Ralph W. Tyler: "The Tyler Rationale" Tyler divided his book, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, into five sections. Each of the first four sections is titled with a question. 1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain? 2. How can learning experiences be selected which are likely to be useful in attaining these objectives? 3. How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction? 4. How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated? In the first section of his book, Tyler explains that one of the main problems with education is that educational programs "do not have clearly defined purposes." These "purposes" as he describes them should be translated into educational objectives. This objective-based approach to evaluation is at the core of what Tyler proposes. His approach to evaluation followed these steps: 1. Establish broad goals or objectives. 2. Classify the goals or objectives. 3. Define objectives in behavior terms. 4. Find situations in which achievement if objectives can be shown. 5. Develop or select measurement techniques. 6. Collect performance data. 7. Compare performance data with behaviorally stated objectives. Discrepancies in performance would then lead to modification and the cycle would begin again. Ralph Tyler describes education as "an active process". "It involves the active efforts of the learner himself."
949 Instruction Ralph W. Tyler Publishes Basic Publishes Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction Basic Principles of of Curriculum and and Instruction, Ralph W. Tyler could not have suspected that his With the publication of Basic little book of only eighty-three pages would make such an indelible mark on the field of curriculum theorizing, as well as on teaching practices in the American public schools. In 1949, T yler probably could not have predicted that in time he would become the most prominent name in curriculum studies in the United States, either. Yet, this is exactly the course his career would take through the mid-twentieth century.
A student of Charles Judd at the University of Chicago, Ralph W. T yler graduated with a Ph.D. in 1927. Approximately ten years later, he went on to fill a prominent position on the Eight Year Study as the Director of Research for the Evaluation Staff. In this position, Tyler initially formulated his approach to education research which was grounded in the belief that successful teaching and learning techniques can be determined as a result of scientific study. By applying such methods during the Eight Year Study, Tyler soon determined that evaluation of student behaviors proved to be a highly Recording Student Progress, Progress, Tyler appropriate means for determining educational success or failure. In Appraising and Recording wrote: Any device which provides valid evidence regarding the progress of students toward educational objectives is appropriate...The selection of evaluation techniques should be made in terms of the appropriateness of that technique for the kind of behavior to be appraised (Tyler, cited in Pinar, p. 136).
Page 1 of 11
Here we see the beginnings of Tyler's thoughts on the relevance of behavioral objectives to the teaching process. In other words, Tyler came to believe that any le arning objective needed to be determined via student behavior in the classroom. In time, such objectives would mark the cornerstone of curriculum decision-making and teaching strategies for the American public schools. A decade after completing his work with the Eight Year Study, Tyler was prepared to formalize his thoughts on educational research and behavioral objectives with the publication of Basic Basic Principles Principles of Curriculum Curriculum and Instruction. In this short text that was originally the syllabus for one of his courses at the University of Chicago, Tyler expanded upon concepts he began to formulate during the Eight Year Study. Specifically, this work focused on the administrative aspects of the curriculum and called for the application of four basic principles in the development of any cur ricular project. These four basic principles include: 1. Defining appropriate learning objectives. 2. Establishing useful learning experiences. 3. Organizing learning experiences to have a maximum cumulative effect. 4. Evaluating the curriculum and revising those aspects that did not prove to be effective. As a result of the basic principles, the role of the curricularist and teacher shifted to that of scientist. In the development of any curriculum using the Tyler method, hypotheses are to be established in direct relation to the expected learning outcomes for students. As the curriculum is enacted, teachers and curricularists become scientific observers, determining determining whether or not their curricular hypotheses are in f act demonstrated by student behavior. Following the application of the curriculum, educators return to the curricular plans to make any adjustments so as to ensure the proper outcomes in the classroom. In this case, students do not participate on any level in the planning or implementation of their education; rather, they solely assume the role of object of study. Tyler's basic principle were widely welcomed in classrooms and curriculum texts across the United States in 1949. Their functionality was well received and teachers generally appreciated the ease with which they could be applied to the daily work curriculum planning. It would be nearly thirty years, in f act, before any significant criticism were waged against Tyler's work. And by that time, his a pproaches were so entrenched in classroom practice that radical critiques of his approaches left few marked changes in the implementation of curriculum in the public schools. Ralph Tyler's Little Book
Even though Ralph Tyler (1902-1994) published more than 700 articles and sixteen books, he is best known for a "little" book known as The Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Ornstein and Hunkins, 1998). This 128 page book was originally published as the course syllabus for his Education 360 class in 1949 (Tyler, 1949). Tyler's straightforward philosophy presented in this book was, and continues to be highly influential in the field of Education. Through this book he is able to concisely outline a series of basic steps for developing curriculum. No description of this book however, could be complete without first placing it within history. This book and much of Tyler's career stemmed from his famous Eight Year Study. But before an account of this study is made, a portrayal of the educational theory of the day must first be described. Tyler and the Educational Theory of the Day Prior to 1900 education had little to offer in the way of theoretical framework (Wilburg, 1998). The belief at the time was that schools should require strong discipline and that "children should not talk to one another; all communication should be between the teacher and the class (Tyler, 1975)." A popular curricula of the day centered around McGuffy's Readers, which taught American ideals and morals (Ornstein and Hunkins, 1998). John Dewey's influential books School and Society and Interest and Effort Effort in Education were published just after the turn of the century, but their influence had yet to take hold.
