Liberating Curriculum Book Proposal Draft Four

Liberating Curriculum: Why it Matters and How to Do It

Wesley Null
Baylor University

Everyone who discusses teachers, schooling, or education uses the term curriculum. Few people, however, stop to think seriously about what curriculum actually means or what is required to do curriculum well. Even fewer people ask questions about what curriculum is for, what should serve as the proper foundation for curriculum-making, and how exactly we should go about making curriculum decisions that benefit our communities as a whole. This book is about precisely these questions.

Curriculum vs. Education

Curriculum is the heart of education. It is the heart of education because curriculum is about what should be taught. Education is a much more abstract, nebulous concept that takes place through families, churches, the media, and many other cultural factors that surround children every day. Curriculum, however, is a more specific, tangible activity that is always tied to decision-making as well as specific institutions, whether they are schools, churches, non-profit agencies, or any other governmental program that seeks to educate. Unlike education, curriculum also requires the consideration of what subject-matter is to be taught. No discussion of curriculum can ignore the content that must be included as part of the proposed curriculum.

Curriculum, however, also takes into account topics that stretch beyond the question of what subject-matter should be included in a course of study. For example, in addition to subject-matter, any curriculum also must be based on a conception of why any particular piece of subject-matter should be taught, which always takes into account questions of purpose and ultimate goals. Subject-matter is the means that always must be included in any curriculum. At the same time, however, subject-matter—for example history, literature, or science—is only a tool that teachers and curriculum-makers use to achieve the larger goals that are always embedded in any curriculum. Because of its history and etymology, curriculum is inevitably a teleological term. Curriculum always raises questions about the purposes, ideals, and ultimate goals embedded in whatever institution is purportedly offering a curriculum. The fact that curriculum is a teleological term is also a significant factor that distinguishes curriculum from education. In our modern—and some would say post-modern—world, education has been divorced from its teleological foundations, which makes the urgency of re-focusing our attention on curriculum even that much more significant.

Recognizing this distinction between education and curriculum can help us to become more effective teachers, more thoughtful curriculum-makers, more astute consumers of educational rhetoric, and better citizens due to the renewed sense of purpose that deliberations about curriculum can provide. This distinction also can help us to realize that much of what passes for discussions about “education” today are sadly shallow if not downright deceptive. Many people make pronouncements both in the media and elsewhere using the word “education,” when in reality they are making assertions about curriculum. Often these assertions are incomplete, and sometimes they are just flat wrong. This book seeks to correct this problem by providing a deeper vision for what curriculum is and should be. Thinking and speaking clearly about curriculum is crucial to rebuilding education today.

Curriculum is also different from education because curriculum forces us to think about ethics, whereas education is often discussed as if it can be divorced from questions of right and wrong. Curriculum is always about the substance of what should be taught (which is an ethical question), whereas “education” is often discussed as if it can or should be a social science disconnected from the moral question of curriculum. “Education” is almost invariably discussed in this way whether the discussion takes place in elementary schools, high schools, community colleges, universities, think tanks, the legislature, or the media. We often find people with backgrounds in economics, psychology, and political science making pronouncements about “what must be done” in education. Rarely, however, do such researchers address the moral question of curriculum. The basis for their claims about “education,” moreover, almost always derives from their standing as researchers who explain social phenomena, not as people who do curriculum.

Explanations about social phenomena, however, do not by themselves provide us with what we need in order to make curriculum decisions. The source can be economics, psychology, sociology, history, or any other intellectual specialty, but the result is the same. Explanations can be useful in making curriculum decisions, but, by themselves, they are not sufficient for curriculum-making. The attempt to separate education as a social science from curriculum as a moral practice is not only impossible, but dangerous. Trying to create a science of education divorced from curriculum is akin to training someone to fire a weapon, but completely ignoring the task of preparing those same people to decide when to pull the trigger, why they are doing so, and the ultimate impact that their decision will have on the community in which they live.

One of the main reasons that schools struggle today is because we have spent a great deal of time and money on the creation of efficient systems of “education,” but we have ignored the most significant ingredient in any good school—the curriculum. Spending money in this way would be akin to dedicating billions of dollars in order to create a new space shuttle, but allocating no time, money, or energy on the characteristics of the people who will fly the ship, the path the ship will take when these people fly it, and the overall purpose of the space program that the ship is designed to serve. We cannot, must not, and should not continue to ignore discussions of curriculum by allowing researchers to make assertions about “what must be done in education” while at the same time dismissing the term, topic, and moral practice of curriculum-making. That, at least, will be a central argument of this book.

Curriculum Questions

What should be taught, to whom, under what circumstances, and with what end in mind? This is a curriculum question. It is at the heart of any institution that seeks to educate, whether it be a public school, private school, church, or non-profit agency. Curriculum is at the heart of every controversial issue surrounding teaching and schooling today. Debates rage on with regard to moral education, sex education, religious education, state mandated testing, intelligent design, whole language vs. phonics in reading, prayer in schools, and other similar hot-button topics, but what is that unites all of these debates? I will argue that, at their very foundation, all of these topics are about curriculum.

