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DOCUMENT RESUMEED 061 585EA 004 126AUTHORTITLEPUB DATENOTEAlexander, William M.Curriculum Planning as It Should Be.29 Oct 7123p.; Speech given before Rssociation for Supervisionand Curriculum Development Conference. (Chicago,Illinois, October 29, 1971)EDRS ?RICEDESCRIPTORSMF- 0.65 HC- 3.29Community Involvement; *Curriculum Design;*Curriculum Development; *Curriculum Guides;*Curriculum Planning; *Educational Improvement;Speeches; Student Centered Curriculum; StudentParticipationABSTRACTThis speech suggests some of the weaknesses incurrent curriculum planning and offers suggestions for itsimprovement. The speaker argu-2s that curre At curriculum planningplaces too much emphasis on subject curriculum. For successfulcurriculum planning, the author supports these goals: (1) developmentof the self-directing, continuing learner; (2) active participationby the learner in planning his own curriculum in an open process thateliminates the uhidden curriculumu; (3) progression by the learneralong a series of curriculum continuums, each within a curriculundomain rather than up an educational ladder; and (4) development ofthe school as a management center for curriculum and instructionrather than as a self-contained locus of schooling. The authordescribes in detail the processes of curriculum planning as theyshould be, emphasizing the need for cooperation among professionals,citizens, and students. (JF)
U.S. DEPARTMEN-TH,EDUCAT' 7,1"CURRICULUM PLAN"ING AS IT S7OUL'byWilliam M. AlexanderLC1CX)1.C1r-i.1)C7.3WIJ'FF!CE)CL. AEI\EXACTLY A:L:9SON OR ORL:,rJRK1NATING IT POINTS 0,Fi OPINIONS STATED DO NO1 PiLCLSSARILYREPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICYIn a way it was surprising to be asked to speak on this topic--after all,the publications in the field of curriculum for some 50 years now are repletewith descriptions, exhortations, prescriptions, charts, and models as to howBeginning with Franklin Bobbitt's 1918curriculum planning should be done.The Curriculum and his activity analysis approach through many volumes oncurriculum and curriculum planning, including those prepared by some of ushere, there is no lack of theories as to how it ought to be done. And manyof these works have either reflected or influenced practice, for most prescriptions are paralleled by at least a few related, written curriculum plans.Certainly there is no shortage of these plans; each year at the ASCD Conferencewe exhibit hundreds of curriculum guides, with last year's printed list ofthem running 106 pages. Perhaps it is the sheer mass of the formulas andguides that cause a critic as prestigious as Professor Joseph J. Schwab tohave declared that "the field of curriculum is moribund." He said we hal"reached this unhappy state by inveterate, unexamined, and mistaken relince ontheory."'Despite the weight of existing materials on the topic, as one of thosewho hns contributed his share of the pages of both formulas and guides, I amglad to have another chance to coma up with a better, hopefully more vrkab1eproposal than those which have either led us to or not deterred us frc/1 today'sunhappy state of affairs. We meet here in the midst of strongly conf7-:-tingcurrents in American education and especially in the field of curricueumdevelopment and various auxiliary and related aspects of education.4 hasOne very great force would push curriculum planning back to allbeen previously decried and denied by most curriculum theorists and p,eatitioners:the focus on narrowly defined objectives, whether they are called minimumessentials, behavioral objectives, or prescriptions. These foci were minutelydefined t'erough activity analysis in the 1920's and now appear again ascurriculum prescriptions and performance criteria in the 1970's.They can bedrilled and tested, and their execution made the basis for accounting forschool expenditures.A strongly conflictJng force tending to come from the profession ratherthan taxpayers urges that schools become more humane. This iorcs, appealingto most of us since to be inhumane is sinful ,ndeed, pushes us back to the1 rchild-centered informal schools of the 1920s and 1930's in the 7Tsand perhaps to their counterparts across t,e Atlantic today.,.,., dowant to personalize curriculum options and individualize instruction in moreeffective ways than allowing children to progress at varying rates throughuniform sequences--but it is easier to prescribe than to personalize.,.* An address, presented at an ASCD Conference on "The School of The Future-Now," Chicago, Illinois, October 29, 1971; to be published in theConference Proceedings by the Association for Supervision and CurriculumDevelopment, NEA.
