What emotions does school bring up for you? Uninspired learning? Confusing formulas? Frustrating test results? Do you find that when you dive deep into your curiosities, learning is fun and engaging instead of mundane and monotonous?
The monthly curriculum trend exploded on TikTok after the creator Elizabeth Jean (xparmeseanprincessx) uploaded videos of her monthly self-directed learning syllabus. Many people have found that it’s healed their relationship to learning and reignited a fire that was once burned out.
You might appreciate the structure and routine of school without the negative connotation it often brings. With this monthly curriculum trend, you can engage in the positive aspects that school brings and romanticize learning without the anxiety. Much of modern learning is heavily weighted on one’s ability to memorize as opposed to truly grasping a concept. Homework, quizzes, exams, and mandatory reading make studying insufferable instead of enjoyable.
Maybe your undiagnosed ADHD or learning disability made learning on other people’s terms hell. For neurospicy folks, learning about things that are of no interest to you can elicit a visceral negative reaction. However, when learning about something you find interesting, you can get lost in flow for hours. That’s what makes the monthly curriculum trend so great: you’re following your OWN interests.
Doomscrolling-
How often do you feel like you’ve wasted a day glued to your phone? Don’t get it twisted, some days call for a bedrot/doomscroll combo, but like dessert, should be enjoyed in moderation. The monthly curriculum trend can help you feel like you have more autonomy with your life and time, instead of it slipping past you.
Spend an hour or two in your evenings learning your course material instead of binge-watching Netflix or scrolling through social media. You’ll feel more accomplished, fulfilled, and possibly fall asleep faster. Brain rot can make you feel even more unfocused and unmotivated when it comes time for you to complete tasks. This trend is the antithesis of brain rot.
Monthly Curriculum Trend Guide-
By curating your own curriculum, you can rediscover the joy of learning or continue to expand your general knowledge. You can plan out your months well in advance or follow your interests month to month. The best part about this trend is that you can completely tailor it to your liking.
Look at your month ahead and see how much you can realistically accomplish. If you have a slow month, load up your curriculum to your heart’s desire. If you have a busier month, reduce your workload and focus on just one or two subjects. As long as you have the extra time and want to expand your knowledge in 3-5 areas every month, do it!
While there are no tests or final grades for your own monthly curriculum, you can still assign yourself assignments and projects along the way. At the end of the month, if you wish, you can complete a final journal prompt to make a 1-page review of each course.
End-of-course review journal prompts:
- Was this course fulfilling?
- Did I learn a lot of things I didn’t know before?
- Would I like to dive deeper into this subject in the future?
- If someone were speaking on this subject, what are 3 points I could discuss that I’m confident I’m knowledgeable about?
- What surprised me?
- What was my favourite part of this course?
Aim to complete your courses of study during the span of the month, but since the stakes are low with no pressure, if you need to, extend your course into the next month. If you really enjoyed a specific area of study, feel free to expand on it next month. You don’t need to pick completely different subjects every month. If you desire, allow them to build upon each other. Get creative with your subjects; nothing is off limits. You can focus on a person, a country, food, wine, metaphysics, pop culture, an artist’s discography, etc.
Examples of things to add to your monthly curriculum:
- Manifestation
- Fashion throughout the years
- Astrology
- Ancient Egypt
- Baking
- Classic literature
- Work through Julia Cameron’s the artist’s way
- Coffee
- The origins of holidays
- Cocktail making
Examples of areas of study and how to test your knowledge
Baking:
- Learn the different baking methods and terminology
- Test new recipes from your cookbook
Astrology:
- Learn about houses, planets, degrees, sextiles, squares, oppositions, trines
- Find a random celebrity’s birth chart and aim to decipher it on your own
Fashion:
- Do a deep dive on the trends, colour waves, patterns, textures, shoe styles, and hair styles that were popular during each decade
- Write a 1-2 page paper on how the culture, the economy, and daily life influenced fashion throughout the different eras.
Manifestation:
- Make a vision board, write affirmations,
- Put manifestation to the test by seeing what you can manifest in your own life.
The Artist’s Way:
- Tap into your inner creativity by reading the book one chapter at a time
- Complete the weekly assignments
Coffee:
- Review the different methods and styles of coffee culture (dark roast, blonde roast, matcha, drip, caffè latte, cortado, flat white, South American, African, or Caribbean roasts)
- Make as many types of coffee as you can and note the subtle differences in taste. Find your favourite styles
Course Material-
If you want to go all out, purchase books, visit your local library, listen to audiobooks, podcasts, watch YouTube, or documentaries. This can be as expensive or as cheap a hobby as you want it to be. With the digital age, you can source so much free information.
If your topic is anything medical or scientific related, make sure the research is backed by peer-reviewed studies. If the topic is more on the fun side, research may not be as important. You may indulge in more opinion pieces. If you’re topic is baking, two successful bakers might have different opinions on which baking method is best or how many eggs a recipe needs. Taste is subjective, so one won’t necessarily be right or wrong.
Back to School Shopping-
If your favourite part of back to school was shopping for cute pens and stationery notebooks, then indulge in that. Buy pens or pencils in your favourite colours, get notebooks with cute covers, and a yearly planner. Sometimes you need to get cute gym outfits to get yourself motivated to work out, so here you might also need to invest in some cute things to get you excited for your monthly curriculum.
Monthly curriculum goals:
- Decide how much time you can realistically spend on this every day
- Choose your subjects 1-2 if you’re super busy, 3-5 if you have a more chill schedule
- Gather your supplies, write down your course materials (audiobooks, books, podcasts, movies, documentaries, YouTube interviews, etc.)
- Take notes or highlight important information
- Review course/journal prompts
Final Thoughts-
School may have been the best time of your life or the ultimate struggle. Regardless, you can revisit the theory of school, but on your own terms. Each month, pick 1-5 areas of study to explore, depending on how much time you realistically have available, and pop off smarty pants. Choose any subject that you find interesting; the world is your oyster.
Use different mediums as your course material, from books, podcasts, movies, YouTube interviews, and more. Complete your independent study at the end of the month and review. Assess the previous month to see how you’d like to approach the next month. Pick your next month’s syllabus and repeat.
Hopefully, you can reignite your love of learning with this monthly curriculum trend. Comment below and let me know what topics you’ll be exploring this month.
