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herberteze@juno.com Fullerton, CA, USA

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SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND FELT NEEDS ACROSS CULTURES

hat needs are to be met in a school? From whose perspective are the needs to be met? How do people view their world in relation to these needs? What justifies the use of the school as a means for meeting felt needs? These are necessary questions to be addressed in planning school curriculum.

Curriculum has been defined as all learning experiences and purposeful activities provided and directed by a school for carrying out its determined objectives (O.F. Nwachukwu 1998:56). Felt needs are "needs or wants that people have a strong urge to satisfy"(Charles H. Kraft 1989:34-35). Felt needs as defined by Kraft usually arise from certain conditions such as hunger, loneliness, inability, uncertainty, and so on. These conditions create the strong desire and urge for satisfaction that we refer to as felt need. Need may be felt or projected through advertisement. Elliston and Kauffman write that projected need is a need that a person "has not perceived or seen yet" (1993:189). This is a need presented by the planner of a project or an advertiser of a product to a client or consumer that the later had not earlier felt as a need. It is a need from the viewpoint of the planner or advertiser not from the innate experience of the client. However, it is projected to create in the client or customer a feeling that it is needed. The advertiser's motive for projecting the need may be for selfless and honest service, or it may be profit driven for selfish ends.

Ronald G. Havelock says that "individual human needs are the basic 'why' for knowledge utilization and they must always stand foremost in our consideration of dissemination and utilization phenomena" (1971:2:11). Schooling should be concerned with what people need. The school curriculum should be oriented to people's needs. Basic needs for survival and security are general to all peoples across cultures, but people's assumptions on what should be done with knowledge vary among different peoples and cultures. Among the tribal groups in Africa (Mubi, Adamawa State, Nigeria as case study), traditionally, knowledge is for perpetuating and strengthening group existence. The group is more significant than the individual. It is good and necessary to know social customs and stories of the old times (Faw 1973:44). Honor and respect are important and must be shown to elders (Marguerite G. Kraft 1977:67). Group worldview is a common orientation in Africa and of the third world countries.

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In Western individualistic societies, the individual may have more authority than the group. Respect and honor to elders are not important. The emphasis is on the present and future, not on the past. Learning is more theoretical by formal schooling. Differences in people's orientation lead to differences in their values and felt needs. Therefore, the school curriculum should be oriented to differences in people's needs. It is sad that very often the values and needs of a more powerful and dominant culture are imposed on minority groups without regard and care over their cultural orientation and felt needs. A curriculum for their schooling, foreign to their needs and aspirations, is prescribed by some authorities in a dominant culture.

Alan Beals writes of "the reactions to the threats posed by powerful alien or dominant cultures to the continuity and integrity of less powerful cultural systems" (1973:331). I reason that these reactions arise from differences in assumptions and felt needs. When the assumptions and values of the dominant cultures are imposed on the minorities without regard to values and felt needs which derive from their cultural orientation, conflict is the natural result whether in the school context, at the work place or in society. Beals observes that although the minorities have adjusted through adaptation or by accommodation in an attempt to get along with the situation, no matter how threatening it may be, there is a new spirit of rebellion on the part of submerged minorities all over the world (1973:331). The civil rights movements in America among the minority blacks and the nationalistic movements among the third world countries who cried for independence from Western colonial countries are examples.

Beals describes the rebellious movements as assertive, separatist, and nationalistic, demanding rather than adjusting. He cites their activities in the protest marches and delegations to the state and provincial legislatures of the United States and Canada, as well as the federal governments in these countries and refers to them as "power movements" (1973:331). The protests of the rebellious movements included reactions against actual treatment of minorities in school textbooks. Spindler writes that: The American Council of Education (ACE) compared actual treatment of minority groups in text books with stated democratic ideals in the United States. Their findings are discouraging. They found that the "overwhelming majority of the text books perpetuated notions of white Anglo-Saxon…superiority over …blacks in particular" (1974:533).