Still another force comes from the angry critics, pAee40, and studentswho would abandon public schools, letting the curriculum wel\ each child bewhatever the home, the media, the community, or perhaps the eltetnaeive form ofschooling selected,, would have it be. This force tends te e kore negative thanpositive and it is indeed difficult to incorporate its prereyala into a planfor improvieg the curriculum. Yet the criticisms of iaettAeencY, bureaucracy,learner abuse, and mindlessness sting, and underline the e0A,e0Ushess of needfor far more effective curriculum planning than now genele1-15, exists.We are faced then with the sobering knowledge that DeOt theories andprocess of curriculum planning, however much someare re%aeleq in current movements aed demands, have not worked either to effect edueqtke that is goodenough for these times or to bring about professional u04040-tY as to whatmakes for good education. Even many professionals who PAIre Peen most prolificin their publications and other efforts to bring about Metee plenning andYearbook onexecution are disillusioned. In his chapter for the 101eurriculum,James B. Macdonald asserted that "the developIlleAe (If the curriculumin the American public schools has been primarily a hisV4ritol accident,"2He explained this fact as a result of the complexity of 'the Arces involved,but called for more rational input into the process of VAaneAg.In theirBehind the Classroom Door, John Goodlad and his associatqg tenNearized theirinvestigations of the first four years of school, years '01' Ohieb cooperativeand effective planning is frequently assumed to exist, MI 2uCh criticalstatements as this:We endeavored to secure evidence of curriculum A/AnO Mingdeveloped by the school faculty as a whole or by CoOlUtec%0 ofWe encountered only one example but, 4Aittedly,that faculty.evidence here was very difficult to obtain.Nonethelee, neitherobservations nor interviews with teachers and princl-bele kvvealedfaculties at work on curriculum problems and plans. PI general, eaceclass operated as an individual unit, taking curricule* directionfrom textbooks, courses of study, and teachers' expeepWe.3Reluctantly but equaLly truthfully, I can add that my o'wtt eeSerVations andcertain related investigations4 in middle and high scho 10 ouritig tee pastfew years indicate a similar state of affairs in most 0Q4ec4 s above theprimary levele In addition, these studies yield two obtAefVetiolls that Ibelieve highly pertinent to the present topic. On the 1W4eiee side, onesees so very many schools in which the obsession with -0400 ,or teachersto plan obscures more fundamental processes and goals cApikonning, frequentlyreducing it to a series of rapid-fire decisions on immeliAte problems withlittle effort to relate present crises sad tasks to lorAsPeete goals. Onthe positive side, those cases, admittedly too rare, ta eileall comprehensiveplanning has been done by the individual school faculty, 441W1 adequaterepresentation from the community and student body, gilM Allah hope thatcareful planning at the school level can and does make 4 dtfterence.2
Some Basic AssumptionsTnrning to the kind of curriculum planning that should be, I must perforceindicate my bias or hunch as to what has been wrong with curriculum planningin the past.My hunch is not unique; it is the same which has motivated manycurriculum developments of the past--conviction that the dominance of the subject design of the curriculum must give way to more crucial and relevant aimsThe turn-away-from-the-subjects efforts of the pastof school and society.have not been successful, and I can only hope that a new proposal to this endnow finds a more fertile ground in the conflicts and dissatisfactions of today.Certainly, review of the plans made andimplemented today and yesterday leavesno doubt that the dominant assumption of past curriculum planning has been thegoal of subject matter mastery through a subject curriculum, almost inextricablytied to a closed school and a graded school ladder, to a marking system thatrewards successful achieVement of fixed content and penalizes unsuccessfulachievement, to an instructional organization based on fixed classes in thesubjects and a time table for them. The subject design is the very core ofthe establishment that today's critics would have us assess, humanize, or dismantle, depending on the critic.Many of the same critics still assume continuation of the subject