Revealing the Technological Irresponsibility in Curriculum Design

Abstract

Tyler, R. W. (1949/1969). Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Notes

Notes

1 The book has been translated into over eight languages, has sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide, and still remains in print. Finder (2004, pp. 168–169) noted that in a July 1991 University of Chicago phone interview he learned that 187,687 copies of Tyler’s book had been sold. He also noted that in an e‐mail (May 13, 2003) the press stated that it continues to sell between 4,000–6,000 copies a year.

2 I have Heidegger’s (1977/2008) sense of “enframing”[Gestell] in mind. That is, “the gathering together of the setting‐upon that sets upon man, i.e. challenges him forth, to reveal the actual, in the mode of ordering, as standing reserve” (p. 325). This concept may be understood as an enclosing of the lifeworld in a particular claim—“utter availability and sheer manipulability” (Krell, 2008, p. 309). That is, “enframing is the reduction of all of reality to the most abstract primary qualities through formalization and quantification” (Feenberg, 1999, p. 204).

3 I have in mind Heidegger’s (1977/2008) particular sense of world, as our experience of reality as worlds.

4 Tyler was a high school teacher (1921–22); faculty member, University of Nebraska (1922–26); and faculty member, University of North Carolina (1927–29).

5 The parenthetic example of lumber running through this explanation is from Feenberg (2010, pp. 73–74).

6 Feenberg’s (1999) primary instrumentalization also describes “autonomization” and “positioning” as two other reifying moments, based on the form of action implied by Habermas’s media theory. Autonomization refers to how “the subject of technical action isolates itself as much as possible from the effects of its action on its objects” (Feenberg, 1999, p. 204). For instance, the teacher as user of the curriculum‐as‐plan is largely isolated from its effects on students. Positioning is “the specific locus from which technical action is possible: the ‘driver’s seat’ ”(Feenberg, 2010, p. 152). The term refers to a technical subject’s use of the laws ordering a technical object’s action to advantage. For instance, the laws governing the operation of an “objective as device” afford a greater and a lesser degree of initiative by the teacher and the student, respectively. I focus on Feenberg’s first two reifying moments in my critique of Tyler, because they closely relate to Heidegger’s notion of enframing; however, I acknowledge that these other two moments have also shaped my argument.

7 Feenberg’s (1999, 2002, 2010) critical theory of technology describes the essence of technological world making as a dialogical relationship between primary instrumentalization (technical‐logical developments) and secondary instrumentalization (sociocultural realizations). In this process, technologies are made, then, socioculturally embraced, adjusted, or abandoned in a myriad of ways that then influence the next technical‐logical iterations, and, the loop continues. This development process may be described as both a branching and layering of technological realizations forming a plurality of technological histories.

8 Feenberg’s (1999) secondary instrumentalization also describes “vocation” and “initiative” moments. These integrating moments correlate with the primary reifying moments of autonomization and positioning, respectively (see note 6). Vocation refers to the social communities or professions that form around the design and use of technologies. For instance, the teaching profession has formed around instructional and learning technologies. There is a tension between the moments of vocation and autonomization; “where traditional craft work expressed vocational investment of the whole personality, modern work organization abstracts deskilled occupations from personal character and growth the better to expose the worker to external controls” (Feenberg, 2010, pp. 130–131). Initiative is the ability by those submitted to technical control to respond to the power of technological implementation and force a change in design or implementation.