Provincial Curriculum

I have just returned from two days of provincial curricula presentations. It was interesting to get a glimpse into the creation of the major subject curricula for Grades 6-9. I do believe that a great amount of thought was put into developing them. I also believe that most of the writers have a great amount of subject specific knoweldge that they brought to the writing process. I also noted that there is an attempt to simplify them by creating a common framework. The are many good things about the revised curricula.
A frequent question was how do teachers not become overwhelmed by having so many new curricula given to them at once? The answer to that question was not all that satisfying. The statement was that if teachers are already following the curriculum of each subject, all they need to do is begin to become familiar with the new by reading over the new outcomes and tweak their lessons accordingly. If only life were so easy.
When we are asked to implement curricula, we always bring ourselves to the process. We make choices that are influenced by our experience, our beliefs, our teaching style, and hopefully our students. So what are we talking about as curriculum - the provincial documents or the delivery of them? Probably both, but I'm still working on it. The answer to "What is Curriculum?" is not a simple one.
The provincial leaders were very careful to use the term curriculum documents, not curriculum guides. I need to find out why that was significant to them.