Ralph W. Tyler’s rationale for the curriculum is very processed based. There are multiple steps to his rationale. The first question is “what educational purposes should the school seek to attain?”. Then we ask “what educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes?”. The third question is then “how can these educational experiences be effectively organized?”. The final question and/or step is “how can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?”. This process focuses more on efficiency and assessment than what is best and most beneficial for the students to learn. This means that since Tyler didn’t take the student into account when making the curriculum, if something goes wrong such as falling behind in the time schedule, then the blame is automatically on the teachers or students. I have experienced this multiple times in my life, especially in math and English. If our class was falling behind in the timeline, the teacher would blame us students for not paying attention enough or not trying hard enough. In turn the teacher was also being blamed by the principal for being behind and not meeting the requirements of the curriculum.
The biggest limitation of Tyler’s rationale is the fact that it does not take context into account. It expects everyone all across the country to be learning the same things. It does not take into account that some people speak different languages, especially in neighborhoods with high rates of immigration, the majority of the students may not speak English in the school so how can we expect them to be learning the same things as someone who does speak English? It also doesn’t take into account that not everyone has the same background knowledge. Like we discussed in class, someone who was rich may have passed the old IQ test from the slides, but someone who was poor would have no clue what some of the things in the questions even were because they could not afford to see them. The reading by Smith also states a great disadvantage of this rationale, “the focus on pre-specified goals may lead both educators and learners to overlook learning that is occurring as a result of their interactions, but which is not listed as an objective”. This could be the social skills they learn while at school. Learning how to make friends or have an effective conversation are not outcomes in the curriculum but they happen nonetheless. This is also a great example of why teachers should think more about the hidden curriculum.
Something beneficial about this rationale is that it gives teachers an example of where their students should be at the end of the year. Of course, our students will not always meet the expectations that the curriculum sets for various reasons that may occur but it is good to have a goal to work towards. Making lesson plans is hard enough as a teacher but when we have a solid goal it makes it easier to gradually plan and modify our plans.
Smith, M. K. (1996, 2000) ‘Curriculum theory and practice’ The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education, www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm.