More on “The Burdens of the New Curricularist”

Abstract

historical curriculum field in North America is a fairly well documented affair. As I indicated in The Burdens of the New Curricularist, it is largely embodied in the work of a variety of thinkers who vied for some identification and influence in the experience of the public school. participants largely were scholars who had theoretical ideas that had practical consequences in a project that was dedicated to using the school as an instrument for the advancement of society. resulting struggle to shape the school curriculum has given us a legacy of thought that has come together to comprise the field of curriculum. general thrust of the field was largely about doing curriculum work, not just thinking or writing about how it might be done. This is a historical position that is documented and debated, not simply proclaimed. Let me urge the readers to examine the work of Daniel Tanner and Laurel Tanner (1995) as they have made the case for an emerging paradigm in the curriculum field and to take a close look at some of the debate that exists on the topic (Barrow 1988; Jickling 1988; Tanner and Tanner 1998). point of my original essay was that the field has a history we all inherit. piece was not aimed at formulating the future of the field, notwithstanding my call for a restoration, and it certainly was not about articulating a model for curriculum development. It was a criticism targeted at a new generation of scholars that claims, as my colleague William Wraga once put it, to be in the field of curriculum without being of the field of curriculum. I tried to explain what I believe it means to be of the field, as it has taken shape historically. One might, of course, examine this history and conclude that it is time to completely alter the nature of the field's historic mission. But if such a proposition is to be undertaken, it has to be undertaken argumentatively, by confronting the issues and showing that the history of the field has been somehow misdirected or that the central tenets of the field, which I assert are centered around the issues of school practice and school design, are no longer viable. These are the burdens of the new curricularists, the historical weight that they refuse to carry and that they cavalierly discard. You have probably read how Pinar responded to my original piece. He ignored it. Presumably, the editors of Curriculum Inquiry put Pinar under no obligation to actually attend to my