Page 2 of 11
This was the state of education as Ralph Walter Tyler was born in Chicago in 1902. As Ralph Tyler enters high school in Nebraska, war breaks out (Riles, 1995). World War I, as it soon would be called, would have a dramatic effect on education. It was in 1917-18 two million men were to be deployed as a organized fighting force. The U.S. Army was able organize this force because it had developed something we are all very familiar with today "the test." The Army Alpha Test was used to determine who of the two million would be selected for officer training (Tyler, 1975). Following the introduction of the Army's intelligence test, a "Testing Movement" in education, became established and spread throughout the United States. Even though the use of printed tests began in 1845, with the Boston School Committee, testing in general had not yet been popularly used until this time (Worthen and Sanders, 1987). The Army's Intelligence tests were just a beginning. Soon achievement tests were developed and within a decade more than five million tests were being administered annually (Tyler, 1975). For his master's thesis Ralph Tyler even developed a science test for high school students. His graduate work at the University of Chicago put him in close contact with many notable educational scholars of the time. Dr. Tyler's views of testing soon changed though. He saw testing and "the holes in testing for memorization" (Riles, 1995) as a problem to study for life. His work in this type of evaluation prepared him for later work on a controversial project called "The Eight Year Study." The Eight Year Study Tanner and Tanner describe this study as "The most important and comprehensive comprehensive curriculum experiment ever carried on in the United States..." (Tanner and Tanner, 1995). This study was the result of what has since been called the progressive education movement. High schools of the time experimented with curricula based on the writings of John Dewey. In 1916, Heard Kilpatrick, a professor at Teachers College, Columbia introduced what he called "the Project method." This methodology engages the student in a number of projects. The projects he defined as "a purposeful activity carried to completion in a natural setting (Tyler, 1975)." Many such methodologies were produced and evaluated. Critiques of the progressive evaluations were not favorable. Critics believed that students educated in this manner would not fair well in college (Worthen and Sanders, 1987). Thus was born the controversial Eight Year Study. This study compared students from thirty high schools which used progressive curricula to students from thirty schools that used the more conventional Carnegie-unit curricula. These schools were located from Los Angles to Boston (Tanner and Tanner, 1995). Ralph Tyler's role in The Eight Year Study was as the director of the evaluation staff of the study (Tyler, 1975). Tyler conceptualized the objectives-based approach to educational evaluation (Worthen (Worthen and Sanders, 1987). In their report on millions for generations to The Eight Year Study, Smith and Tyler provide an evaluation manual that positively affects millions come (Smith and Tyler, 1942).Much of Tyler's philosophy was conceptualized during this study. It was then that Tyler Basic Principles of of developed many of his ideas. But as mentioned earlier Tyler's most famous work was his "little" book Basic Curriculum and Instruction. This book is famous because it captures and concisely describes his philosophy in simple logical terms. Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction Tyler divided his book into five sections. Each of the first four sections is titled with a question. 1. 2. 3. 4.
What educational purposes should the school seek to attain? How can learning experiences be selected which are likely to be useful in a ttaining these objectives? How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction? How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated?
The fifth and final section describes "How a school or College staff may work on curriculum building."