The neglect of the minority groups in schooling in relation to their felt needs is illustrated in the above text. If the notions or assumptions of a powerful and dominant group are perpetuated and imposed on minorities without regard to their orientation, values, and felt needs, it is a situation that needs to be redressed in the interest of all. Textbooks can be used in school to perpetuate segregationist values and attitudes. It is a very important factor of consideration in meeting the needs of a community through schooling. Spindler writes that there is a difference between a book for general readership and the one accepted for classroom use. In the first case, the individual has a choice, but in the latter case "the student has no choice. He is compelled to study from an approved book" (1974:506). If the approved book is only about the notions, values, and aspirations of a certain powerful group without regard to others, then schooling becomes mis-education for some, not education for all. There is no doubt that school plays a strategic role in every society for the transmission of an officially acceptable body of knowledge, but the curriculum should be designed in relation to the aspirations and felt needs of the cultural groups in the society.

A similar situation in Africa, from the Mubi case study in Adamawa State, Nigeria, is the control of the alien Fulani Muslims whose political dominance is a threat to the tribal groups in Mubi (M.G. Kraft 1977:18). The less powerful tribal groups in Mubi rebel against the Fulani control and seek a different ideology to articulate their views and a different power structure to give them a base for projecting their image and for voicing their concerns and needs. They express a felt need for a kind of schooling in Mubi that meets their needs and aspirations. They need a school that will include people and treat them equally, irrespective of their tribal and religious differences. The Muslim schools are favored and supported by public funds by Islamic regimes in the state to serve the political agenda of Fulani Muslims. Wilson Sabiya expressed this concern in Adamawa State, Nigeria, while addressing the injustices of government in taking over former mission schools from the church in order to serve a hidden parochial agenda. He lamented that government took over mission schools, but at the same time used state funds to establish many Islamic schools. Sabiya writes in reaction as follows: "We are citizens of one country and we should in all fairness be treated equally" (1992:7). To be treated equally in meeting needs through a school program is to be inclusive and fair to all. To achieve this, it is important to understand the socio-political and cultural context in relation to differences in people's background in planning a school program.

The following are questions suggested by Havelock for change agents as a starting point for meeting needs: "Where is the concern located? Who has it? How strongly is it felt? How can we determine if this is the right starting point or the proper rallying cry for the action?" (Havelock with Zlotolow 1995:43). The question on where the concern is located is about context. The question of who has the problem is meant to understand the person in relation to their experience and worldview orientation. The question of how to determine the right starting point is related to felt need. In relation to education in Mubi, the right starting point includes the people's felt need for a non- parochial school- one that does not discriminate in terms of religion, tribal affiliation or gender. Education planners must seriously take this into consideration. A situation where the government imposes the notions of one powerful group on minority groups without regard to their felt needs is unfair and makes a mockery of school curriculum as it serves the parochial agenda of a powerful group while minority groups are mis-educated and enslaved.

Kids at Evangel Academy, Mubi - a non discriminatory Christian school

Havelock provides a theoretical basis for school planners to ask questions about context, worldview, and felt needs. However, this approach may appear naturalistic without any clear indication of God's perspective in the planning. The spiritual component of the person receiving education may be neglected. Elliston writes that "The needs of the community and requirements for effective Christian development ministry should be the starting place for defining and planning development in education" (1989:213). Elliston's approach brings a biblical perspective to education planning although it needs elaboration. The question is, does a biblical or Christian perspective in a school mean that non-Christians who wish to enroll in the school should not be admitted? If God so loved the world that He has opened His heart and arms in love to present His Son patiently to all for salvation, would it be un-Christian to admit non-Christians to a Christian school if they have a felt need to attend. If Islamic schools are parochial and refuse to admit non-Muslims, shouldn't Christian schools make a difference to show that in Christ, there is no discrimination in race or tribe (Jew or Gentile), status or gender (Galatians 3:28). A certain Muslim in Mubi informed me that he and his wife were products of a Christian school at Numan in Adamawa State, Nigeria (Usman 1994- full name concealed for protection). With this past memory on how their felt needs for schooling were met by the Christian school, they enrolled their two children in a Christian school in Mubi. Though the couple are Muslims, they preferred to enroll their kids in a Christian school that met their felt need for the kind of education they desired for their children.

In brief review, Havelock's position is that "individual human needs are the basic 'why' for knowledge utilization, and they must always stand foremost in our consideration" (1971:2-11). Havelock's view indicates the importance of orienting schooling to people's worldview and felt needs. Elliston brings a biblical perspective to community needs in planning education (1989:213). Both Beals and Spindler state that education planners should take cultural diversity in a society into consideration to guard against imposing the notions of a powerful group on minorities- an injustice which has both severe consequences on the curriculum of oppressed people and a threat to peace and harmony.