Reconstituting the Curriculum

Based on groundbreaking new ideas, this treatise signals a return to a rebuilding and reshaping of the curriculum as the primary tool for education

This book presents a new definition of "curriculum" and what it should consist of, with a view toward creating a more ethical, educated, and thinking person. Rather than treating students as "products" for society, this approach returns to a view of the curriculum as a tool for educating students to reason through problems, be bold in creating new solutions, and contribute to a more vibrant, just world.

The university curriculum introduced in the post-Renaissance era, dominated by doctrinal philosophy, is based on "learning" or "skill development," suitable for creating a "learned" society that would eventually serve the establishment. This curriculum has been promoted as the only form suitable for the modern education system. It has introduced a tremendous amount of tangible advancement in all fields of the structured education system. These tangible gains are often promoted as "knowledge." This has created confusion between education (acquiring knowledge) and learning, training or skill development.

This book seeks to clarify the difference between these two divergent views of education. It has been shown that the current curriculum is not conducive to increasing a student's knowledge because it is based on consolidating preconceived ideas that have been either passed on from previous generations or gained through personal experience. In most cases, this mode of cognition will not create a pathway for gaining knowledge that brings one closer to discovery. The term "education," on the other hand, is always meant to be a process of "bringing forth" one's inherent qualities and unique traits, necessary and sufficient for increasing one's knowledge.

M. Rafiq Islam has nearly 30 years of experience in teaching and research, during which time he has supervised over 150 graduate and undergraduate students and postdoctoral fellows and completed over $20 million of funded research. During his career, he has published over 700 research papers and some dozen books on topics ranging from petroleum reservoir modeling to economics. He is the founding executive editor of Journal of Nature Science and Sustainable Technology, Advances in Sustainable Petroleum Engineering Science, Journal of Characterization and Development of Novel Materials, and Journal of Information, Intelligence and Knowledge.

Gary M. Zatzman has decades of investigative journalism and research experience, dozens of articles in technical journals, and three previously published books: Sustainable Resource Development, Sustainable Energy Pricing, and Economics of Intangibles (with M.R. Islam).

Jaan S. Islam is the executive editor of Ummah Youth Journal published in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has been involved in research in the social sciences as well as technology development and has published numerous papers.