Liberating Curriculum: How to Do it and Why it Matters
Wesley Null
Baylor University
Wesley Null
Baylor University
Everyone who discusses teachers, schooling, or education uses the term curriculum. The word is unavoidable. Few people, however, stop to think seriously about what curriculum 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 we should go about making curriculum decisions that benefit our communities. This book is about 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 with respect to specific institutions, whether they are schools, churches, non-profit agencies, or any governmental program that seeks to educate. Unlike education, curriculum also requires those who discuss it to address what subject-matter is to be taught. No discussion of curriculum can ignore the subject-matter that must be included as part of any 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. This why aspect of curriculum 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 is essential. It can help us become more effective teachers, more thoughtful curriculum-makers, and more astute consumers of educational rhetoric. Focusing on curriculum also enables us to become 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, doctrinaire, or just flat wrong. This book attempts to address 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 at all levels.
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, explanations 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 forgetting to teach them when and why to do it.
One of the main reasons that schools struggle 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 like 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, 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 social science 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, how, and with what end in mind? These are curriculum questions. They are emphatically not questions that can be answered only with economics, psychology, political science, history, biology, mathematics, or any other intellectual specialty. Curriculum questions can only be answered with curriculum. These curriculum questions, moreover, are 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 center 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 the teaching of reading, prayer in schools, and other similar hot-button topics. What is the common theme that unites all of these debates? I will argue that, at their very foundation, all of these issues are curricular in nature. To say that they are curricular is to say that they are both ethical and teleological in nature, which leads us to additional questions about purpose.
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 characteristics should this person possess in order to perform his or her job well? Dealing successfully with these questions is essential 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 these plans into an enacted curriculum within a particular classroom, school, or university? And what should be the characteristics of the curriculists who not only understand this transition, but who help the process to take place successfully?
In seeking to answer these questions, my purpose is to persuade readers to engage in the practice of what I call “liberating curriculum.” What I mean by “liberating curriculum” and “curriculum” will become more apparent as the book proceeds.
Liberating Curriculum From What?
If the goal of this book is to “liberate curriculum,” then what is it being liberated from? The answer is that I will strive 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 a mindless script that all teachers are expected to parrot without thinking for themselves or taking into account the particular students they are trying to teach. Liberating Curriculum also seeks to unchain curriculum from those who attempt to reduce it to nothing but a syllabus on the one hand or an efficiency problem on the other. This work also aims 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 point 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 forget 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 address community, citizenship, and concern for the common good; from intellectual specialists who wrongly assume that the structure of their prized intellectual specialty also doubles as a legitimate 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 raised by these ways of thinking. Each of these perspectives has something 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, such as these, 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 practice.
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 and universities, 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, having to do primarily with the idea of curriculum. Without a sharp distinction between the two sections, Section II shows the practice of deliberation at work within particular educational institutions. The structure of 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 upon Schwab’s “practical” papers that he first began to publish in the late 1960s as well as his many other works that he published on science curriculum, educational philosophy, and philosophy of science. 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, teaching, and curriculum 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 curriculum deliberation. The significance of this distinction will become more apparent throughout the 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-Schwab-Reid 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, Section I of Liberating Curriculum 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 five curriculum philosophies that are commonly practiced today. I have incorporated Reid’s language and labeled these views with the terms systematic, existentialist, radical, pragmatic, and deliberative. Reid only discussed four curriculum traditions, to which I have added a fifth, which I call pragmatic. Each of these traditions provides a vision for curriculum that has strengths and weaknesses. I will explore the strengths and weaknesses of the first four curriculum traditions in 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, university, and legislative levels with what I hope is 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 describe paradigmatic examples of curriculum problems that are common within schools and universities throughout the United States today. I will then show what a deliberative curriculum worker would likely do in order to resolve the problems that I have described. 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 address the characteristics—or virtues—that should be upheld by curriculists who wish to uphold the deliberative tradition. I will also argue why the deliberative tradition within the curriculum field is the best route to achieving the ideal of liberal curriculum for all.
Audience
This book will have a broad audience. It is intended for anyone who does curriculum work, including K-12 classroom teachers, school administrators, curriculum directors in K-12 school districts, university professors from all disciplines, university administrators who handle curriculum (department chairs, deans, vice presidents, provosts, etc.), and university professors in fields such as curriculum and teacher education. In addition, I am writing the book for the college educated public. I have given the book the somewhat commonplace sub-title of “How to Do it and Why it Matters” to signal that the work is not merely a textbook and perhaps to appeal to a broader audience. The entire public has a role to play in “liberating curriculum” as I argue for it, so I certainly want parents, legislators, businesspeople, and anyone else interested in the state of curriculum today to read the book.
In addition to a public audience, however, I do anticipate that the book will be used as a textbook in undergraduate and graduate courses in curriculum development, curriculum theory, and teacher education. The book also could be used in philosophy of education courses that include a section on curriculum or in educational administration courses that address curriculum. The idea for this book grows out of an undergraduate course that I teach every year at Baylor entitled “Social Issues in Curriculum”. I have already used sections of the book in the course, and I plan to use the published text in this and other courses (undergraduate and graduate) in the future. My goal is that Liberating Curriculum will become widely used in undergraduate and graduate courses throughout the country.
Illustrations
I only anticipate using two illustrations in the book. I have included both of them with this proposal. The first is the “Curriculum Map,” which I intend to introduce in Chapter 1. The second is the “Deliberation Team,” which I plan to discuss in detail in Chapter 6.
Liberating Curriculum: How to Do it and Why it Matters
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
(Projected length: 20-25 double-spaced pages)
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
(Projected length: 25-30 double-spaced pages)
Chapter 2: Systematic curriculum-making
Teachers
Learners
Subject-matter
Context
Curriculum-making
(Projected length: 20-25 double-spaced pages)
Chapter 3: Existentialist curriculum-making
Teachers
Learners
Subject-matter
Context
Curriculum-making
(Projected length: 20-25 double-spaced pages)
Chapter 4: Radical curriculum-making
Teachers
Learners
Subject-matter
Context
Curriculum-making
(Projected length: 20-25 double-spaced pages)
Chapter 5: Pragmatic curriculum-making
Teachers
Learners
Subject-matter
Context
Curriculum-making
(Projected length: 20-25 double-spaced pages)
Chapter 6: Deliberative curriculum-making
Teachers
Learners
Subject-matter
Context
Curriculum-making
(Projected length: 25-30 double-spaced pages)
Part II—Curriculum Problems
The following are paradigmatic examples of 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
(Projected length: 20-25 double-spaced pages)
Chapter 8: Problem #2—Should we re-institutionalize a core curriculum at our university? If so, how?
(Projected length: 20-25 double-spaced pages)
Chapter 9: Problem #3—What should we do to create a better teacher education curriculum at our university?
(Projected length: 20-25 double-spaced pages)
Chapter 10: Calling All Curriculists: Virtue and the Future of Deliberative Curriculum-making
(Projected length: 15-20 double-spaced pages)
Total Projected Book Length: 205–250 double-spaced pages (Times New Roman, 1” margins)
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
Complete Chapter 1
February-May 2008
Draft Chapters 2 and 3
June-August 2008
Draft Chapters 4, 5, and 6
September 2008-December 2008
Draft Chapters 7 and 8
February-March 2009
Draft Chapters 9 and 10
April-May 2009
Make Revisions to entire manuscript
June-August 2009
Finalize Manuscript