curriculum, although the assessors would have us individualize its learning, and the humanists would have up open it to inquiry.Onlythe deschoolers might turn to other goals, although to what and how seemssomewhat uncertain from their writiugs.The proponents of curriculum designs built around social functions, areasof living, and similar foci, and some of the core curriculum advocates, andother theorists have for at least 50 years assailed the inadequacy of subjectdesigns, and many curriculum plans have attempted at least briefly to implementinnovative organizations of curriculum opportunities. But with the swing awayfrom the child-certeredness of the 30/s and 40"s and the reinforcement ofcognitive goals by the curriculum projects and the innovative learning aids andinstructional organizations of the past two decades, the subjects and the closedIn fact, the subjectscurriculum they formed have dominated curriculum planning.were never so entrenched, for the innovations have improved their content andpresentation and the commercial producers have developed a massive arsenal ofI liked the recent comment by Ronald Gross on t1/4esupplies to teach them.effect of innovative programs:The "innovative" programs were undertaken in well-establishedschoels with fairly conventional philosophies. They were not based onnew ideas about the role of education, or the nature of the child, orthe place of culture in a democratic society. They focused on practical methods of achieving the traditional end of schooling--the mastery of basic skills and subject matter.These innovative approaches changed the climate of Americanpublic education On the late fifties and early sixties. What theyachieved has been important, but what they failed to achieve, unfortunately, has been even more important.
Today's dissatisfaction with a curriculum geared to the subjects pointto the acceptance of some different assumptions about the goals and processesof schooling. Here are four which I consider basic to successful curriculumplanning:1.The central. goal of schooling, and therefore of the curriculum andits planningt is the development of the seltgimsIingl matkaming leamer.Statements of this goal abound in the literature, but the hard facts ofpractice all but deny its existence. Actually, observers could infer veryopposite goals of schooling:One objective must be to dull the curiosity of our students,because most children leave school less curious than when they started.Another objective would be to diminish or extinguish the desire tolearn, because most students eater school with a much stronger desireto learn than when they leave.Charles Silberman saw the schools as suffering from Inindlessness", and nowonder, since he viewed the purpose of education as "to educate educators-to turn out men and women who are capable of educating their families, theirfriends, their communities, and, most importantly, themselves" and furtherdefines this purpose in these terms:Of what does the capacity to educate oneself consist? It meansthat a person has both the desire and the capaci:w to learn for himself,to dig out what he needs to know, as well an the capacity to judgewhat is worth learning.It means, too, that one can think for himself,so that he is dependent on neither the opinis nor the facts of others,and that he uses that capacity to think about his own education, whicb'nivensemeans to think about his own nature and his placeabout the meaning of life and of knowlede eee ea tee .L.elations between7In our 1965-66 suevey of independent study programs we were able toidentify /ess than 1 per cent of th seccndary schools of the United Statesas having such programs that met our criteria relevant to independent studygoals.in the ensuing years many Ellools have adopted new scheduling arra4ements 'etch provide endependent stun/ tire, but I am not at all convincedthat tYis time is planned for so as eo irfluence the development of independentstu.fly interests and 3kflls.If the central goal 1 am aesuming were reallydominant in curriculem planning, the fundamental critereen of curriculumopportunities would be their contetbution to the development of increasing selfdirection and independence.The individual learner is acively involved in planning his ownncurriculum, in an ope process that eliminates the -hideen curriculum .La1957 a brochure of ASCD on One Hundred Years of Curriculum Improvementp 18571957", gave us the stLtement that:2.