Page 3 of 11
In the first section, Tyler mentions that one of the main problems with education is that educational programs "do not have clearly defined purposes." These "purposes" as he describes them should be translated into educational objectives. This objective-based approach to evaluation is at the core of what Tyler proposes. His approach to evaluation followed these steps : 1. Establish broad goals or objectives. 2. Classify the goals or objectives. 3. Define objectives in behavioral terms. 4. Find situations in which achievement if objectives can be shown. 5. Develop or select measurement techniques. 6. Collect performance data. 7. Compare performance data with behaviorally stated objectives. Discrepancies in performance would then lead to modification, and the cycle begins again (Worthen a nd Sanders, 1987). Ralph Tyler's philosophy is very similar to contemporary views in many ways. He also describes education as " an active process". "It involves the active efforts of the learner himself." Even still he was also obviously influenced by the Bobbit's ideas of Job Analysis and Behaviorism (Tanner and Tanner, 1995). Tyler early on in the book describes the education as a "process of changing the behavior patterns of people." The "Tylerian" view of evaluation then becomes a process of the determining the educational effectiveness of learning experiences (Bloom, Madaus, and Thomas Hastings, 1981). Tyler's Influences on Education Since 1949. Since publishing this book in 1949, Tyler's ideas have had a profound influence on American Education. His ideas Basic Principles of influenced others in two ways. The first of these was through direct instruction through his book Basic Curriculum and Instruction.. Secondly the individuals with which Tyler directed during The Eight Year Study went on to become notable figures in the field of Education. Noteworthy of this group are Benjamin Bloom and Hilda Taba (Tyler, 1975). These two went on the make profound changes themselves. Following the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik I in 1957, money began to poured into education (Worthen and Sanders, 1987). Soon congress began to ask educators to be accountable for federal moneys. Thus a rebirth of educational evaluation studies began. This rebirth gave new life to Tylerian e valuation. In the late 1960's and 1970's refinements to the Tyler's approach were developed. Examples of these are the approaches by Metefessel and Michael, Hammond and Provus (Worthen and Sanders, 1987). Perhaps, Tyler's greatest gift to the field of education was the development of an objectives-based evaluation model. model. Tyler to this day has been called "the father of behavioral objectives." Even if a major implementation of his ideas was not realized the 1960's and the works of his predecessors Bloom and Mager (Wilburg, 1998), we are still all indebted to Tyler's vision and his not so "little" book.
Ralph W. Tyler (1902 – 1994) 1994) - Contribution to Testing and Curriculum Development, Advisory Role
Ralph W. Tyler's long and illustrious career in education resulted in major contributions to the policy and practice of American schooling. His influence was especially felt in the field of testing, where he transformed the idea of measurement into a grander concept that he ca lled evaluation; in the field of curriculum, where he designed a rationale for curriculum planning that still has vitality today; and in the realm of educational policy, where he advised U.S. presidents, legislators, and various school leaders on new directions and improvements for public schooling. Page 4 of 11
After starting his career in education as a science teacher in South Dakota, Tyler T yler went to the University of Chicago to pursue a doctorate in educational psychology. His training with Charles Judd and W.W. Charters at Chicago led to a research focus on teaching and testing. Upon graduation in 1927, Tyler took an appointment at the University of North Carolina, where he worked with teachers in the state on improving curricula. In 1929 Tyler fo llowed W. W. Charters to the Ohio State University (OSU). He joined a team of scholars directed by Charters at the university's Bureau of Educational Research, taking the position of director of accomplishment testing in the bureau. He was hired to assist OSU faculty with the task of improving their teaching and increasing student retention at the university. In this capacity, he designed a number of path-breaking service studies. He made a name for himself at OSU by showing the faculty how to generate evidence that spoke to their course objectives. In this context, Tyler first coined the term evaluation as it pertained to schooling, describing a testing construct that moved away from pencil and paper memorization examinations examinations and toward an evidence collection process dedicated to overarching teaching and learning objectives. Because of his early insistence on looking at evaluation as a matter of evidence tied to fundamental school purposes, Tyler could very well be assessment. considered one of the first proponents of w hat is now popularly known as portfolio assessment. Contribution to Testing and Curriculum Development The years Tyler spent at OSU clearly shaped the trajectory of his career in testing and curriculum development. His OSU ties brought him into the company of the Progressive Education Association Association and its effort to design a project dedicated to the reexamination of course requirements in American high schools. Known as the Eight-Year Study, the project involved thirty secondary schools that agreed to experiment with various alternative curricula approaches. The purpose of the study was to help colleges and high schools better understand the effects of the high school experience on college performance — high and other post — high school events. Tyler was chosen as the director of evaluation for the study, recommended for the job by Boyd Bode, who witnessed Tyler's work with faculty at OSU. Tyler designed methods of evaluation particular to the experimental variables of the Eight-Year Study. The details of this work are captured in Tyler and Smith's 1942 book on the evaluative component of the Eight-Year Study. The finding of the Eight-Year Study threw into question the tradition of supporting only one set of high school experiences for success in college and opened the door d oor for more alternative thinking about the secondary school curriculum. c urriculum. For Tyler, the Eight-Year Study not only provided a venue for his creative perspective on evaluation but it also forced him to think about a rationale for the school curriculum. Answering a call from the participating schools in the study for more curriculum assistance, Tyler designed a curriculum planning rationale for the participating schools. After moving to the University of Chicago in 1938 to take the position of chairman in the Department of Education, Tyler continued to cultivate his ideas on the rationale, using it in a syllabus for his course on curriculum and instruction and eventually publishing it in 1949, under the title Basic Principles of Curriculumand Curriculumand Instruction. In the rationale, Tyler conceived of school action as moving across a continuum of concerns that speaks to school purposes, the organization of experiences and the evaluation of experiences. His basic questions are now famous: 1. 2. 3. 4.
