Finally, our modem system of education must include:

• Our heritage languages; and
• English language skills.

Ideally, our proposed system of education will function to allow learners to:

1. learn from within their own culture, and;
2. function from within their world view and cultural values.

Specifically, we will be designing a culture-based curriculum system that integrates English language skills development.

CURRICULUM DEFINED

Curriculum... is not a concept; it is a cultural construction. That is, it is not an abstract concept which has some existence outside and prior to human experience. Rather, it is a way of organizing a set of human educational practices. (Grundy 1987, 5)²

The implications of the above definition need to be made explicit.

1. A curriculum is intentions, or plans.
2. A curriculum is not activities but plans, or a blue print, for activities. The word program will be used to refer to learner activities that result from the implementation of a curriculum.
3. A curriculum contains many other kinds of intentions, such as what learnings learners are to develop, the means of evaluation to be used to assess learning, the criteria according to which learners will be admitted to the program, the materials and equipment to be used, and the qualities required of teachers.
4. A curriculum involves formal intentions, that is, intentions deliberately chosen to promote learning.
5. As an organized set of intentions, a curriculum articulates the relationships among its different elements (objectives, content, evaluation, etc.), integrating them into a unified and coherent whole. In a word, a curriculum is a system.
   (David Pratt 1980, 4)³

² Rick Hesch, Teacher Education and Aboriginal Opposition in Circle Unfolds, p. 179.

³ David Pratt, Curriculum: Design and Development, Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1980.