The Tylerian Model vs. Post-Modern Curriculum

Pinar makes short shrift of Tyler, one of the first clues we get that he believes that that approach to teaching is obsolete. The Tyler Rationale, articulated in the 1940s, "established the basic procedure that reduced curriculum to objectives measured by examinations." Pretty much, the only way to do this, is to teach, say, social studies, as merely a subject that requires the student to memorize the names of people, battles, wars, dates, causes and effects, and then regurgitate them on a short answer exam that can be marked by machine.

To introduce his ideas on post-modern curriculum development, Slattery quotes an essay by Walker Percy who asks, "What does a man do when he finds himself living after an age has ended and he can no longer understand himself because the theories of man of the former age no longer work and the theories of the new age are not yet known."

Not quite as poetic as Percy, Charles Jencks, as quoted by Slattery, writes, "In the last ten years post-modernism has become more than a social condition and cultural movement, it has become a world view." I love the phrase "world view" because it says so much about the way a person perceives herself in relation to the rest of the world -- does she see herself as a victim of a cruel world, a participant in an ever-changing world, a master of a world that is her proverbial oyster? Knowing people's world views would go a long way towards helping one group of people understand another, and not incidentally, also help men and women choose appropriate mates. (I first came across this concept in M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled.")

Slattery suggests that "we must move from the modern paradigm of curriculum development in the disciplines to the post-modern paradigm of understanding curriculum in various contexts. In this sense, curriculum development becomes kaleidoscope. It is always shifting perspectives and constantly reflecting new and liberating visions of learning and living."

After reading these three texts, it is obvious that Pinar, Slattery and Edgerton are all buddies, and they quote one another extensively. This academic incest may flatter everyone's egos, but all it means is that they are talking to one another, and not being of much help to us folks who are actually teaching. If they're relying on Trickle Down Theory -- i.e., their graduate students will translate the ideas for their underlings who in turn will dilute them yet again for us on the frontlines so we can implement them in our teaching -- they are taking too much for granted. It isn't happening yet.