There have been a few ways that I have experienced parts of the Tyler rationale in my schooling. Most of my experience with this rationale has specifically happened with classes such as math and science that typically have one method they expect all students to learn and then reproduce in exams. This was my experience; we would be told how we were supposed to learn something and we would be given a very specific timeline for doing so. My experience in some of these classes felt very similar to how it was described in the article by Smith where he describes it as “an approach to education and assessment which resembles a shopping list. When all the items are ticked, the person has passed the course or has learnt something” (2000, p.5). This is how some of my classes would feel, especially math or science. We would move through each unit and section as though we were checking things off a list and once the list was finished, we would have passed the course and learned something.

There are many limitations to the Tyler rationale. This can be a very restrictive way of looking at curriculum and it can be damaging to student individuality. Every student is different and every student learns differently. The Tyler rationale does not take this into account. It assumes every student will be able to learn everything the same way and have no trouble learning and retaining all of the information. This can cause students who struggle to learn in the way that is being taught to fall through the cracks. They will simply be considered a failure because they do not learn the same way as everyone else. Another limitation that is mentioned in the article is ‘teacher-proof’ curriculum. This makes it so teachers have no say in how they teach their class. They are forced to teach the same as every other teacher and they are forced to teach based on a strict schedule that is the same across multiple schools. This can hurt learners because students may have a harder time picking up certain subjects and if teachers are not allowed to spend extra time on those topics, students may never actually learn them.

However, there are some potential benefits to the Tyler rationale. The article points out that this way of approaching curriculum can be attractive because of how organized it is. There is a very clear set of objectives for teachers and students to meet. This makes it easy to organize content and evaluate performance. Another potential benefit to curriculum as a product was that “it involved detailed attention to what people needed to know in order to work, live their lives and so on” (2000, p.3). Both of these things can appeal to people who want to remain organized and not leave anything out and it also made evaluations easier for teachers since there was a very clear set of objectives that were to be met.