CHAPTER
29
Is
There a Curriculum Voice to Reclaim?
·
“What
knowledge is of most worth?” This
is an educational, ideological and political issue.
·
Apple
states that due to class, race, gender and religious relations, the question better asked is “Whose knowledge is of most worth?”
·
Education
and other social issues have swung to the right evident by:
Proposals
for voucher plans and tax credits
Movement to raise standards
Assault on school curriculum
Pressure to meet needs of business
§
Apple reiterates Eisner when he comments on
conservative groups romanticizing the past when pushing for more standardization
and productivity
§ Conservative groups have also silenced a number of voices in education
Economically disadvantaged
Women
People of colour
Curriculum scholars
§ Apple notes conservatives such as William Bennett who feel that current conservative shifts in education is the "coming out of crisis". Displayed is a mistrust and blame of educators who are "part of the problem".
§ "Professional discourse about the curriculum has shifted from a focus on what we should teach to a focus on how the curriculum should be organized, built, and evaluated" (pg. 344)
§ Since educators were deemed incapable of handing "real knowledge" the late 1950's saw a surge of "teacher proof materials" such as standardized kits.
§ Power at this time was shifting away from professional educators and curriculum scholars and toward those who "may have had interesting things to say about what should be taught in schools but whose primary affiliations were to their academic disciplines, not to teachers and schools" (pg. 344)
§ Ralph Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, behaviorally oriented, procedural model which did not help determine whose knowledge should be taught and who should decide. This model led to the elimination of political and cultural conflict from the center of the debate.