Copyright 1998 by Randall Burks

The ancient rabbis proclaimed that every man should fulfill three important tasks during his lifetime: Plant a tree, have a son, and write a book. Because of their long-lasting qualities, these three products are able to outlive the originator by many years, and each can have an impact on future generations. I don’t know if Tyler ever planted a tree or had a son, but I believe he succeeded admirably in fulfilling the task of writing a timeless book that would impart a phenomenal positive impact on the world for many generations.

Even though his work was first prepared only as a syllabus for a college class in, it qualifies as a bonafide book—not just a course outline. And even though it was published in 1949, I have not discovered any data that would discredit or diminish the usefulness of Tyler’s work currently (1998). In fact, the vast majority of current experts that I examined seem to substantially agree with the general common-sense concepts expressed by Tyler.

Regardless of a few vocal critics in our class, I propose that it would be difficult to launch a substantial, whole-hearted war against Tyler’s mandates; after all, he implicitly denied issuing any mandates. And he explicitly denied that his syllabus should be considered a textbook or a manual for curriculum construction. He warns the reader that his work is exclusively an outline of "one way of viewing an instructional program as a functioning instrument of education." Furthermore, he explicitly encouraged students to "examine other rationales" and develop their own philosophy of effective curriculum (p. 1). Tyler’s main goal was to simply suggest methods of studying and researching fundamental questions. "Instead of answering the questions, an explanation is given of procedures by which these questions can be answered" (p. 2). In reality, his syllabus was intended as a thought-stimulator and research guide, not a set-in-concrete manifesto on curriculum philosophy.

Tyler’s rationale involves using data about the learners themselves, their society, and subject-area experts to develop the purposes which the school should seek to attain. Next, a selection of educational experiences is selected based on their likelihood of attaining the educational goals. After they are selected, they are organized in a logical manner, hoping to be obtain the maximum cumulative effect. The curriculum is then improved and refined by a process of evaluation. Thus, curriculum development may be viewed as a cycle: The quality and impact of curricula are monitored by carefully observing the outcomes, and data from these observations are used to fine-tune the curricula. McNeil (1990, p. 389) credits Tyler with making a "real contribution by enlarging our concept of evaluation."

McNeil also admits that Tyler’s work "is regarded as the culmination of one epoch of curriculum making" (p. 388), and that "Tyler’s rationale for examining problems of curriculum and instruction summed up the best thought regarding curriculum during its first half-century as a field of study." Furthermore, he lauds the modernity of Tyler’s rationale: "The four questions he poses and the suggestions he gives for answering the questions define the field of curriculum as it was understood until very recently" (p. 390).

However, McNeil (1990, pp. 389-390) also reports a few criticisms of Tyler’s rationale: (1) Some critics disagree with the concept of selecting behavioral objectives before developing the curriculum. (2) Some critics claim that data collected from the learners and their society is biased and that there is no scientific formula to separate the chaff from the wheat when using this data in combination with subject-area specialists’ suggestions. (3) "Tyler’s proposal for filtering educational objectives through a philosophical screen is regarded as vacuous and trivial," with no scientific criterion to choose between objectives. (4) Tyler’s view may leave curriculum-development in the hands of a less-qualified group at the local school, as opposed to being mandated by state experts and industrial interests.

In my opinion, these criticisms are not strong enough to diminish the common-sense applicability of Tyler’s rationale, and I personally feel that his philosophical screening process is followed by every curriculum maker to some degree or another— consciously or unconsciously. After all, no human is completely unbiased, and even "scientific" curricular computer programs are designed by biased humans.

As for criticizing the locally-based nature of Tyler’s rationale, I believe that we have far too long accepted a top-down, one-size-fits-all philosophy. How can state "experts" know exactly what students need in my local community? Still, Tyler clearly calls for expert guidance and input. We should not misinterpret him to say that the students and their environment are the main—or only—source of objectives. Rather, he maintained that these would be a tempering piece of the pie. His acceptance of subject-area experts is explicit, but he also realizes that the needs of students and society must be taken into consideration, as well.

Even the critics would have to admit that some the curriculum always ends up being modified to fit students’ and society’s needs, anyway—even if the school district or state does not officially base its objectives primarily on these considerations. That is, simple observation reveals teachers modify each lesson and each course in real-time to suit their own style, personality, and perception of applicability. Certain information is added and other content is subtracted. It’s a fact of life. So why not identify and take these factors into consideration from the beginning?

One central-influence factor that is much more prevalent in our day that in Tyler’s is the impact of special-interest groups, federal agencies, and corporate interests. Yet, the most obvious impact stems from a sordid reliance on textbooks as the de facto curriculum source. Rozycki (1996) identifies textbook companies as a major power in the curriculum field and finds that overreliance on textbooks results in a curriculum that is like a patchwork quilt rather than a finely-developed instrument. He labels it as "as set of compromises symbolizing the pluralism of ends pursued by our society" (p. 154). He even states that much of our textbook-based curriculum is counterproductive to learning. Certainly, the textbook is the god of curriculum in practice, whether the school district admits it or not. In my experience, most teachers don’t even know where the curriculum "Scope and Sequence Guides" are located in the school offices. Obviously they haven’t read them or used them in lesson planning, either. Even the much-lauded Sunshine State Standards are only given lip-service by many "overworked and underpaid" textbook-bound classroom teachers.

