PERSPECTIVES ON FOUR
CURRICULUM TRADITIONS
William Schubert
Introduction
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Old thought: Curriculum = Textbook
Pioneers in education thought
Curriculum > Textbook
Cur-ric-u-lum: “What is worth knowing”
…worth experiencing, doing, being.
Origin: Chariot Race; “race course”
meaning “journey;” of learning, growing,
becoming.
Four Positions on Curriculum
Thought
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Intellectual Traditionalist
Social Behaviorist
Experientalist
Critical Reconstructionist
Intellectual Traditionalist
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Curriculum should be founded in the “Great Works” of all disciplines.
These stimulate humans to think deeply.
6 Great Ideas each found in Great Works.
-Truth
-Beauty
-Goodness
-Liberty
-Equality
-Justice
Interview of the
Intellectual Traditionalist
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Your method seems a bit white elitist…
Yes… I know Western culture best.
Not everyone likes, understands, or is inspired by the
great works…
-We need to find teachers who like the great works, and
they will be responsible for making the subject “come
alive” for the students to grasp a deeper meaning and
spark great conversation.
How do we reach students and convince parents that
studying the great works will lead to success (jobs)?
-Education should not be primarily vocational.
-Students will be able to think and appreciate more
deeply and carefully.
How do we judge and use the modern works?
-Let experts decide.
Social Behaviorist
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“puts more stock in results than appearances”
“Textbooks of today carry little more than re-digested relics of past
textbooks, and the same unquestioned curriculum passed from
generation to generation.”
According to Socrates, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
Similarly, the social behaviorist states, “the unexamined curriculum
is not worth offering.”
We must make curriculum relevant for TODAY’S STUDENTS
Behaviorist- Identify behaviors that help students become
successful.
Social- Such behaviors taken from the systematic investigation of
success today.
Interview of the
Social Behaviorist
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How do we determine what will create success?
- Scientifically with survey methods: What do successful people
do? What do they need to know to do it?
-Students then learn what successful people know.
Doesn’t this just perpetuate the status quo?
- No. Only a small percent of people are very successful… now
students will be pushed to be even more successful.
What image of success will be perpetuated?
-Educators decide what success means.
-Must be regional, then state, and then national, because the
location determines different meanings of success.
What is the next step after success is defined?
- Curriculum Engineering… measuring the GAP ANALYSIS
between what students know, and what successful people know.
This determines what is to be taught.
-Research and technology allow these decisions to be made
adequately.
Experientialist
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Sees knowledge and value as part of a
seamless fabric.
“We learn best when learning springs from our
genuine interests and concerns.
John Dewey says Curriculum should be derived
from each learners experience, moving from
psychological (concerns and interests of
learners) to logical (disciplines and the
knowledge accumulated by the human race).
Interview of the Experientialist
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Huh?
-Every child has daily concerns that affect their interpretation of
content and their learning experience.Teacher engages the students
in sharing these daily concerns and interests, bringing students
together. From here the projects flow from deeper human interests.
If student pursues interests, how do necessary skills get covered?
-How to learn is more important than what to learn.
-By pursuing in depth, the student sees connections to other bodies
of knowledge. Every topic of inquiry is potentially interdisciplinary.
-Integrated curriculum: Integrating the self in social context…
learning to learn and pursuing one’s curiosity.
What research backs that up?
-8 year study measured academic performance, intellectual
curiosity, drive, critical thinking, resourcefulness, time management.
-Experientially taught students equaled or exceeded traditionally
taught students in every area but foreign language.
Who are today’s experientialists?
-Advocates of open education, cooperative learning, and
collaborative action research.
Critical Reconstructionist
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Upset with injustice
The experientialist has good principle, but is too hopeful:
naïve.
Schools are “sorting machines” for society.
Students accorded different opportunities depending
variables in lives or context. (Class, gender, race, ethnicity,
location, health, religion, etc.)
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Hegemony: Process whereby a society or culture
reproduces patterns of inequity: Schools pass along
hierarchy of society at large.
Interview of the
Critical Reconstructionist
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Explain Hegemony more concretely.
-A study researched four schools in different social class communities and
found in the “hidden curriculum”:
-Lower working class taught: success comes from learning and following
rules.
-Middle class taught: Give the “right answers” (find out what authority
figures want and provide it)
-Professional class taught: You will be rewarded for being creative, but don’t
“rock the boat.”
-Ruling class taught: “rock the boat,” success comes from manipulating the
system.
Scary. What can be done?
Expose the hidden curriculum to allow people to resist.
Enable everyone to manipulate the system?
-No, start smaller, students could be “crushed” by the system. Revolution
happens slower.
Then what do we do now?
-I agree with the experientialist. Psychological interests of learners.
-Experience of injustice should lie at the center of the curriculum.
-Students should learn to become activists!
Conclusion
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Intellectual Traditionalist: Power of the classics.
Social Behaviorists: Call for look at what knowledge, skills, values
lead to success for each generation.
Experientialist and Critical Reconstructionist: Decry authoritarianism
of previous two, and allow for greater classroom participation.
Each of these views transcends textbooks to meet needs more fully.
Dewey says: Choosing a side is not the point: Remember and
develop relevant aspects of all of these positions as possibilities for
each education situation encountered.
The great curriculum task is to draw upon all traditions for insights
and understandings that best fit the situations at hand.
Students are far too often left out of the process that affects them.
THE END