What educational purposes should the school seek to attain? What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes? How can these educational experiences be effectively organized? How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?
The rationale also highlighted an important set of factors to be weighed against the questions. Tyler believed that the structure of the school curriculum also had to be responsive to three central factors that represent the main elements of an educative experience: (1) the nature of the learner (developmental factors, learner interests and needs, life experiences, etc.); (2) the values and aims of society (democratizing principles, values and attitudes); and (3) knowledge of subject matter (what is believed to be worthy and usable knowledge). In answering the four questions and in designing school experience for children, curriculum developers had to screen their judgments through the three factors. Tyler's rationale has been criticized for being overtly managerial and linear in its position on the school curriculum. Some critics have characterized it as outdated and atheoretical, suitable only to administrators keen on controlling the school curriculum in ways that are unresponsive to teachers and learners. The most well-known criticism of the rationale makes the argument that the rationale is historically wedded to social efficiency traditions. Tyler offered no substantive response Page 5 of 11
to these criticisms, believing that criticism of his curriculum development work required some discussion of an alternative, which none of the critics provided. Principles of Curriculumand Curriculumand Instruction. Tyler's reputation as an education expert grew with the publication of Basic Principles Because of the value Tyler placed on linking objectives to experience (instruction) and evaluation, he became known as the father of behavioral objectives. This led many to a gain characterize his work in the tradition of the social efficiency expert aiming to atomize the curriculum with hyper-specific objectives. Tyler, however, claimed no allegiance to such thinking. To him, behavioral objectives had to be formed at a generalizable level, an idea he first learned in graduate school under Charles Judd, whose research focused on the role of generalization in the transfer of learning. And although Tyler understood that schooling was a normative enterprise, he showed great regard for the exercise of local prerogatives in the school and cited a concern for "children who differ from f rom the norm" as an e ducational problem needing attention. attention.
Advisory Role Tyler also exercised enormous influence as an educational adviser. Rising to the position of Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, Tyler assisted Robert Hutchins in restructuring the university's curriculum in the late 1940s and in founding the university's Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. During this time Tyler also started his career as an education adviser in the White House. In 1952 he offered U.S. President Harry Truman advice on reforming the curriculum at the service academies. Under Eisenhower, he chaired the President's Conference on Children and Youth. President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration administration used Tyler to help shape its education bills, most notably the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, in which he was given the responsibility of writing the section on the development of regional educational research laboratories. In the late 1960s Tyler took on the job of designing the assessment measures for the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), which are f ederally mandated criterion-reference tests used to gauge national achievement in various disciplines and skill domains. After leaving the University of Chicago in 1953, Tyler became the first director of the Advanced Center for Behavioral Science at Stanford University, a think tank for social scientists that Tyler founded with private monies. He formally retired in 1967, taking on the position of director e meritus and trustee to the center and itinerant educational consultant. Given the longevity of his career in education and wide-ranging influence of his work in the policy and practice of public education, especially in the realm of curriculum development and testing, Tyler could very well be seen as among the most influential of figures setting the course for the American public school during the second half of the twentieth century.
