… and an inch deep. That is how our curriculum is categorized in the United States. That is certainly how I feel about our curriculum. In other countries, they choose to cover far fewer topics, but at greater depth.

What makes more sense? Know a little about a lot, or know a lot about less? I tend to think knowing more about a single or a few subjects would be more beneficial. Most of our topics are so complex that a student would fail to see the intricacies without spending time with the subject.

If we just look at the field of biology (easy for me to do), and grab a textbook off the shelf, we would see that for a semester long course there are 20 chapters – impossible. The Human Anatomy & Physiology Society came up with outcomes for the year-long A&P sequence; it was over 40 pages of outcomes – absurd.

I think we need to take a long, hard look at how we see our own subjects (mine is the best, by the way) and really think about what we can cut out and what is important. This is an easy thing to say, but hard to put in practice. What do you leave behind? It’s all so cool!

Nonetheless, my A&P text has yet to get thinner… I believe it is high-time we started thinking about how we can lessen the “load” and really teach students about broad, complex concepts in a meaningful way, and not worry so much about covering what is in the latest edition of the text. Just covering material is a frustration for our students as they will lack the true understanding they need to apply these complex concepts in the real world.