could be debated that requiring all of the students in a nation to study the same curriculum would not be effective because the teachers will still be making their own lesson plans, which could allow the teacher to deviate from the required curriculum; however, each school would keep their teachers accountable for strictly following the curriculum. They would do this by having teams to work together and having administrative faculty monitor the teachers’ work as they do now to make sure the teachers are following the state required curriculum. The teachers would have the freedom to teach the material in any creative way they would like, but they would be monitored to be sure that they are teaching the correct material. So, this would not be an issue.

To conclude, I strongly agree that a nation should require all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college. I believe this would be extremely beneficial to students because they would have the same basic knowledge upon entering college, they would still have opportunities to take courses prior to college that interest them, and the change would be easy since this rule is already in place at the state level.