The Curriculum - WordPress.com

objectives, and even, perhaps especially, the attempt to combine the two, haveserious drawbacks in relation to the planning of educational provision. Whetherwe first select the content of our curriculum and use the aims-and-objectivesschema as a methodology for planning the teaching of it, or establish our aimsand objectives and select that content that we believe will achieve these mosteffectively, both models create more difficulties than they solve.The objectives movement has rightly drawn our attention to the importanceof being clear about the purposes of the curriculum, and that is a lesson wemust not lose sight of, since there is nothing wrong with the advice of thosesuch as Ralph Tyler who have told us we must begin our planning with a clearview of its aims and purposes. And the advocates of planning through contenthave raised important questions about the selection of the content of the curriculum,in particular by stressing the claims to inclusion of those aspects ofculture which might be deemed to constitute that which is valuable in the heritageof human experience and understanding.Neither, however, can help with the selection of what should be included ina truly educational and democratic curriculum, unless we are prepared toaccept the absolutist epistemology of some of the proponents of the contentmodel in its pure form. We need basic principles of a kind which will enable usto make these choices, and neither of these models can provide these.Further, both of them can be seen to make tacit assumptions concerning notonly education but also the nature of human beings and of the societies theyform, assumptions which constitute ideological positions of a kind which mustbe challenged and questioned. In particular these are ideologies which in themselvesare difficult to reconcile with any reasonable concept of democracy, sothat, not surprisingly, they lead to practices which are clearly impossible so toreconcile.What is needed for educational planning is a model which accepts the needfor clear purposes and for the initiation of the young into that which is deemedto be worthwhile, but which at the same time seeks to do this while respectingthe freedom of the individual and promoting social equality and empowerment.In short, we need a model which will provide us with fundamental principlesto underpin our planning and one whose ideological base is genuinelydemocratic.Those who have been exploring and advocating a curriculum planning modelfocused on education as development and curriculum as process have beendoing so because they believe such an approach can meet these needs. It is to adetailed consideration of this model that we turn in Chapter 4.Key issues raised by this chapterThe Curriculum1 Is the selection of content an adequate basis for an educational curriculum?2 How might ‘valuable’ content be identified?74