Content I. Introduction II. Main part Approaches of Curriculum 4

The Critical Approach

Freire's theories, and the curricula that spring from them, promote critical thinking, dialogue, and decision-making activities that support democratic ideals and move toward socially critical consciousness. In developing critical curriculum, teachers must first learn about important issues in their students' lives through conversations, journaling, discussions, and lots of listening. This research enables teachers to identify issues that relate to the experiences and concerns students identify. Reading and writing skills develop in tandem with critical thinking skills, and ultimately, literacy learning becomes a means of transforming students' lives and communities (Freire's , 1985: 10). To summarize , Hemphill (1999: 2) provides such details of these approaches in app. 1.
Also, Bernstein (1996 :66 – 90) identify two distinct types of approaches to curriculum, which he calls the ‘competence’ and the ‘performance’ .

1. 
   Competence Curriculum Approach
   

Competence curriculum is interested in learner’s competences which are believed to be innate. Thus knowledge is not imposed from the outside, but the competences that learners already have are sought on the inside. So, it encourages teaching that draws from a learner’s own experiences and ‘everyday knowledge’ and, in turn, assists learners in using their new learning in their lives and work. The focus on the learner and everyday experience tends to affirm learners and build their confidence, whatever their background. It also provides the teachers and learners with important ‘ways into’ the formal ‘school knowledge’ that is to be taught, and later with the basis for applying that formal knowledge.

2. 
   Performance Curriculum Approach
   

Performance curriculum is characterized by developing high levels of understanding, often in particular subjects. As a consequence, the curriculum tends to:

1. 
   be very specific about what content must be learnt, and in what order;
   
2. 
   focus on depersonalized, formal ‘school knowledge’ rather than on everyday knowledge and experience;
   
3. 
   be more vertically organized than a competence curriculum. In other words, it builds knowledge and understanding in a specific sequence. (Each bit of knowledge becomes more complex than the previous bit of knowledge). The table 1 below summarizes what has been intimated above .