I am in the midst, over the last three postings, of conveying
short descriptions of the various approaches to curricular work. To date, I have described the behavioral
approach, the managerial approach, and the systems approach. Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P. Hunkins[1] identify
three other approaches: academic,
humanistic, and reconceptualist. This
posting will be a quick look at the academic.
I write the word quick because in my overall aim of conveying to you
information that would be useful in any attempt you might make in changing a
school’s curriculum, this approach will have little influence on change efforts
due to the scarcity of teachers or administrators who “practice” this approach.
When I think of the academic approach, I envision a teaching
staff all decked out in their caps and gowns behind their respective
lecterns. That is a bit unfair, although
I don’t mean anything derogatory by offering that image. It is just that this approach emphasizes the
scholarly. Here, the teacher’s role is
seen as predominately dispensing knowledge.
This knowledge can be encyclopedic or synoptic in character. The tendency is to be historical or
philosophic. Here, the practical –
vocational, for example – is seen as pedestrian or somewhat less than fully
important.
Its heydays were between the 1930s and 1950s. Little concern among its practitioners – or
should I say, its scholars – was given to instructional methods. Information is dispensed, perhaps discussed,
perhaps applied to situations that confront students with dilemmas and
conclusions, perhaps, are solicited. The
main concern is to assure that students are presented with the information in understandable
forms and that students, indeed, understand it.
The emphasis is more in the preparation of these presentations. Preparation of such lessons is done in a
scholarly fashion and the integrity of the material is maintained and
respected. The material itself is
bolstered by a good deal of background information so that the student gets a
healthy dose of what is relevant to the topic under study. A good example is these educators’ treatment
of John Dewey. While educators of other
approaches see Dewey as a source of instructional ideas, followers of the
academic approach see the innovator as a source of philosophic ideas that
should be presented to students as just that, a set of ideas – his work is seen
not as a means, but as an end in itself.
After the 1950s, this approach lost favor. This curricular approach moved on to such
concerns as syntax and language, the structure of the discipline, and
qualitative studies; that is, they began looking into more epistemological
concerns along with their treatment of ontological concerns. This was a bit of a challenge for undergraduate
and beginning graduate students who did not have the background in history and
philosophy to handle such material. But
the approach survived in doctoral seminars.
More recent attention among these scholars has shifted to postmodern
concerns. This emphasis looks at
questions of how knowledge is constructed, deconstructed, and
reconstructed. Again, the effect appeared
obtuse to less sophisticated students.
All of this is a bit beyond our interest here, but perhaps
you would like to look into these concerns further. As for educators influenced by this approach,
in all my years of teaching, I worked with only one teacher (and no
administrators) whom I considered a practitioner (or scholar) who followed this
approach in the pursuit of his trade. Therefore, as I alluded to above, in terms of
dealing with educators, a parent, a teacher, or an administrator will probably
not encounter a significant number of followers of the academic approach.
From time to time, there will be a nationally renowned scholar
who will argue for more rigor, in the traditional sense, among the curricular
academics. Some names in the history of
this approach include Henry Morrison, Boyd Bode, William Schubert, and William
Pinar. One area of scholarly work that
is influenced by the academic approach is referred to as the foundations. This is particularly true of the foundational
topics that include the historical, philosophic, social, and political aspects
of education in general, and curriculum and schooling more specifically. Also of note is that as generalists, the adherents
of this approach are known to bring into the study and discussion of curriculum
such areas of interest as religion, psychotherapy, literary criticism, and
linguistics. They tend to want to be
seen as those curriculum specialists who are concerned with the words and ideas
of education as opposed to the instructional aspects of education. A lofty group indeed.
[1]
Again, I will base most of the factual accounts
of these approaches on the work of Allan C. Ornstein and Francis P.
Hunkins. See Ornstein, A. C. and
Hunkins, F. P. (2004). Curriculum: Foundations, principles, and issues. Boston, MA:
Allyn and Bacon.
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