But what is curriculum? What is it for? Who should make curriculum decisions? And how should these decisions be made? How should we structure the decision-making process? In short, what should we do to make a good curriculum? And what should people who specialize in curriculum development (or curriculum deliberation as I will argue in this text) do in order to make curriculum better? What characteristics, or virtues, should these people possess? Put another way, what is a “curriculist” and what should be the characteristics of this person? Dealing successfully with these questions is crucial if any educational institution expects to be effective—and indeed successful—in any long-term, substantive way.

Theoretic debates routinely take place in state legislatures or in the U.S. Senate, but, at some point, any abstract political battle must come into contact with real-world practical decision-making in classrooms and schools. This book is about this transition that always must take place between theoretic visions for what curriculum “must do” or “should do” and the practical, decision-making world that is found in classrooms and schools. What should be the nature of this transition between vision and classroom decision-making? How do we take theoretic plans for what curriculum must or should do and turn them into an enacted curriculum within a particular classroom or school? And what should be the characteristics of the curriculists who not only understand this transition, but who help the process to take place successfully?

This book will answer these questions directly. My purpose is to persuade readers to engage in the practice of what I call “liberating curriculum.” What do I mean by “liberating curriculum,” and what do I mean specifically by “curriculum”? My answer to these questions will become more apparent as I present my argument.

Liberating Curriculum From What?

Liberating curriculum from what, you might ask? This book seeks to liberate curriculum from numerous ways of thinking that have shackled the growth of curriculum for decades. These ways of thinking include the attempt to reduce curriculum to nothing but a syllabus on the one hand or an efficiency problem on the other. This book also seeks to free curriculum from institutionalized systems that reduce curriculum to an impersonal list of topics divorced from meaning, purpose, and humanity; from utopian dreamers who focus so much on what could be that they forget the reality that curriculum must start with the reality embedded in the current state of affairs; from the grasp of makeshift practitioners who reject the need to connect curriculum to a broader vision for what schooling can or should do; from revolutionaries who promote a curriculum that foments revolution but at the same time forgets to discuss what specifically should be done once the revolution has taken place; from existential theorizers who emphasize personal experience to such an extent that they forget that curriculum also must deal with community, citizenship, and concern for the common good; from intellectual specialists who wrongly assume that the structure of their prized intellectual specialty also contains a curriculum; and from economically driven executives who see curriculum as nothing but a tool to train the next generation of compliant workers. All of these views endanger the practice of liberating curriculum.

Curriculum can of course address some if not all of the problems emphasized by these ways of thinking. Each of these perspectives has something of value to offer curriculum. However, when curriculum is captured by any one of these perspectives, it loses its life and vitality. By “liberating curriculum,” I mean the task of avoiding narrow conceptions of curriculum while at the same time making decisions that further the ideal of liberal curriculum for all. The best hope for achieving this ideal is to build upon what I call, following others, a deliberative approach to curriculum problems.

Thesis and Structure of the Book

My thesis has three parts. The first is that curriculum is currently in chains and must be liberated if we expect to have better schooling in the future. The second part of my thesis is that, in order for curriculum to be liberated, we must begin by liberating the concept of curriculum itself before we can address specific curriculum problems. Third, in order for curriculum to be truly liberating for real students in real schools, we must move from liberating the idea of curriculum within our minds to deliberating about specific curriculum problems that face contemporary educational institutions.

The structure of Liberating Curriculum follows this three-part thesis. Section I addresses the first two parts of the thesis, and Section II shows the practice of deliberation at work within particular educational institutions. In short, the book is designed to: 1) describe what curriculum theory is, 2) show how deliberative curriculum theory relates to four other curriculum traditions that have been powerful in the U.S. and abroad, and 3) provide specific examples of deliberative curriculum theory at work.

A Deliberative Tradition in Curriculum

The research for this book will draw upon the acclaimed curriculum work of Joseph J. Schwab and William A. Reid. Schwab was a professor of education and natural sciences at the University of Chicago for nearly forty years. I will draw specifically on Schwab’s “practical” papers that he first began to publish in the late 1960s. William A. Reid is a British curriculum philosopher who has published numerous books on curriculum theory and practice. The research for Liberating Curriculum draws heavily upon Reid’s book entitled The Pursuit of Curriculum.

In order to provide a long-term foundation for curriculum theory and practice, Reid and Schwab focus on the practical art of deliberation. They see deliberation as the animating principle that enables curriculum workers to avoid the extreme thinking that has harmed curriculum and teaching for at least a century. Liberating Curriculum follows in the tradition of Schwab and Reid in order to provide a foundation for curriculum that, if followed, can lead to more successful—and indeed more effective—schooling in the future.