Article: Curriculum Theory is Many Things to Many People Source: Walker, D. (1982). Curriculum Curriculum theory is many things things to many people. Theory into Practice, 21, Winter, pp. 62-65.
Four Traditional Types of Curriculum Theory The body of literature that identifies itself as curriculum theory or is so obviously like self- confessed curriculum theory as to be clearly of the same same genre is not overwhelmingly overwhelmingly large. The first mention of the two terms terms curriculum and theory in the same phrase that I encountered was in Boyd Bode’s Modern Educational Theories Theories (1927); he titles a section
phrase in Bobbitt, Charters, or Dewey. Dewey. It does not appear in ―theories of Curriculum Construction.‖ I did not find the phrase
Caswell and Campbell’s monumental textbook (1935) nor in the accompanying book of readings. Ralph Tyler and Virgil Page 6 of 11
Herrick organized a conference in 1947 with the theme ―Toward Improved Curriculum Theory.‖ In the introduction to the published version of the papers Herrick reports that all assembled agreed that curriculum theory had shown lamentably little progress in the preceding twenty-five years. The recent spate of self-confessed curriculum theory, since about 1960, has as antecedents, therefore, primarily a few classic documents later identified identified as curriculum theory. theory. These amount to perhaps fifty books books and twice as many articles. I use this body of work to define the boundaries of my my initial survey of curriculum theory. theory. Then, I supplemented this with with other writing that seemed to me quite clearly to have the same purposes and form whether or not the authors had adopted the label curriculum theory. I found I could distinguish in this body body of work four types of curriculum theories. One type rationalizes curriculum programs. An early example example of this type of of theory is the plan W.T. Harris put forward forward after the Civil War. Historian
Lawrence Cremin characterizes Harris as ―the leading figure of (the) postwar generation of schoolmen‖ (1971, p. 207). As superintendent of the St. Louis school system, Harris proposed and implemented a plan that called for systemic instruction based upon textbooks which would ensure coverage of all the accumulated wisdom of mankind, both that having to do with nature and with man. man. Teachers would conduct recitations recitations to ensure that students mastered the the material. Student performance would also be monitored by system-wide written examinations which would objectively grade and classify students as they progressed through the system. Cremin comments that Harris’s plan was ―unique in its time…. (for its) comprehensiveness, detail, and theor etical coherence‖ (p. 210). If the plan sounds familiar, it may be because
Harris’s plan has been adopted as the prevailing pattern of schooling, displacing the oral pattern of instruction and recitation by each individual teacher without outside examinations and with no textbooks in the modern sense that Harris introduced. This first type of curriculum theory proposed content, aims, and approaches to education – in short, it proposes a program. It describes the program in detail and justifies it by giving giving reasons why it would be good and should be adopted. Curriculum theory as program rationalization rationalization is one of the oldest and most honored senses of the term. With hindsight, pertains to education, as this type type of curriculum theory. theory. The writings we can identify Plato’s Republic, the part of it that pertains of the sophists, of the traditional luminaries of the Western educational tradition – Bacon, Erasmus, Locke, Pestalozzi, Herbart, Herbert Spencer, and so on- insofar as they address curriculum questions do so in this way. Among recent writers, prominent clear examples of this type of curriculum theory include Phillip Phenix, whose Realms of Meaning makes a case for a curriculum based upon the six modern modern disciplines of academic knowledge; knowledge; Benjamin Bloom, whose whose mastery learning program aspires to bring all students to levels of academic achievement otherwise attainable only by the most gifted students; students; Jerome Bruner, whose ideas about the structure structure of knowledge and the importance of of discovery in learning were so influential in the post-Sputnik reforms of science education; and Paolo Freire, whose program of literacy training for peasants is based upon a curriculum theory that emphasizes the importance of dialog and the development of
Page 7 of 11
critical consciousness. These are but a few prominent instances selected mainly for notoriety and to illustrate the variety variety of work within this type. A second type of curriculum theory rationalizes procedures for curriculum construction or curriculum determination, rather than rationalizing the program itself. The first clear example of this type that I encountered was Franklin Bobbitt’s The Curriculum (1918), followed in 1924 by How to Make Curriculum, a title that might well stand as a label for the
entire tradition. Bobbitt drew from scientific management management (popularly called time-and-motion time-and-motion study) the idea that an ideal curriculum could be determined by studying the best performances of the most educated people and adopting these as standards for all people. people. This was exactly the the procedure followed in the rationalization rationalization of occupations. occupations. If bricklaying were under study, for example, the bricklayer with the highest output of good quality work would be identified on the basis of records and observations observations of performance. He would then be studied in minute minute detail to discover discover how he accomplished his feats, and other workers would be trained to follow his method. Since Bobbitt, a great many curriculum writers have developed step-by-step procedures for every aspect of curriculum planning, development, and evaluation. evaluation. The most influential by far of these writers if Ralph Tyler, whose rationale poses the four now-classic questions he urges all curriculum developers to raise as a means of building curriculum programs: ·
What purposes should the school seek to attain?
