It is interesting to observe, at this point, that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes and pronounces upon such matters as the environment in which the school is set, the methods to be adopted by the teacher, the qualities that the teacher must possess, how the school is to be organised and how the child’s education should continue at home. Clearly, then, a curriculum is a complex, multi-stranded matter.

A curriculum springs from a way of looking at the world, from how reality is constructed by those who draw up curricula. A curriculum reflects the most profound and most cherished assumptions about the universe that its makers maintain. As L. D’hainaut writes in "Curricula and Lifelong Education" (1981):

A Bahá’í curriculum will therefore reflect the beliefs and assumptions that Bahá’í curriculum makers hold. This must cause us to examine the nature of our beliefs and assumptions. What is our concept of the Bahá’í Faith? A paper on "The Spiritualization of Education" in "Trends in Bahá’í Education" (1990) writes:

The paper goes on to say:

Naturally, a Bahá’í curriculum should reflect these values and notions and ways of operating. It does not stop there, as the paper continues:

Furthermore, the sacred writings and authoritative pronouncements of our Faith elaborate more specifically on how that education should be carried out and of what it should consist.

A curriculum, then, provides educators of children and youth, whether parent or teacher, older family member or club leader, with a vision toward which they may strive with those under their care, with an insight and depth of understanding as to the purpose of all their educational activities.

A curriculum is a rigorous, all-encompassing, overarching construct which contains every important element to which the children are to be exposed in their unfolding development toward adulthood and other-worldly existence.

A curriculum provides the theological, the theoretical and pedagogical basis for all that we do within and beyond the Bahá’í classroom. It links our notions of what the Faith is to what should be taught to the children and youth at home, at school or in any other context.

A curriculum provides a complete picture of education, allowing us to grasp the totality and to see the relationship of all the parts to the whole.

A syllabus is a different creature entirely. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary describes it in this way:

Put very simply, a syllabus is a list. It is a list of the topics or themes to be taught within a given subject. A syllabus is derived from a curriculum. Where a curriculum is theoretical, a syllabus is practical. Where a curriculum is general, a syllabus is specific. A curriculum provides the underlying rationale for what is to be taught; a syllabus describes the contents and order of what is to be taught. If the curriculum is strategy, the syllabus is tactics.

To put it another way, we can look at the science of Architecture. To build a house we need a plan - the architectural drawings, which set out the dimensions and manner of construction of the building. Without the plan, the drawings, we cannot construct the house properly. The building would be haphazard, lop-sided, liable to collapse, even dangerous to use. The house in this case is the syllabus. The plans or drawings are the curriculum. To extend the analogy, the decoration and furnishings of the house are the lessons themselves. And, like the decoration and furnishings, the lessons are devised according to the personal tastes of the teacher. You cannot paint or furnish a house that is not yet built, nor can you build it without previously setting out the plan. First, therefore, comes the curriculum, then the syllabus and finally the individual lessons. The effectiveness of an education system depends largely upon how carefully and systematically this process is followed. Simple and obvious though this may be, it can be easily overlooked by those preparing systems of education. Another example:

The Elements of a Diet: ( THIS IS A SYLLABUS )
give specific examples of foodstuffs for each category,
e.g. carbohydrates include
bread, cakes, biscuits, cereals, potatoes, pastry, batter, honey, jams, etc.

Individual Meals: (THESE ARE LESSON PLANS )
could be made up of :
beans on toast, roast beef and trimmings, curried chicken and rice, pizza and salad, fish and chips.

To use a Bahá’í example, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s "Tablets of the Divine Plan" are the blueprint for all global and regional or national teaching plans drawn up by Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice. The Tablets of the Divine Plan are the curriculum - the source and impetus for the various plans drawn up subsequently. These subsequent plans are each a syllabus, drawn up for a specific time and place.

A curriculum, then, is a giant storehouse or refrigerator from which we may derive the menus of many different syllabi. Using all the elements contained in the curriculum, we may make more or less detailed syllabi with certain emphases, either in terms of subject matter or approach.

What we must not do is to mistake an anthology of verse for the whole canon of English Poetry. If we provide only a syllabus, in place of a curriculum, we are giving our teachers and pupils a bag full of jumbled jigsaw pieces. They need the box with the picture on its lid to show them where the pieces go and how they fit together in relation to each other. That way the puzzle has a meaning and is more fun to work on.