Teachers have their own pedagogy, but at the end of the day, Tyler’s rationale is still a part of the school systems to this day. Teachers are given a curriculum that they have to get through and everyone’s curriculum is the same. People of higher authority and power such as the government expect students to know all the things, they want them to, and have to be good functioning individuals in society. I believe that there has been progression away from Tyler’s rationale, however, there has not been enough because it is still used in the school system. The article explains many things about this article.
I once was in a class when a teacher said to us students, “final assessments are not a good way to assess students, but it is the easiest way.” For students who test well, are fast learners, or are good at memorizing then the final assessments will work well for them. However, for students, who get a lot of anxiety and stress due to tests or take a longer time to understand course material this is not a good way to assess their knowledge. I personally have experienced the pros and cons of final examinations. The Pro is the fact that I could memorize things, but the con is the stress and anxiety that formed within myself that definitely did not help me while writing these final assessments. A lot of times teachers would have too much course content that at the end of the year or semester they would cram in the last topics because they had no other option which made it even harder for students who learn at a slower rate.
The limitation of Tyler’s rationale is the fact that it lacks awareness. It also lacks the ability for students to be creative. His model assumes that it will work for every student that goes through schooling and that it is the right way to learn. An example of not being aware is an immigrant student who may be a certain age that the grade level should correspond with their age but it does not due to the different learning they had in the previous country they got educated. This is not fair to the student to be expected to conform to the grade just because their age suggests that they should have the same amount of knowledge as the other students in this grade level that are the same age.
Some benefits of this rationale are the learning of structure and having a baseline of some knowledge that will help them in life. For example, being punctual is taught in schooling and this is important for life.
Smith, M. K. (1996, 2000) ‘Curriculum theory and practice’ The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education, www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm.