Overcoming Behavioral and Humanistic Objectives

Notes

• The term “ schools” as it is used in this article should not suggest fixed and rigid theoretical positions among the two movements analyzed or the many marginal movements that take positions on the design of course objectives. The various movements represent “schools” in the sense that their members share core assumptions. Needless to say, while differences do exist among members of the respective schools, such differences are outweighed by their agreements. One interesting look at the humanistic and behaviorist objectives schools can be found in Leonard Gardner, “Humanistic Education and Behavioral Objectives: Opposing Theories of Educational Science ,” School Review ( May 1971 ): 376 – 94 See also David R. Krathwohl and David Payne, “Defining Educational Objectives,” in Educational Measurement, ed. Robert L. Thorndike (Washington, D.C.: ACE, 1971), pp. 17–45.
   Google Scholar
• One glaring example of this can be found in W. James Popham , “Probing the Validity of Arguments Against Behavioral Goals,” Behavioral Objectives and Instruction , ed. Robert J. Kibler et al. ( Boston : Allyn and Bacon , 1970 ), pp. 115 – 16 In defending the behavioral objectives position, Popham made the following statement, “Yet as a partisan in the controversy, I would prefer unanimous sup- port of the position to which 1 subscribe. You see, the other people are wrong. Adhering to a philosophic tenet that error is evil, I hate to see my friends wallowing in sin.”
   Google Scholar
• Michael W. Apple , “The Adequacy of Systems Management Procedures in Education and Alternatives,” in Perspectives on Management Systems Approaches in Education , ed. Albert H. Yee ( Englewood Cliffs , N.J. : Educational Technology Publications , 1973 ), pp. 97 – 110 also see Maxine Greene, “Curriculum and Consciousness,” in Curriculum Theorizing, ed. William Pinar (Berkeley, Ca.: McCutchan Publishing, 1975), p. 304.
   Google Scholar
• Jean Bethke Elshtain , “Social Relations in the Classroom: A Moral and Political Perspective,” Telos ( Spring 1976 ): 97 – 100
   Google Scholar
• The relationship between the formal and hidden curricula is explored in Henry A. Giroux and Anthony N. Penna , “Social Relations in the Classroom: A Moral and Political Perspective,” Edcentric (Spring-Summer 1977 ): 39 – 46
   Google Scholar
• The most comprehensive understanding of this position can best be achieved by examining its historical roots. To my knowledge, the best book on the subject is by Raymond Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency ( Chicago : University of Chicago Press , 1962 ).
   Google Scholar
• Greene , “ Curriculum ,” p. 299 .
   Google Scholar
• Michael F. D. Young , “Knowledge and Callahan , Education and the Cult of Efficiency ( Chicago : University of Chicago Press , 1962 ).
   Google Scholar
• Greene , “ Curriculum ,” p. 299 .
   Google Scholar
• Michael F. D. Young , “Knowledge and Control,” Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education ( London : Collier-Macmillan , 1976 ), p. 10
   Google Scholar
• Michael W. Apple , “Curriculum as Ideological Selection,” Comparative Education Review ( June 1976 ): 210 – 11
   Google Scholar
• For a sophisticated treatment of the relationship between theory and “facts” see Max Horkheimer , Critical Theory ( New York : Seabury Press , 1972 ), pp. 188 – 244
   Google Scholar
• Trent Shroyer , “Toward a Critical Theory for Advanced Industrial Society,” in Recent Sociology No. 2 , ed. Hans Peter Dreitzel ( London : Collier-Macmillan , 1970 ), p. 211 .
   Google Scholar
• Russell Jacoby , Social Amnesia ( Boston : Beacon Press , 1975 ), p. xviii .
   Google Scholar
• Basil Bernstein , Class Codes and Control: Volume 3 ( London : Routledge and Kegan Paul , 1977 , 2nd ed. ); also see Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (Beverly Hills, Ca.: Sage Publications, 1977).
   Google Scholar
• Paulo Freire , Education for Critical Consciousness ( New York : Seabury Press , 1973 ), pp. 1 – 58
   Google Scholar
• Benjamin S. Bloom , Human Characteristics and School Learning ( New York : McGraw-Hill , 1976 ); also see Edwin Fenton, The New Social Studies (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), pp. 6–27.
   Google Scholar
• Max Horkheimer , Eclipse of Reason ( New York : Seabury Press , 1974 ), p. 73 .
   Google Scholar
• Erich Fromm , Beyond the Chains of Illusion ( New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston , 1968 ), p. 173 .
   Google Scholar
• Discussions of the hidden curriculum can be found in the following sources: Phillip W. Jackson , Life in Classrooms ( New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston , 1968 ); Robert Dreeben, On What is Learned in Schools (Reading, Ma.: Addison-Wesley, 1968); Norman V. Overly, ed., The Unstudied Curriculum: Its Impact on Children (Washington, D.C.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1970).
   Google Scholar
• Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis , Schooling in Capitalist America ( New York : Basic Books , 1976 ), pp. 131 – 48
   Google Scholar
• Lynne B. Iglitzin , “Political Education and Sexual Liberation,” Politics and Society 2 ( Winter 1972 ): 242 .
   Google Scholar
• Herbert Marcuse , Counter-Revolution and Revolt ( Boston : Beacon Press , 1972 ), p. 28 .
   Google Scholar
• Mihailo Markovic , From Affluence to Praxis ( Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press , 1974 ), p. 23 .
   Google Scholar
• Lawrence Kohlberg , “Moral Development and the New Social Studies,” Social Education 37 (May 2, 1973 ), p. 371 .
   Google Scholar