Humanistic Curriculum

The learner as human being has prime significance for the Humanistic Curriculum which aims at development and realization of complete human personality of the student. The humanistic curriculum does not take student as subservient to society, history or philosophy but as a complete entity. The humanistic curriculum experts suggest that if education succeeds in development of needs, interests, and aptitudes of every individual, the students will willingly and intelligently cooperate with one another for common good. This will ensure a free and universal society with shared interests rather than conflicting ones. Thus humanists stress on individual freedom and democratic rights to form global community based on “common humanity of all people”.

The Humanistic Curriculum is based on the belief that the education that is good for a person is also best for the well being of the nation. Here, the individual learner is not regarded as a passive or at least easily managed recipient of input. S/he is the choosing or self-selecting organism. To design the Humanistic Curriculum, we have to focus on the question “What does the curriculum mean to the learner?” Self-understanding, self-actualization, and fostering the emotional and physical well being as well as well as the intellectual skills necessary for independent judgment become the immediate concern of the Humanistic Curriculum. To the humanists, the goals of education are related to the ideals of personal growth, integrity, and autonomy. Healthier attitudes towards self, peers, and learning are among their expectations. The concept of confluent curriculum and curriculum for consciousness are the important types of humanistic curriculum. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Rousseaue, Kant, and Pestalozzi are some of the great humanists of the world history.