Pragmatist Curriculum

I. Introduction As the writer of this paper tried to look around his school, he eventually listened to the noisy swarm of students and suddenly quiet as pupils and teachers move into classrooms and doors close. Suddenly, questions came into the writer’s mind; what’s happening behind those doors? What are students learning? How are the teachers teaching? As school leader, you are bombarded with so many student needs, parents concerns, teacher concerns, paper works that it seems futile to think of improving the teaching of every teacher. What, indeed, can the writer as only one person, do? Thinking about curriculum is an old thinking about education; it is difficult to imagine any inquiry into the nature of education without deliberate attention to the question of what should be taught. The question of what to teach and how to teach it involves a selection from a vast array of knowledge and beliefs within a culture. Since it is impossible to teach everything, that selection from the culture reflects in part some sense of what is most worthwhile in that culture as seen in relation to the kind of institution the school is and what it can reasonably accomplish. According to Dewey education is “a continuous lifelong process which had no ends beyond itself but is its own end”. Within learning organizations, Senge stated that “humane, sensitive and thoughtful leaders transmit their value system through daily behavior”. Bolman and Deal developed a unique situational leadership theory that analyzes leadership behavior through four frames of reference: structural, human resources, political and symbolic. Each of the frames offers a different perspective on what leadership is and how it operates in organizations; and in this case, schools. These frames are maps that aid navigation, tools for solving problems and getting things done”. Leaders especially administrators need to understand their own frame preference and its limits and ideally, combine multiple frames

References: Argyris, C. and D.A. Scon. (1974). Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness Bolman, L. and T. Deal (1974). Reframing organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Deal, T. and K.D. Peterson. (1991). The principal’s role in shaping school culture. Deal, T. and K.D. Peterson (1999). Shaping school cultures: The heart of leadership. Dewey, J. (1961). Democracy and education. New York: McMillan (Ed.). Doll, R. (1996). Curriculum improvement: Decision making and process. New York: Allyn and Bacon. Schein, E. H. Organizational cultures and leadership (2nd Ed.) (1992). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Senge, P (1990). The fifth dimension: The art and practice of learning. New York: Doubleday.