Understanding Through Context

The ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated that future conflicts may be fought in multiple domains and consist of many interconnected systems. As such, Army officers must possess a firm understanding of their operational environment and how military operations change that operational environment. With the introduction of PMESII-PT into doctrine, the Army identified eight systems that its says comprise the operational environment. While changes to doctrine often reflect reality in the field, they often drive changes in the Army's education system. Such a change is necessary at the Command and General Staff Officer course. Currently, the CGSOC curriculum is integrated vertically, where courses and lessons relate to the academic department in which they are contained. When examined from a student's perspective, the CGSOC looks very different. One consequence of focusing on integrating the curriculum vertically makes horizontal integration more problematic. On the same day, students may attend a leadership lesson on "Battle Command and Decision Making" followed by a history lesson on "The Soviet-German Conflict." While each of these lessons relates logically back to the curriculum established by the various departments, they do not necessarily relate to each other. What is lost on the student is a sense of context. Instead of contributing to the student's understanding of the material, curriculum organization often detracts from such an understanding. Such a problem is not isolated to the CGSS. Many academic institutions are currently reorganizing their curriculums to better facilitate student understanding. One method that has been adopted by liberal arts undergraduate institutions, business schools, and medical schools is the thematic-based curriculum. Thematic-based curriculums organize program material around central themes that academic departments interpret and adapt to their individual courses and lessons. Such an approach imparts on the student