Post Modern Perspective on Curriculum

by Doll, William E.

• ISBN13: 9780807734476
• ISBN10: 0807734470
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-03-01
• Publisher: Teachers College Pr

Summary

In this book on the post-modern perspective on the curriculum, the author asserts that the post-modern model of organic change is not necessarily linear, uniform, measured and determined, but is one of emergence and growth, made possible by interaction, transaction, disequilibrium and consequent equilibrium. Transformation, not a set course, the book argues, should be the rule, and open-endedness is an essential feature of the post-modern framework. In the book, the author envisages a curriculum in which the teacher's role is not causal, but transformative. The curriculum is not the race course, but the journey itself; metaphors can be more useful than logic in generating dialogue in the community; and educative purpose, planning and evaluation is flexible and focused on process, not product.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Introduction	p. 1
The Modern Paradigm: A Closed Vision	p. 19
Descartes' and Newton's World Views	p. 23
Pre-Modern Order	p. 23
Descartes' Method	p. 26
Newton's Stable Universe	p. 33
Curriculum Carryovers	p. 39
America and Technology	p. 39
The Scientific Curriculum	p. 47
The Tyler Rationale	p. 52
The Post-Modern Paradigm: An Open Vision	p. 57
Piaget and Living Systems	p. 63
The Biological World-View	p. 63
Evolution and Entropy - Problems and Promises	p. 72
Piaget's Equilibrium Model	p. 79
Prigogine and Chaotic Order	p. 86
Concepts of Chaos	p. 86
Ilya Prigogine, Self-Organization, and Dissipative Structures	p. 98
The Cognitive Revolution, Bruner, and a New Epistemology	p. 109
Concepts of Cognition	p. 109
Bruner	p. 118
A New Epistemology	p. 124
Dewey, Whitehead, and Process Thought	p. 133
Traditions of Permanence, Change, and Interpretation	p. 133
John Dewey and the Concept of Process	p. 137
Alfred North Whitehead and the Concept of Process	p. 142
Process Thought Beyond Dewey and Whitehead	p. 148
An Educational Vision	p. 155
Constructing a Curriculum Matrix	p. 161
Curriculum Concepts	p. 161
The Four R's - An Alternative to the Tyler Rationale	p. 174
References	p. 185
Index	p. 205
About the Author	p. 215
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