Throughout my time in the education system here in Saskatchewan I would say the majority of it has been spent experiencing the traditional idea of a curriculum or Tyler rationale. In elementary school especially, I remember classrooms, activities and events all felt very cookie cutter, sort of part of a bigger picture so everything had to be done in a certain way so nothing else in this “big picture” would be disturbed or thrown off. And most often the biggest emphasis was put on your evaluations and tests, to the point where students began to learn how to become masters at memorization and copying instead of critically thinking about and understanding a subject because that is what got them good results in their evaluations. I would say it wasn’t until I entered high school that I experienced what I could now recognize as a different type of curriculum approach being implemented (or attempted to be).
In my opinion some of the major limitations of the Tyler rationale are that it is too rigid and structured to be applied to all people. With education being something that is considered a basic human right and need we want to be able to deliver it to everyone, or as many people as possible. This is very difficult to do with a scientific, systematic approach to curriculum which values neutrality above other things. As it is stated in the article, this model places a lot of weight on measurability and assumes behavior can be objectively measured. With such a massive variety of learners and educators with different behavior’s, how can we expect that one approach can work in all contexts from the perspective of the students or teachers?
On the other side, some of the benefits from this model could be its uniformity and the structure it can bring to a classroom. By making things more uniform and simple, this approach could prove to be useful in many different settings, being implemented fairly easily with different teachers and students. The success of this model has been partly attributed to its similarities to industrial management in how it is rational, efficient and orderly. The Tyler rationale also provides behavioral objectives that give a clear notion of outcomes so evaluation is clear and the same for everyone.
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