I can recall many times in which I have experienced the Tyler Rationale throughout my education. This “traditionalist” way of looking at curriculum views it as a product and heavily focuses on objectives. I remember many classes which consisted almost entirely of textbook reading and memorization-based evaluations, which is a very traditional pedagogical approach that did not take any context into account.
I always enjoyed this teaching approach as a student who excelled in test-taking and other product-type assessments. I can understand that my previous beliefs regarding this teaching model were based solely on my personal bias and success within it. I can see now how a fixation on memorization can stunt many students learning or potentially favour students who could produce a good product while lacking an understanding of the concepts.
Although I now disagree with Tyler’s Rationale as a future educator, a possible benefit to the approach could be that it is “teacher proof” ‘(Smith, 2000, p.4). Removing both context and relationships creates the idea that anyone can teach. This can be viewed as a benefit in that it ensures that students are learning what they are “supposed” to be learning even if they have a teacher who is putting in a limited amount of work and care.
References:
Smith, M. K. (2000). Curriculum Theory and Practice, https://infed.org/curriculum-theory-and-practice/
5 Comments
Kari McNabb
Looks great! Super straight to the point which is great, and love how you included how its “teacher-proof”!
Eli Klassen
Anna,
I thought that your blog post was very interesting because you and I seem to be very different people. While the traditional view of curriculum and education may have benefitted you in terms of test taking and memorization it was a detriment to me in the sense that I was not able to demonstrate my practical skills in school. Memorization and test-taking never came easy to me and I am not saying that it isn’t important because it is definitely an asset. I believe that people who possessed skills that lay outside of the traditional scope of education were led to believe they were somehow inferior to others but in reality, these people’s skills just exist somewhere outside of the traditional curriculum.
Brodi Noble
Also growing up with many heavily test taking and memorization-built classes, It is one way that can stunt, especially given that many teachers I noticed would only use one way of teaching which could be really good for some students, but if some students couldn’t grasp those one or two methods then they would be left to struggle and teach themselves for a test they didn’t understand.
Yahya El-Darieby
I also disagree with some of Tyler’s comments. I believe he mentioned how he thinks that students learn at the same pace with the same methods.
Tyler Carlson
I think I found myself in a similar situation in my education in regards to final assessments being the goal of determining a students level of success. Specific readings and memory based evaluations do not necessarily speak about learning as a whole, and may not take into account parts of education that are significant. In the Tyler model of curriculum, it was said that this was their theory in determining whether a student is actually absorbing some of the most critical content, as opposed to a specific set of isolated multiple choice comments.