Curriculum Development

There are no two ways about it: Developing curriculum for your HEMA school is hard.

Developing curriculum for any given discipline is difficult, regardless of whether it’s blacksmithing, or sword fighting, or brain surgery, or anything in between. Figuring out how to break down a certain skill into its component parts, how to present them in a logical fashion, and how to drill those individual skills, is very difficult. Learning how to create a curriculum that allows students to put back together the component parts you taught them into a whole that creates a newly learned action is even more difficult. 

Having the elevated view and awareness to see how all of the various pieces fit together best and then flow to create a learning experience is no easy task. Keep in mind there is an entire field of study, pedagogy, which is aimed at figuring out how people learn and how to teach, and there are people who spend their entire professional lives learning how to best craft curricula.

So, if you’re just a guy or gal who really loves HEMA and wants to teach others but is struggling with how best to do that, don’t feel bad. This is a really, really hard nut to crack.

But the problem is, without a well-developed curriculum, your teaching is likely to devolve into a chaotic series of informational patches. You teach this bit of information because you know it's important, and then perhaps that bit because it is also important.  Then, later, you go back to fill in a few of the bits that should have been between those two, then go back to something really basic, and then...and by then your students are so confused and frustrated that they leave your teaching, perhaps HEMA altogether.

That'd be a damn shame, wouldn't it? So to help you craft a well-made curriculum, today we'll be discussing some concepts you can use the next time you try to put together a coherent series of lessons plans.

Before we go any further, let’s put a few things out there: We at the BWHFC do not claim to be masterful teachers, nor do we claim to put together utterly perfect curricula. We are not and we do not. Our curricula, like any good plan, matures and evolves over time, so we in no way hit the ball out of the park the very first time. Ever.

But, I will say that we as a club are fortunate because once, long ago, I myself did plan to be a high school teacher and I do have a degree in education. While this doesn’t make me an expert in curriculum development it does give me a leg up in understanding how people learn, and what they need to make sure the lessons stick. I’ve been able to take some of that knowledge and pour it into the curricula I’ve created, so it is these experiences and approaches I’d like to share with you today.

Essentially what I’d like you to have is a template you can use to create a curriculum for any weapon system, so hopefully, you won't feel like you have to figure this out on your own. This obviously won’t be a weapons-specific process of developing curricula, nor is it a step-bt-step process, but rather a big picture approach that’ll allow you to, at the very least, know where to begin.

So, with all that being said, here is the overall approach we use when developing a new curriculum:

View everything from the point of view of the New Student 

This person is so important to your school, to the curriculum you’re developing, and to the growth of HEMA in general, that he or she gets a capitalized name: New Student. The New Student is the one who is very eager to learn the skills you are offering but isn’t entirely sure which end of a sword to use in the fight. The New Student is the one who truly believes Hollywood accurately captures historical sword fights. The New Student may, sometimes, be the one who has played a few video games set in the Medieval era and so now considers themselves to be a weapons expert.

In short, the New Student is enthusiastic but clueless. It is that cluelessness that very often hampers people who are trying to develop curricula because what seems perfectly obvious to them may seem like high-level magic to the New Student. The cluelessness makes many skilled fencers scratch their heads because they’re explaining something that to them is perfectly obvious and with complete clarity, yet nonetheless, the New Student is still clearly perplexed. This would be a case in which things were not broken down nearly enough.

When trying to break things down for the New Student keep asking yourself “Is this broken down far enough? Can the pieces get smaller? Is it obvious yet?” If not, break things down further. The further you are able to break things down the easier it will be for the New Student to digest each chunk of information, and then synthesize all of the various pieces back into one useful whole. Don’t assume the New Student will “just know” anything, and it is typically better to assume they know nothing at all. That way everyone can start off on the same page and you can approach teaching with already having the information well-broken down.

Determine what the internal logic of your curriculum is 

This is a vital aspect of any curriculum because it is the thread that ties everything together. Without this, you tend to wind up with a few scattered lessons that offer a smattering of information, none of which will make sense from the point of view of a New Student.

Internal logic is vitally important to creating a satisfying sense of having learned something. It helps things make sense to the students, New or otherwise. Each individual lesson should have an internal logic, while the curriculum as a whole absolutely must have one (and just for the sake of clarity, the lesson is what you teach in each class, while the curriculum is the overarching collection of lessons used to teach one specific art; the use of curriculum in this context might not be totally accurate in relation to modern education systems, but it works for our purposes).

To help explicate this, let's take a look at some of our own lessons from our longsword novice curriculum. In lesson two we start studying movement. We study the Triangle Step, Advancing/Retreating Step, Passing Step, Springing Step, Gathering Step, and the Compass Step. Each of these vital skills is linked, logically, with one another. By the end of this lesson, the students will have an improved sense of movement and understand how and when to use the different steps.

However, internal logic has us make sure this lesson is linked to the one before it and after it. Therefore, in lesson one, we had previously introduced the Triangle Step without going into detail about it when we first introduced the Vier Leger and the Oberhau, Unterhau, and Mittelhau. This allowed us to begin these fundamental concepts without bogging down in the detail of movement, but still provided the students with something familiar when we get to moving. In lesson three, we begin to study concepts regarding distance, measure, timing, and tempo, which now allows all of these nascent skills to be woven together to create something new.

Perhaps needless to say, these lessons are just glimpses into what is a much larger chain of internal logic. Each point supports the one following and is supported by the one preceding it, all of which is bound together in a complete package designed to teach the basics of Longsword fencing. 

And finally...

Plan for realistic outcomes

We all want our students to be as good as possible. However, if we don't set realistic outcomes for them there will likely be little sense of accomplishment. Worse, your course won't really accomplish anything at all because you never had a target goal in mind. 

This is why we've broken down the Longsword courses into three different ones, with different goals, demands, expectations, etc. In the novice course, it'd be unrealistic to expect the students to use the Meisterhauen with complete ease and grace. It is, however, realistic to introduce the Meisterhauen to the students at that level, to drill them in the master cuts, and to expect that they'll have some understanding of what they are and how they're used. 

Setting realistic outcomes set yourself up for success. If you find you have lofty goals, by all means, pursue those goals for your students, but realize it might work better if you plan on a multi-tiered approach where the more challenging skills are put off until later. 

Together with this, I would also say comes the idea of setting specific learning goals for the overall curriculum, ie: "By the end of this course, students will be able to..." as well as learning goals for each individual lesson. Here, for instance, are the learning goals in our novice class for lesson five: 

"Develop basic understanding of each of the five Meisterhauen.

Demonstrate basic understanding the tactical applications of each Meisterhau.

Be able to demonstrate basic understanding of the Zornhau.

Be able to demonstrate basic understanding of the Krumphau.

Be able to demonstrate basic understanding of the Zwerchhau.

Be able to demonstrate basic understanding of the Schielhau.

Be able to demonstrate basic understanding of the Scheitelhau."

As you can see, nothing overly detailed or special, but it gets the point across. I will know by the end of lesson five if we accomplished our goals, and if not I will have some patch-up work to do before we can get into the details of lesson six. Outcomes and goals provide you a roadmap for success with your curriculum, so let them guide you to where you want to be. 

This is far from an exhaustive list, but at the very least it gives you the beginning of a template. You can use this template as a way to wrap your mind around how to create a curriculum, and then how to pass on your love for our HEMA skills/

Have you developed a curriculum. How'd it go? Was it fairly easy or kind of a trainwreck? Are there tricks or skills you'd at to this template? If so, what are they?

Stay loose and train hard!

-- Scott