The Way of Integrating Art Appreciation Course into the Talent Cultivation of Tobacco Profession

Integrating the art appreciation course into the talent cultivation plan of tobacco profession has become the major way for colleges and universities to implement aesthetic education. This is also one of the reform measures of public curriculum in colleges and universities in the new era. By clarifying the concept connotation and policy requirements of the art appreciation course, and combining the talent training characteristics of tobacco profession, the construction of tobacco profession can be promoted. By doing this, on the one hand, it is conducive to consolidating the talent training plan of tobacco profession. On the other hand, it can cultivate the artistic ability of students majoring in tobacco, expand their artistic knowledge, and effectively build up their aesthetic quality and artistic level. As the consequence, the talent training quality of tobacco profession can be improved.

Curriculum for Liberation in the Neoliberal Era

In neoliberalism, an emphasis on free markets and fiscal austerity, along with a hostility to the commons and the public, coincide with an insistence on the inevitability of capitalism. In education, neoliberalism is associated with the privatization and marketization of schools and districts at the macro level, and an alienation and fragmentation at the level of curriculum, in which knowledge and teaching are reduced to a mechanized sequence of discrete items and acts. As it erodes the relationship between teachers and their work in the name of efficiency, neoliberalism transforms schools into spaces of epistemological and ontological foreclosure. In this context, an approach to curriculum is necessary that is concerned not just with the common senses that education reinforces but also with the basic possibilities for being, knowing, and agency that it makes available. Thus, the deep imbrication of racism in neoliberalism (expressed in the discourse of color-blindness and in state violence) means that in order to imagine alternatives to the latter we need to understand and interrupt the logic of coloniality that has organized capitalism from its origin, and which is intensified in the neoliberal moment. Furthermore, as the ideological work of schooling increasingly inheres in the ubiquitous rituals themselves of neoliberal accountability’s culture of constant assessment and auditing, a liberatory commitment means staging a public curriculum of collective refusal. These broad emancipatory principles suggest that, in practical terms, teachers ought to move beyond private resistance at the classroom level—a form of subversion that leaves intact the material and institutional practices that secure neoliberal governmentality—and begin to participate in larger actions against privatization, standardized testing, and budget cuts. Likewise, at the level of knowledge production, curriculum for liberation should expose the white and Western technicist rationality that undergirds neoliberal education. Affirming epistemological diversity, liberatory curriculum should prioritize non-Western texts and standpoints; explore the links between politics, culture, and spirituality; and ask what it would look like for society as a whole to start from marginalized values and understandings.

Can Zobi Build National Unity?

Chapter 5, “Can Zobi Build National Unity?,” examines the depiction of the Nigerian nation—and the calls for national unity—on Sesame Square. It explores the hopes of Sesame Square’s creators that the program could create a sense of “Nigerian-ness” among young viewers. Feelings of national pride were seen as antidotes to the ethnic and religious allegiances that were allegedly contributing to ongoing conflicts, so creators included symbols, songs, and messages celebrating Nigeria. Yet calls for viewers to be proud of their country seemed unrealistic in a context where the fragile Nigerian state is failing to provide basic services for its citizens (including education) and is indiscriminately arresting and executing thousands of Muslims. This chapter focuses on the book’s second overarching argument: that a violent public curriculum undermines messages of unity and peace.

Can Big Bird Fight Terrorism?

Chapter 6, “Can Big Bird Fight Terrorism?,” examines some creators’ hopes that messages on Sesame Square—particularly messages about school attendance, gender equality, and tolerance—could counter Boko Haram’s messages. This chapter addresses both of the book’s overarching arguments. First, as creators decided what messages northern children needed to hear to make them less susceptible to extremist ideologies, they sometimes stereotyped northerners as all being connected to Boko Haram—supporting the book’s first argument that multicultural efforts can reproduce stereotypes. Second, the public curriculum in Nigeria undermined Sesame Square’s antiterrorist messages. Moreover, some creators seemed skeptical that an iconically American educational television program could be a match for an extremist group whose name means “Western education is forbidden.” The current conflict is further eroding intergroup trust and reinforcing stereotypes between groups, making Sesame Square’s messages seem increasingly unrealistic. This chapter explores the particular challenges that terrorism poses to educational soft power efforts.

A Cross-Cultural Examination of Curriculum and Sexuality Outcomes in Primary School

In this paper, sexuality will be examined with regards to the parental attitudes as well as the public curriculum of various countries across the globe at the primary school level. The outcomes will be explored in relation to the type of education and dissemination of information provided to children and conclusions will be made based on these outcomes. The countries of Canada, the United States, Kenya, Australia and Ghana will be studied in detail. The outcomes will be looked at within some global comparison and proportions.