The purpose of this study is to analyze how the contents of education for sustainable development are reflected in the elementary school curriculum subjects revised in 2007, and the curriculum for discretionary activities and special activities for th...
The purpose of this study is to analyze how the contents of education for sustainable development are reflected in the elementary school curriculum subjects revised in 2007, and the curriculum for discretionary activities and special activities for the elementary school's education on sustainable development and seek out ways of improve them.
The subject of this study to achieve its purpose is as follows:
Firstly, it is to analyze how the contents of education for sustainable development are reflected in the elementary school curriculum subjects revised in 2007, and the curriculum for discretionary activities and special activities.
Secondly, it is to present the direction for the education for sustainable development in which the elementary school curriculum revised in 2007 should be improved based on its analysis.
This study was conducted through a literature review, producing the following results:
As for the result of analyzing the elementary school curriculum subjects revised in 2007, the number of activities related to education for sustainable development was greater in the order of Society, Science and the Korean Language subjects and their ratio to the entire activities is in the order of Intelligent Life, Disciplined life, Practical Arts, Society and Moral. When the education for sustainable development was examined from 3 points of view, it connoted the most the contents of social sustainability, followed by environmental sustainability and economic sustainability.
Among the 23 core contents of education for sustainable development, there was nothing related to sustainable food production. By grade, the 6th contained the greatest ratio of the contents of education for sustainable development and the 5th did the smallest one. In the discretionary activity curriculum, education for sustainable development was specified as the subject of pan-curriculum learning and nearly most of it contained the contents of education for sustainable development. As for special activity curriculum, 18 of 25 activities contained the contents of education for sustainable development.
The way of improving the elementary school's education for sustainable development is as follows:
Firstly, as education for sustainable development is specifically set forth as a pan-curriculum learning in the curriculum revised in 2007, the textbook research and writing team should write textbooks with the contents of education for sustainable development selected as the subject matter education based on the analysis of the elementary school's curriculum revised in 2007.
Secondly, the contents of education for sustainable development should be reflected in the process of organizing the curriculum for the first-line school in a positive manner. The discretionary activity of the curriculum of the elementary school revised in 2007 is to be operated with only creative discretionary activities during all of its given time of 68 hours. Thus, in organizing the curriculum, education for sustainable development that contains all of the subjects of pan-curriculum learning should be picked as a creative discretionary activity and operated. Since the contents of education for sustainable development is distributed relatively evenly in special activity curriculum across the board, special activity curriculum should be reorganized from the standpoint of education for sustainable development in the elementary school to activate education for sustainable development
Thirdly, textbooks such as teachers' guidebooks and workbooks for education for sustainable development, a pan-curriculum learning, should be developed and distributed to the first-line schools. If elementary school teachers' guidebooks and workbooks for the education for sustainable development are distributed to the first-line schools, the schools will increasingly choose education for sustainable development as a creative discretionary activity in schools. Teachers who get interested in education for sustainable development can operate it as a developmental activity or graft it on to the related contents when they teach ordinary subjects.
The analysis of the elementary school curriculum revised in 2007 has a meaning as the framework for activating education for sustainable development. Thus, authors, researchers, education administrators, teachers and people from all walks of life are required to aggressively participate in and make efforts toward education for sustainable development.