Curriculum Integration

Even though this article was written in 1979 I was surprised with the amount of reference it has to the current curriculum decisions at my school. We started a Humanities program last year. This program was the integration of reading, English, and history. The prior curriculum has three different sets of state standards. The humanities program is formed from the history curriculum and then modified to include and solve problems using reading and English. When looking at this curriculum I wonder if the result is greater than the sum of the parts. I would think that the measure of the result would be student performance. If that is true, then how do you measure that the result is greater? I don’t think that the state standards are modifiable enough to include these changes.
I think that the mathematics and physics discussion avoided the idea of letting the mathematics get a little messy. In an ideal situation physicals is modified in the set up to be the perfect scenario. These will always the mathematical computations to work perfectly. If the desire is to create a full integration, scenarios should allow for realistic conditions. This would cause more variable, matching the mathematics a little more difficult but not impossible.
True curriculum integration would take additional time. Curriculum needs to be flexible enough to allow for detours of exploration. Following an exact curriculum map would be difficult. I think effective curriculum integration would require multiple instructors who can work together as an effective team. These teams would need to have the knowledge of the integrated curriculums and the desire to explore the variety of ways those curriculums can affect each other. I think that concepts can be started in any disciple and explore in another.