This study analyzes the practical manifestations of curriculum literacy among pre-service teachers as they interpret and implement the 2022 Revised National Curriculum, drawing on qualitative analysis of microteaching lesson plans, instructor feedback, and peer evaluations from 28 third-year pre-service teachers, who designed lessons for the elementary social studies unit ‘Diverse Environments and Ways of Life.’ The analysis was conducted across four dimensions: interpretation of achievement standards,, content composition and material selection, instructional activity design, and curriculum continuity and change. The findings reveal that while pre-service teachers made meaningful attempts to reflect the curriculum’s new intentions—such as applying a continuum-based spatial perspective and utilizing authentic regional data—they simultaneously exhibited a persistent inertia of dichotomous spatial recognition. Many lesson designs regressed into the conventional ‘rural vs. urban’ binary and relied heavily on place stereotypes, failing to move beyond the simple enumeration of information despite the integration of various EdTech tools. The eight lesson designs were classified into three types: dichotomous-inertia, formal-transition, and substantive-transition. These findings suggest a significant gap between the conceptual understanding of curricular changes and their practical execution in lesson design. To bridge this gap, this study proposes that pre-service teacher education should foster a fundamental paradigm shift in spatial perspectives, such as the rural-urban continuum, and incorporate training that enables teachers to critically utilize digital tools for in-depth geographical inquiry. This research holds academic significance by capturing the raw process of curriculum interpretation by pre-service teachers in the absence of textbooks, providing foundational data for the successful implementation of future geographical curricula.