·
How can learning experiences be selected to help attain these?
·
How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction?
·
How can learning experiences be evaluated?
More detailed and specific step-by-step procedures have become prominent in certain circles within the curriculum field, notably those theorists interested in applying science and technology to curriculum work. A third type of curriculum theory conceptualizes curricular phenomena. This type is more more removed from the the immediate task of curriculum making. making. It sets out to advise those who directly address curriculum problems problems on helpful ways of thinking about the work. John Dewey’s most influential writi ng on the curriculum curriculum takes this form. form. For example,
in his essay, ―The Child and the Curriculum‖ (1902), he sets out to resolve the apparently opposing curricular demands of the child’s nature and the accumulated wisdom of the culture. Children, ignorant of the culture and what it offers, may ignore or despise material they will will later wish they had learned. The culture, oblivious to the needs needs and characteristics of the individual child, may may be imposed upon the child in an arbitrary, authoritarian, authoritarian, and counterproductive way. Dewey, characteristically, treats these competing competing considerations as needing to be peacefully reconciled. reconciled. From the culture we curriculum planners gain an inventory inventory of what is available to be taught. From the child we learn when, how, ad where to attempt to teach which particular items from this inventory if we are to be most effective form the viewpoint of both the Page 8 of 11
child and the culture. The essay contains not specific recommendations recommendations for either program or procedure. Rather, it presents a way of thinking about some matters likely to be important to anyone building a program. A fourth type of curriculum theory, closely related to the third but importantly more scholarly, attempts to explain curricular phenomena. The dominant concern of the first first three types types is to improve improve the curriculum. curriculum. The third type type begins
to distance itself from this aim in favor of seeking increased understanding. understanding. The fourth type frankly pursues understanding, leaving the application of the ideas to practice for others. The most common variant of this type seeks explanations explanations for curriculum change. What accounts for the transformation of the school brought about in the the progressive era in the U.S.? How do we explain curricular fads fads and reform movements? What factors in the society society influence curriculum curriculum change? Other variants seek to explain explain achievement test test score differences between different populations populations receiving different programs. The concern is always to create scholarly or or scientific accounts which relate the curriculum to other things, either as explicans or explicandum, as dependent variable or as independent variable. The theorist of this type has no program to rationalize, rationalize, no procedure to put forward, and seeks to go beyond mere conceptualization. Ong (1971) has developed some fascinating explanations of the disappearance of rhetoric as a school subject in the eighteenth century. Since the renaissance, rhetoric had been the dominant school subject. It declined, says Ong, because it was essentially oriented to the demands of an oral culture, one in which those in power argued face-to-face and therefore had need for the skills rhetoric rhetoric supported. With the invention and spread spread of print, written expression became much more important, and many of the demands formerly made upon speakers to remember verbatim, to organize thought thought on the spur of the moment, were no longer essential. More generally, Ong maintains maintains that the content of schooling interacts with the forms of expression expression dominant in the culture. culture. Ong does not seek to revive revive rhetoric nor to make curriculum changes lead cultural changes, but merely to comprehend the relationships involved. involved. Observations on the Salient Features of Curriculum Theories What are we to make of these different types of curriculum theories? theories? First, we must acknowledge acknowledge that there are important, fundamental fundamental differences among theories, even among the classics. When we talk of curriculum theory, we should use the plural. We must think of a family of theories with different purposes and forms forms bearing on the same problems. This diversity is not likely ever to vanish because because each type of theory takes its own vantage point, each of these vantage points has validity and importance importance for some situations, and each appeals to some consumers. We must not be deluded into a search for a single type to which all theories should conform. conform. How much useless wrangling could have have been avoided by recognition of this seemingly seemingly obvious fact! Think of all the energy wasted arguing that scientific theory is the model for curriculum theory, or that literary or artistic criticism is the proper form. Theory takes many legitimate forms in curriculum. Even the most honored and distinguished distinguished examples exhibit irreducible irreducible and substantial differences in form, content, and purpose. A second observation is that these different types of theories are alike in one important important respect. They are theories of practice. The attempt to rationalize practice, to conceptualize conceptualize it, to explain it, but all deal with practice, rather than with Page 9 of 11
