ECS 210 Curriculum as a cultural and social practice

September 18, 2015

Why different understandings of

curriculum? The curriculum and its historical

roots: The traditionalists

This class invites you to critically think about:◦ Why are there different understandings of

curriculum (i.e., definitions and approaches)? ◦ Why some understandings of curriculum are better

known than others? ◦ Identify the values, beliefs, goals and purposes of

education that different understandings of curriculum endorse.

◦ What understanding of curriculum you seem to endorse? How these understandings are likely to shape the teacher you want to be and the teacher you can be?

Objectives:

Curriculum The word curriculum has its roots in the Latin

word currere, which means a course to be run, referring to a formal course of study that the students follow.

The idea of curriculum has always existed; however, the idea of curriculum development (the careful planning of school learning) is relatively new.

Why different understandings of curriculum? Why some definitions

become common knowledge?

The founding of the curriculum field and the idea of curriculum development

Franklin Bobbitt (1876 – ?)Considered the father of the field of curriculum studies

1918

Professor of educational administration whose speciality was making systems more efficient.

Endorser of the efficiency movement, a school of thought that sought to identify and eliminate waste in all areas of the economy and society (and education was not the exception) through the development and implementation of best practices.

Bobbitt approached curriculum as a managerial system that if well-implemented would succeed in meeting societal needs.

Who is Franklin Bobbitt?

"Education is a shaping process as much as the manufacture of steel rails."

John Franklin Bobbitt

Are Bobbit’s ideas over?

Bradford L. SmithMicrosoft Executive Vice President

“The future of the economy depends on getting people with the right skills to match the next generation of jobs.”

Debating the purpose of schoolsWorld Economic Forum, Global Risks,

Switzerland, 2011

Curriculum development as a product

Ralph Tyler (1902-1994), 1949behavioral psychologist

Ralph Tyler and The Eight-Year Study

1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?

2. What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes?

3. How can educational experiences be effectively organized?

4. How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained? (Tyler, 1949, p.1).

Tyler’s rational

1949

Ralph Tyler advised president Harry Truman (1945–53) on reforming the curriculum at the service academies in 1952.

Under president Dwight Eisenhower (1953 – 1961), Ralph Taylor chaired the President’s Conference on Children and Youth.

The Lyndon Johnson Administration (1963–1969) used Tyler’s advice to shape many of its education bills and programs.

Commonsensical ideas about curriculum

Is Tyler’s conception of curriculum development a thing of the past? What may be some problems with his linear conception of curriculum?

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-clock-bomb/