The best and worst curriculums

The best teachers understand that curriculum is not something that some distant authority publishes and mails to the school so that the teacher may merely deliver it to the students.

Instead, the best teachers understand that the best curriculums are co-created with students so that they may construct an understanding for themselves from the inside while interacting with their environment.

This is precisely why curriculum guides should be exactly that -- a guide. Never doubt that a thoughtful teacher and an engaged student can learn together; indeed, it's the only way real learning has ever really happened.