some purely natural phenomenon phenomenon of universal scope, such as the sciences, natural and social, deal with. Language might reasonably be the object of scientific study in the pure sense; practices in teaching language might be objects of study for the purpose of improving language language teaching and learning. Learning itself is a reasonable object of scientific study, but the methods for facilitating learning learning are a different matter. Curriculum theories are like theories in law, or business, or journalism, or social social work, criminal justice, justice, or city planning, not like theories of sociology, sociology, psychology, psychology, physics, chemistry, biology. A third observation: curriculum theories rely upon a variety of working assumptions assumptions and presumptions. Some are built for practical use in realistic school situations; some are built for an abstract ideal situation that may not exist anywhere. Some are optimistic about such matters as the availability of funds, the c ooperativeness of teachers, and the support of community leaders while other other theories are built on the assumption that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. wrong. Some theories accept the society as it is given, others are designed for a new and better society to come. So long as difference of judgment continues among people about eh world and how we should treat it, there will be need nee d for theories built upon different assumptions. Theories draw form different disciplines. disciplines. Philosophy appears to be the most popular popular source for help with curriculum theories. Psychology is of particular particular use when considering the student as a factor in in curriculum theory. Sociology and anthropology help curriculum curriculum theorists deal with the society in their thinking. thinking. Again, this diversity would would appear to be an asset. Curriculum theories seem to treat value questions questions in one of two ways. Either the theorist builds the theory on values espoused by some and rejected by others, or else the theorist seeks to build on values so widely shared as to constitute a virtual consensus. Since no values are universally universally held, a theorist can only approach this ideal. But the distinction distinction between one who actively espouses controversial values as a partisan and one who tries to minimize and avoid controversy as much as possible possible remains an important important distinction. distinction. Both types of theories can be found. Both would seem to have their place. My final observation is that theories exhibit exhibit a wide variety of formal features. Some are worked out in great detail, some only sketched. Some are presented as formal systems rivaling Euclid’s geometry, while others are in the language of a newspaper or novel. Some are tightly focused on one specific issue, while others others range over dozens of related issues. Concluding Thoughts We must learn to cherish variety in curriculum theory, to nurture it, to celebrate it, to cultivate it. The most important role of theory in curriculum is probably to help us see things in a different light, to interpret things
in a way we wouldn’t otherwise have dreamed existed. Sir Geoffry Vickers speaks speaks of this as the appreciative role of theory. Even scientific theory of inanimate inanimate phenomena helps us appreciate our world world in ways we could never have done Page 10 of 11
before; one who knows the stars are billions and billions of miles away and as large as the sun sees them differently than before. But in theories that deal with human affairs, how we appreciate our situation makes an enormous enormous difference in our actions and in our fate. As we suspected, theory is, therefore, very important, even if it is not verifiable verifiable in the same sense as some advocates of scientific theory as models would insist. Curriculum theories are verified in substantial substantial part by careful, systematic systematic application to cases. If a theory cannot be applied to important cases, it is not adequate. If when applied, theory yields unsatisfactory results, theory is no adequate. Obviously, for these tests to work, theory must be applied correctly, for there are wrong ways of applying a perfectly good theory. In my opinion, we would be well advised advised in curriculum to devote much attention attention to the careful, critical application of theories to important important cases. If we were then to document the actual occurrences in these cases, we would have a test nearly as rigorous as the pure science. If one-quarter of the energy that currently goes goes into creating theory were devoted to careful, critical application of theory, I believe we would all be better off.
REVIEW QUESTION: 1. Walker refers to the gap gap between curriculum theory and practice with the following statements: “In my opinion, we would be well advised in curriculum to devote much attention to the careful, critical application of theories to important important cases. If one-quarter of the energy that currently goes into creating creating theory were devoted to careful, critical application of theory, I believe we would all be better off.” In your
opinion, what causes this gap between the formation of educational theory and the successful application application in the classroom?
Page 11 of 11