More recently the philosophy of democratic participation and therecognition of the dynamic nature of learning have led to emphasis uponteacher-pupil learning. For the past 20 years schools have been experimenting with ways to improve the process by which children and youngpeople help set the goals, plan the activities ang evaluate the resultsof their work with the leadership of the teacher.The post-Sputnik clamor for academic excellence beginning late that same yearIn the 1971 ASCD Yearbook, James B.apparently put an end to this movement.Macdonald writing about "The School As A Double Agent," declares:The vast majority of schools, teachers, and other concerned personsThe basic assumption of the schools' orientationdo not trust students.to students is that students will do the wrong thing (what you do notIf this werewant them t. do) unless you make them do the right thing.not so, most school policies and classroom disciplinary procedures wouldnot be justified. Surely, fail in the worth, dignity, and integrity ofindividuals is not in evidence.A high school student whose article was included in How Old Will You Be in 1984,in a sitilar vein asked:Why can't we make school worthwhile enough from the standpoint ofthe student? Why can't we institute more relevant courses, and aftervery basic requirements, which even less intelligent students realizeas necessary, allow students to judge for themselves what will benefitthem? You can tell them what's good for them, but you can't make themlike the subject. And those that do like something cln take advantageabout room for it on a schedule including nonof it without. wo::kyiMayoewe'll interest more people in school if wehelpful studies.give them a choice--if we give them responsibility. 10My assumption says "Yes" to this student's question, a question that has"Yes, we can--indeedplayed no small part in student unrest of recent years:we must --allow students to judge for themselves what will benefit them."Only this assumption, and planning which enacts it, can eliminate the flhiddencurriculum" of student strategies to pass the hurdles of the formal curriculum.The M.I.T. psychiatrist Benson Snyder recently gave testimony to theimpor7ance of this hidden curriculum in his book on that subject, noting:I have found that a hidden curriculum determines, to a significantdegree what becomes the basis for all participants' sense of worth andIt is this hidden curriculum, more than the formal curricself-esteem.I knowulum, that influences the adaptation of students and faculty.of no kIndergavten, high school, or college that is without a hiddenThough eachcurriculum which bears on its students and faculty.curriculum has characteristics that are special to the particularsetting, the presence of these hidden curricula importantly affectthe process of all education. The similarities in these hiddencurricula are at least as important as the differences.41
John Holt was dealing with the same phenomenon when he wrote:For children, the central business of school is not learning,whatever this vague word means; it is getting these daily tasks done,or at least out of the way, with a minimum of effort and unpleasantThe children don't care howness. Each task is aa end in itself.If they can get it out of the way by doing it,they dispose of it.they wiil do it; if experience has taught them that this does notwork well, they will turn to other means, illegitimate means, thatwholly defeat whatever purpose the task-giver may have had in mind.I have tended to write and speak about the "curriculum planned" andthe "curriculum had." My present assumption is that curriculum planning asit should be will not longer foster or even tolerate the existence of twocurriculums, the school's and the students'. The only way to end this dualismand all of the barriers to effective education involved is to bring studentsmore openly and fully into the planning process as full-fledged partners.The learner progresses along a series of curriculum continuums, eachwithin a curriculum domain, rather than up an educational ladder. I likevery much the notion of curriculum as a continuum rather than a set of subjectareas and objectives. Harold Shane described a curriculum continuum as "anunbroken flow of experiences planned with and fo:e the individual learner-,roughout his ctacts with the school," and noted that implementation oiLis concept woLe.Liminate such fixtures of present schools as failure,dc,ble promotion, special education, remedial work, anual promotion, dropouts, compensatory education, report cards and marks.I see the curriculumcontinuum as a general notion to emphasize the infinite possibilities of thecurriculum and to eliminate the notion of the graded, marked, standardiZedFor planning purposes it seems useful to think of a curriculumcurriculum.continuum as Shane's"Personalized Curriculum continuum", that is, as theseries of learning experiences an individual has.I would further modifythe notion to the series of learning experiences within a particularcurriculum domain, a concept to be explained shortly.3.If and as the notion of curriculum as a continuum gets accepted, thedominant question of schooling would become "what did you do?" or, evenmore hopefully, "what did you learn?" rather than the present "what didyou get?" Anyone who reads the delightful work appropos the latter question,WAD-JA-GET? must be impressed with the massive evidence of the ineffectivenessand worse, the inappropriateness, of our dominant marking system. As theauthors note; "From the elementary to the graduate level, most of the studentor the teacher's /Afe in school revolves, directly or indirectly, around theIn my judgement, it is difficult to over-emphasizegrading system."the strangle-hold of marks and all they relate to in schools.It is notenough to simply develop new marking systems, to which sooner or later oldlabel3 will revert, for we have been tinkering with marks and reports formany years to little avail. A different conception of educational purposemust prevail and with it a different set of curriculum parameters.