Another problem is that very few schools facilitate the cooperative discussion and development that Tyler proposed in his last chapter. Teachers are far too isolated in modern schools, and staff meetings often center around mundane administrative issues rather than curriculum-and-instruction issues. Kenneth T. Henson (1996) calls for "a learning community of teachers, administrators, students, and parents ... within the school with common goals for improvement" (p. 157). He bemoans the lack of teacher-involvement in current curriculum making, and suggests that "building a learning community requires teachers to come out of their classrooms and collaborate with their colleagues" (p. 160) to help develop curriculum and instructional practices that are truly designed to enhance student achievement. I believe that most schools are sorely lacking the cooperative discussion and development efforts that Tyler suggested in his last chapter.

Of course, having teachers cooperate in their curriculum planning begs the question of teachers being directly involved in curriculum planning in the first place. As we have said, far too many teachers simply rely on the textbook. However, J. D. McNeil (1995) in Curriculum: The Teacher’s Initiative, gives many inspiring examples of teachers who are taking the initiative of having a direct hand in curriculum planning and improvement. It appears that Tyler would have approved wholeheartedly of this new development.

And, incidentally, so would most theorists, if they really had to admit their true sentiments. The real dividing line among the theorists, both in a historical sense and in a political sense, is the underlying disparity among their personal philosophies of education. Schubert (1996) points out that virtually every curriculum theorist derives his underlying views from one of the four main philosophies of life and education: Traditional intellectualism, social behaviorism, critical reconstructionism, and experientialism (p. 172). McNeil (1990) contrasts Tyler’s rationale with the reconstructionist philosophy. However, the main difference lies in the order of their procedures: Tyler begins with collecting data, builds tentative objectives, and then screens them with a philosophy and settles on final objectives. By contrast, the reconstructionist starts with a philosophy and then collects data, then finishes by forming objectives.

Perhaps some of the most recent theory, similar in its impact to Tyler’s work, is found in the "design-based" concept of curriculum which began to emerge in the 1980's. Although Jacobs (1997) implies that this movement is a new phenomenon, its tenets would certainly have been approved by Tyler. Jacobs focuses on the interdisciplinary integration of learning experiences as a "new age" trend. However, Tyler proposed long ago that major threads should be used to organize the curriculum, and that a certain amount of cross-subject integration is helpful.

It is interesting to note Jacobs’ "best design practices to consider when crafting these curriculum designs" (p. 33). They are: "High school teachers deliberately select a curriculum design from a range of options to organize their content," "Rather than attempting to ‘cover’ the total curriculum, teachers frame their curriculum around sets of essential questions," "High school teachers integrate student performance assessment into their curricular designs," and "High school educators match the purpose of the curriculum with the structural format that will best serve the learner" (pp. 33-36). It is interesting to note that these "new" concepts are really just vintage Tyler, reframed in different terms.

Another "new" movement is reported by Hampton and Eresh (1996) in "Restructuring Curriculum for ‘Real-World’ Experiences," a journal article in which they report on a movement where "more and more teachers are exploring curricula unique to each group of students" (p. 187). Specifically, they describe an experimental high-school English class where there were no textbooks, no themes, no essays, etc. Rather, they constructed real-world documents that were actually then utilized by the business community and the school district, and they were even paid for some of this work. Students testify that the cooperative learning and real-world utility of this learning experience greatly contributed to advanced achievement in English. Once again, Tyler would have approved of this. Throughout the book, he called for the curriculum to be useful and enjoyable as far as possible. None of these comparisons surprises me; Tyler’s rationale immediately struck me as totally sensible. Although I have uncovered slight disagreements or criticisms during my research, I have not found any source which makes more sense and is stated in as succinct a manner as Tyler. In general, it appears that the foundation he laid in 1949 still holds a great amount of validity either in the theory or the practice of today’s expert educators. My first reaction was confirmed: that Tyler was ahead of his time and that today’s schools would do well to take another look at his very logical rationale. In my opinion, it would result in a definite improvement over current practice in many states, districts, and individual schools.

I don’t mean to propose that his work is the end-all of curriculum theory. Rather, I simply agree that Tyler’s stated purpose is valid: he intended to get his students to think and search for answers. His book has inspired me personally to study more about the theory of curriculum design, and thus his book has fulfilled his stated purpose for me.

REFERENCES 

Ediger, M. (1996). Sequence and scope in the curriculum. Education, 17(1), 58-60.

Eresh, J. & Hampton, S. (1996). Restructuring curriculum for "real-world" experiences. Educational Horizons, 74(4), 187-191.

Henson, K. T. (1996). Why curriculum development needs reforming. Educational Horizons, 74(4), 153-162.

Jacobs, H. H. (1997, March/April). Designing with rigor: Crafting interdisciplinary high school curricula. The High School Magazine, pp. 32-39.

McNeil, J. D. (1990). Curriculum: A comprehensive introduction (4th ed.). Glenview, Ill: Scott, Foresman and Co.

McNeil, J. D. (1995). Curriculum: The teacher’s initiative. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Rozycki, E. G. (1996). Beyond the textbook? Unlikely changes in the curriculum. Educational Horizons, 74(4), 153-155.

Schubert, W. H. (1996). Perspectives on four curriculum traditions. Educational Horizons, 74(4), 169-176.

Stewart, W. J. (1997). Optimizing curriculum planning in site-based management. American Secondary Education, 26(1), 26-29.

Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Westerberg, T. (1997, March/April). Developing and implementing essential learnings: One school’s experiences. The High School Magazine, pp. 4-10.

Return to Papers Index