Metaphors in Collision: Objectives, Assembly Lines, and Stories

ABSTRACT

Prominent in teacher preparation programs and in “methods” courses in departments and faculties of education are planning procedures derived from the “Tyler rationale.” A key part of these procedures involves beginning the planning process by stating objectives. These procedures, and particularly planning- by-objectives, have been much criticized. A difficulty with the criticisms has been their ineffectiveness at engaging the metaphorical basis of such planning procedures, identified with industrial processes such as the assembly line. A second difficulty has been that the critics offer no alternative planning procedures. This article reviews and restates objections to the dominant objectives-based procedures and offers an alternative procedure based on the story form.