I posed the question to my cooperating teacher about what she thought of imagination being limited by curriculums. Simplifying "schooled up" to mean giving children guidelines to follow when being asked to be creative, her and I both agreed that in our current elementary school situation, it is necessary to give children guidelines. For example, if we set out a class set of orff instruments and let the class just walk in and run over to the instruments without giving them any rules as to how to play the instruments and how to take care of the instruments, theres no telling what could happen!

In terms of the curriculum set in West Windsor - Plainsboro, there is no giant binder filled with a year's worth of lesson plans that the teachers must teach or else; their curriculum has general goals for the children to meet, such as knowing what du and du de is by the end of second grade. This sort of curriculum gives teachers the flexibility to teach in a manner that they feel suits the children best. It allows the teachers the freedom to be creative themselves to meet the needs of their students.

Another point that was made is that in the real world, there are always limitations and guidelines. A person in advertising has a specific product that he has to sell within a 30 second timeframe. There are always deadlines and schedules that have to be made once in the working world. So in a way, by giving children these guidelines, its only another means of preparing them for the world post-graduation. But then again, maybe I have it backwards. Maybe its because schools have guidelines placed in school that there are strict deadlines and limitations once in the working world.