To provide background for what curriculum deliberation is, the first chapter of Liberating Curriculum will demonstrate how the emphasis on deliberation in curriculum studies grows out of the work of Schwab’s colleague at the University of Chicago, Ralph W. Tyler. Tyler’s Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction helped to establish the practice of curriculum development throughout the United States. Even though deliberation is embedded in what Tyler was doing, he does not explicitly address deliberation in Basic Principles. Tyler emphasized curriculum development more than he did deliberation. The significance of this distinction will become more apparent throughout this book. I draw upon Tyler’s work to demonstrate the significance of curriculum development, but, more importantly, to show how curriculum deliberation is the more inclusive practice.

Much work remains to be done to take the framework that Tyler developed and connect it to a new generation of curriculum workers. Schwab and Reid have been working on this task for the last half-century, and I plan to continue in the Tyler-Reid-Schwab tradition by making curriculum deliberation accessible to 21st century curriculum workers and teachers.

Book Outline

Before expanding on what good curriculum deliberation is and should be, this book will examine four other well-known traditions within the curriculum field. Drawing in part upon Reid’s The Pursuit of Curriculum, I will provide an outline of four curriculum philosophies that are commonly practiced today. I have incorporated Reid’s language and labeled these views with the terms systematic, existentialist, radical, and pragmatic. Each of these traditions provides a vision for curriculum that has strengths and weaknesses. I will explore these strengths and weaknesses in detail during chapters two, three, four, and five, respectively. I will identify major figures who have shaped (and continue to shape) the systematic, existentialist, radical, and pragmatic traditions. Then, I will demonstrate why each of these traditions has been powerful at different times in American history.

Liberating Curriculum, however, is not a work of history. It is a work of curriculum. My goal is to provide curriculum workers at the classroom, district, and legislative levels with clear thinking about how to create a curriculum that is rich in knowledge, successful at connecting with diverse groups of students, and rooted in the ideal of serving the common good.

Chapter six of Liberating Curriculum will focus on the deliberative tradition within the curriculum field. I will demonstrate how deliberative curriculum-making differs from the four traditions that I have discussed previously. I will show how deliberation helps curriculum workers to maximize the strengths of the other traditions while at the same minimizing their weaknesses.

In chapters seven, eight, and nine, I will address specific practical questions that curriculum workers currently face within educational institutions. I will then show what a deliberative curriculum worker likely would do in order to resolve these problems. These chapters will take the form of a narrative in which I describe the scene, the characters involved, and the nature of the specific curriculum problems that need to be addressed. In order to broaden the scope of the audience for Liberating Curriculum, chapters seven, eight, and nine will include examples of curriculum problems from both the K-12 and the higher education levels.

In the concluding chapter, I will argue why the deliberative tradition within curriculum is the most appropriate path for curriculists to follow in the years ahead.

Liberating Curriculum: Why it Matters and How to Do It

Wesley Null
Associate Professor of Curriculum
Baylor University

Introduction: What is Curriculum, What is a Curriculum Problem, and Why Does Curriculum Matter?
--Curriculum vs. Education
--Curriculum Questions
--Curriculum Matters
--Liberating Curriculum from What?
--Thesis and Structure of the Book


Part I—Liberating Curriculum

Chapter 1: Liberation Through Deliberation
--Schwab’s Challenge to Curriculum
--A Deliberative Tradition in Curriculum
--Reid’s Language for Curriculum
--A Map for Curriculum-makers
--The Five Commonplaces of Curriculum
--Teachers
--Learners
--Subject-matter
--Context
--Curriculum-making

Chapter 2: Systematic curriculum-making
Teachers
Learners
Subject-matter
Context
Curriculum-making

Chapter 3: Existentialist curriculum-making
Teachers
Learners
Subject-matter
Context
Curriculum-making

Chapter 4: Radical curriculum-making
Teachers
Learners
Subject-matter
Context
Curriculum-making

Chapter 5: Pragmatic curriculum-making
Teachers
Learners
Subject-matter
Context
Curriculum-making

Chapter 6: Deliberative curriculum-making
Teachers
Learners
Subject-matter
Context
Curriculum-making


Part II—Curriculum Problems

Chapter 7: Problem #1—What should we do with state curriculum guidelines?

Example #1: History department chair at a large, suburban high school in Massachusetts.

Example #2: Social Studies department chair at a small, rural high school in Indiana.

Example #3: How can we get more social studies lessons into the elementary curriculum? (5th grade teacher in a large, suburban elementary school in Texas)

Chapter 8: Problem #2—Should we re-institutionalize a core curriculum at our university? If so, how?

Chapter 9: Problem #3—What should we do to create a better teacher education curriculum at our university?

Chapter 10: Calling All Curriculists: The Future of Deliberative Curriculum-making

Timeline for Writing Liberating Curriculum

May-July 2007
Begin collecting articles and doing research for relevant books and articles
Outline of Book prepared—Complete.

October-November 2007
Draft Chapter 1—in progress.

December 2007/January 2008
Draft Chapter 2

February-May 2008
Draft Chapters 3, 4, and 5

June-August 2008
Draft Chapters 5, 6, and 7

September 2008-December 2008
Draft Chapters 8, 9, and 10

February-March 2009
Make revisions

April-May 2009
Finalize manuscript