rganized and logically-sequenced march from the basics to advanced knowledge

undamental change over the last 300 years

omenius, Rousseau, Spencer, Dewey, Bruner, an

d Toffler

made better sense of the data, and dealt with increasingly embarrassing anomalies in the Ptolemaic view

perhaps it is the inevitable result of focusing on knowledge instead of performance (which is inherently more engaging). Forgetfulness is constant: students rarely recall what was taught a few weeks ago. How can content move from short-term to long-term memory if there is always more content to memorize tomorrow? And test results reveal over and over that few students can transfer learning to new challenges and overcome basic misconceptions.

ll one has to do is read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and the Dialogues more generally, Kant’s criticism of conventional education, Rousseau’s Emile, Hegel’s Phenomenology, dozens of books from the Progressive era in the 1920s – 30s, Piaget on what mental growth demands educationally, Bruner’s Process of Education, the recent book Shop Class As Soulcraft,

Ralph Tyler, the Director of Research for what came to be called the 8-Year Study – a major investigation, funded by the Carnegie Foundation, into the effects of progressive education. Tyler went on a few years later to write the modern classic text on curriculum-framing (based on his work as Director of Evaluation for the 8-Year Study) entitled The Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction.

“The purpose of a statement of objectives is to indicate the kinds of changes in the student to be brought about so that the instructional activities can be planned and developed in a way likely to attain these objectives; that is to bring about these changes in students. Hence it is clear that a statement of objectives in terms of content headings…is not a satisfactory basis for guiding the further development of the curriculum. The most useful form for stating objectives is to express them in terms which identify both the kind of behavior to be developed in the student and the … area of life which this behavior is to operate.” pp. 45-7.