7-The school is a management center for curriculum and instruction ratherthan a self-contained locus of schooling.Bruce Joyce cited in his chapter forthis year's NSSE Yzaybook cn curriculum our past assumptions about schools andteachers as a major factor in "the dilemma of the currieulum field:"4.By focusing on a certain kind of educational institution (theschool) and by focusing on functionaries (teachers) whose roles havedeveloped within the constraints of that institution, the curriculumfield has forced itself to operate within parameters so restrictivethat it has been unable to develop strong, validated theory and it hasbeen impotent to improve education. 15Like Joyce, I would not therefore argue for abandoning the school, but we cansee for it very different functions in the future. Probably as Toffler predicts, advanced technology will make unnecessary the continuation of massassembly of students in schools and change markedly the locale of education:A good deal of education will take place in the student's own roomat home or in a dorm, at hours of his own choosing. With vastlibraries of data available to him via computerized information retrieval systems, with his own tapes and video units, his own languagelaboratory and his own electronically equipped study carrel, he willbe freed, for much of the time, of the restrictions and unpleasantness that dogged him in the lockstep classroom. 16The independent, e.-7f-directed learner whose development is our goal maywell be able to carr-:7 ee his continued learning without the aid of school,although it can be hopeu that some schools would always have resourcesthat could be used by students of various ages. But learners do not becomefully independent and self-directing in their early school years and most willprobably need the help of the school at least through adolescence in arrangingtheir learning opportunities, and in providing many which foster the development of self-direction.Good schools have always sought to utilize the best resources available,but it is only recently that the concept of the school-without-walls has beendramatized by reports of the Parkway School in Philadelphia and other suchschools making extensive use of community resources. An earlier model, thecommunity school, brought the community into the school and served diversefunctions for its citizens. Tbday the prevailing idea may be to take theschool into the community, but what seems really needed is full recognitionof the educative possibilities of many experiences in various locales andthrough many media. A school center to coordinate educational resources isessential.The assumption here is that the curriculum is no longer to beplanned as events that occur only inside the school but instead as occurringwherever is most desirable and possible.The existence of a plan and acenter for developing and implementing the plan seems all the more criticalas the concept of curriculum is thus broadened.
Curriculum DomainsTraditionally curriculum components have been identified as the disciplineswith passing attention only to the activities, services, and special programs.The temYet, some major goals are sought if at all through the lattei."curriculum area" has become so identified with the subject design that Ifind "curriculum domain" hopefully different and more inclusive of all learn"Domain" defined as "a field for thought, action, etc.,"ing opportunities.becomes in curriculum planning a field for thought and action 'eelative to asingle but comprehensive, major educational goal.Thus a curriculum domainencompasses all learning opportunities available to achieve such a broad goal.Materials from the disciplines are essentia/, but categories of the curriculumare created by goals rather than disciplines. The boundaries between domainsremain very elastic because many learning opportunities including entiredisciplines, may serve more than one goal. For the purpose of curriculumplanning, the domains may be useful ways of designing a curriculum for theparticular population served by a single school center and especially forfacilitating vertical curriculum planning between school levels.Fourbroad goals are seen as setting the domains for most populations, although itis expected that each school district and center would determine its owndomains.Personal development.Recognizing that the entire purpose of education maybe considered as aiding the development of each person, the reference hereis to that considerable portion of the curriculum seeking in many ways atall levels to aid the individual in identifying and serving his personalneeds and potentialities. Despite periodic debate over whether the schoolshould serve the "whole child", few would deny that educational progress,academic and otherwise, is inextricably related to the total growth and development and well-being of the child. Communication skills seem a part ofthis domain as do most curriculum opportunities related to ro-oalled "generaleducation" objectives. Planning for personal development would also encompassguidance and other services to individual students; health and physicaleducation; and exploratory activities that give each student many chances todiscover interests for later specialization.Human relations.American educational goals have usually includedstrong emphasis on citizenship education, social welfare, human rights andrelationships and similar phrases encompassed here in the term "human relations."Certainly a continuous and essential goal of education in 'a human society,especially one which prizes democratic values and processes, is ever-improvinghuman relations.This domain, too, includes a plethora of' curriculum possibilities: thevarious areas of knowledge in the social sciences and humanities; languages;social interaction and organization within the schools and other institutionsof the community; the participation of students in these institutions; andspecific studies and skill development activities related to particularhuman relations problems within the school and community such as those involvedin cultural and ethnic differences and conflicts.
continued learning skills.In practice much schooling has ceen preparatoryto moThge-Wirilig;The assumption seeming to be that the more knowledge oneacquires in school the better prepared he becomes for acquiring still mere atBeyond reading and limited attention to other knowledge-achigher levels.quiring skills, little emphasis has been placed on the skills through whichlearners will continue to learn effectively outside and after school. Thedramatic lessons of ever-increasing change are clear as to the futility ofexpecting individuals to store up during the 12 to 16 school years enoughInstead there is nowinformation to solve future problems of adjustment.wide agreement as to the school's central mission of developing lifelonglearners--individuals who are both motivated to continue learning and havethe basic skills to do it.This curriculum domain includes such standard curriculum provisions asinstruction in readin 6. listening, viewing, and speaking.It also includesplans as yet to be generally made for teaching moieadvanced learning skills:interviewing, inquiry, discussing, interacting; using various informationretrieval systems including those made aessible by computers; analyzing issues,selecting alternatives, trying out ideas, and other problem-solving skills;evaluating sources and ideas; generalizing; and others.Especially needingemphasis in future curriculum planning are the learning skills related togroup interaction and those utilizing the computer.The specialization domain is even more difficult toSpecializationacategorize than the others, for depth in either of the other domains maybecome specialization for an individual. But American education clearly seeksto provide an enormously wide and varied range of opportunities for individualstudents to work to some depth in the interests, tasks or careers which arechoosen on the bases of interest and qualifications. Specialization forcareer purposes is generally delayed until after high school; yet manyadolescents still terminate or interrupt their education before or uponfinishing high sshool. Even younger students, in middle or perhaps elementaryschools, develop strong interests, as in music, art, sports, and variousknowledge areas, that can be the basis of extended instruction and indeThus this domain includes such traditional school areas as thosependent study.traditionally classified as prevocational or vocational, and perhaps now ascareer development, and in addition almost any area that can be pursuedin depth by the individual selecting it for specialization. Specializationalso includes such cut-across learning opportunities chosen on the basisof individual interest as work experience, community service, or extendedstudy in another rchool center, community, state, or nation.These four domains--personal development, human relations, continuedlearning skills, and specialization--represent a classification of majoreducational goals and related leer Ing opportunities that seems fairlyIt is not assumed that each school center would necessarilyuniversal.have curriculum plans within each of these domains, nor that additionaldomains cannot or should not be developed. The essential idea is to have abroader grouping of curriculum opportunities than in the traditional divisionSuch a broaderof schooling into the disciplines and the nondisciplines.grouping gives the basis for more functional and vertical planning and widerIt also stwould altsurchs-wiscr-cainvoivemeni. or ithe%-przonz conceiaed.lection of subjects and subject content.
-10 The Curriculum PlanBefore describing in further detail the processes of curriculum planningas they should be, certain concepts should be reviewed. Curriculum is viewedthroughout this paper as the planned program of learning opportunities toachieve broad educational goals and related specific objectives for anidentifiable population served by a single school center. The planned program is arranged within categories just described as curriculum domains. Thecurriculum plan is an advance arrangement of learning opportunities designedto achieve a set of objz:etives for par
Speeches; Student Centered Curriculum; Student Participation. This speech suggests some of the weaknesses in current curriculum planning and offers suggestions for its improvement. The speaker argu-2s that curre At curriculum planning places too much emphasis on subject curriculum. For successful curriculum planning, the author supports these .
