The Curriculum & Its Ideological Conceptions

From my own experiences in school, I do not remember many hands-on and personable learning techniques. My education was likely of the Intellectual-Rationalist ideology. I remember learning by book and lecture for the most part.
Developmental needs were met within my school systems, though. When I was a young child with chronic ear infections, I did go for speech therapy with a friend of mine in Elementary school. We were taken out of class for it and all I remember of it was that it was fun and I got stickers with scents afterwards. I didn’t realize I was getting special treatment until after college when my parents told me. My total obliviousness to the inner workings of education shows just how well my Elementary school was run. Before I started High school, I took a summer preparation course there that was really just a social gathering. At the time I was extremely shy so I didn’t get much out it. I still don’t know why I was chosen to go; if my parents just thought it would be good for me or if I was an At-Risk-Student because of my mediocre grades and shyness.
Having experienced an Intellectual-Rationalist approach to education for most of my life, I now want to spread the Social-Romantic ideology with my own teaching. It’s not that I didn’t learn anything. I’m very book-smart and I do well on tests and behave in class. But I’ve found that grades and book knowledge hasn’t helped me with my jobs. I have been fired and replaced many times because of my inability to be sociable. I do have Social Anxiety Disorder and Clinical Depression. Medication can only do so much. What I really need, and wish I had received when I was still young, are social graces. Now, I’m not saying I’m rude. I’m very well mannered and polite, more than most by my observations. I just can’t for the life of me function during a conversation. I have a real difficulty talking and being sociable. Being a “people-person” is what sells. That is what an employer wants in an employee. I don’t have it, and it’s a little late in the game to be learning it.
Social-Romantic ideology teaches that the needs of the child are considered when planning a curriculum. Students are taught how to become a part of society and democracy through actual practice instead of theory. Education becomes more personable and melds more easily into the student’s life. Understanding is richer and three-dimensional. Through inquiry-based teaching, group work, field experiences, and other real-life experiences, a person is better-rounded in regards to implementing knowledge.
Focusing on test scores is not true growth. Testing has its place, but it should not be used exclusively with no regard for physical, mental, and emotional health. A student is still a human being. Students are not computers to be programmed. By focusing so much on test scores the courses on art, music, physical education, and health are deemed less important. If schools start shutting these courses out of their curriculum, as some already have, they are also shutting out imagination. It has been shown through studies that children who participate in the arts, music, sports and exercise, and eat nutritiously actually do better on tests. Schools and the government are setting our children up for failure when they cut the arts from school curriculum. Somehow, these adults have forgotten what it was like to be a child, with the need to express oneself and release stress. Somehow, these adults lost their own imagination.