The Tyler Rationale is still greatly part of our curriculum today in many ways. As such most of us have experienced some of the ways it was adopted/adapted into our curriculum. One way I experienced the Tyler Rationale during school was the focus on finals/exams as Ralph Tyler believed the final product to be the most important thing when developing a curriculum. Another way I experienced the Tyler rationale was the way things were measured in school, which was mostly tests and a grading scheme that relied heavily on where we should be in the curriculum, and not on individual experience.
This causes many limitations on students as this system does not work for most, if not the majority now, of students we could have in our classroom; some examples being neurodivergencecy, learning disabilities, gender, and race. This curriculum style is made for rich white people and only helps those included in that group. The emphasis on product (“good” students as the product) leaves the rest of the student body failing to succeed and keeping the cycle of upper class student body being successful and everyone not part of that group struggling to keep up. The emphasis on behavioral objectives plays a part in limiting students as if your not A-Typical, commonly your branded as a problem child. You can plan a curriculum to be set in a specific way/setting but for the students to grow and learn its important to bring other factors that are not behaviour/measurable scores as not everything can be measured.
Despite most of these limitations, this curriculum does have some benefits. One could be that having such a detailed outline can help you see where students should typically be and be able to help you deduce which students are struggling so that the right guidance can be provided. The detail in a curriculum can also provide an outline to what you should be doing in a school year, which can stimulate different ways the curriculum can be used and how it can be adapted for all learning styles.
The main point benefit of the Tyler Rationale, I believe, is that is gives a good outline that can be adjusted to fit everyone instead of being used directly and leaving groups out.
Hi Kari! I agree with you that the curriculum grading scheme was much more focused on where we should be in the curriculum rather than the students individual experience. This is harmful to the students because some students may be behind and not receive the help that they need. But the good part to the Tyler Rationale is that the outline is simple and easy to work around.
It is interesting that growing up with schooling we all felt ‘The Tyler Rationale’ within the curriculum system. I too felt that grading was focused on product and having boundaries for behavioral measure. I feel like things need to go under curriculum development because this style of teaching is not effective.
I particularly appreciated the way you clearly outlined Tyler’s rationale and then going into great depth about your personal experience. I agree that this justification had led to restrictions on students because the system does not function for the vast majority of people and is mostly targeted at wealthy, white people. Great job!