Unofficial Curriculum:An Exploration Of Approaching-masters Curriculum Development

We are invited by Shanghai Wenlai Middle School to develop a curriculum called "Approaching Masters" which aims to inspire the adolescence students to form positive life and values. Through literature reviewing, I find a framework to analyze the management mechanism, course level and development model of the curriculum "Approaching Masters". On this basis, I will try to discover the differences between unofficial curriculum and official curriculum in this paper.It is an action research by which we collect materials and find, reflect and solve problems in developing curriculum. The research focuses on the curriculum standards, teaching designs, class records, after-class reflections and students’ works. The framework of Objective Model is applied to describe the origin of ideas, the formulation of objectives, the selection and organization of content, the implementation and the evaluation of the curriculum "Approaching Masters". And then the uniqueness of unofficial curriculum development will be revealed.The research shows that almost all of existing curriculum development theories are related to the official curricula. They can’t enough to be applied to the unique practice of such unofficial curricula as "Approaching Masters". Firstly, unofficial curriculum seems to belong to the school-based curriculum, but in fact it is different from that. Its development and implementation bodies are neither school teachers nor officials, but some people or groups from unofficial force. Secondly, due to the implementer of the course is also the designer, unofficial curriculum has not a clear linear relationship which is from "ideological curricula" to "official curricula" to "teachers perceived and practical curricula" to "students experiential curricula", but presents an nonlinear relationship of interaction. Thirdly, unofficial curriculum appears to be Objective Model developed by Taylor, but in fact it’s not. It is constantly revised and adjusted in the process of curriculum development. The unofficial curriculum development can take other models into account, so it is a comprehensive model.