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Curriculum: Perspectives and Practice

science" (p. 122). Bacon's vision of a scientific study of

humans was fulfilled in the twentieth century by B.F. Skinner and
the behaviorists. Like Bacon,Skinner argues that all human
behavior can be understood in
_ _
terms of cause and effect.
John Locke
Locke, who further developed the empirical view of
philosophy, is best known for his conception of the mind
as a tabula. rasa (blank slate). In Locie's (1889) view,
the mind is basically passive: "In the reception of
simple ideas, the understanding is for the most partpassive. ... As the bodies that surround do diversely
affect our organs, the mind is forced to receive the
impressions and cannot avoid the perception of those
ideas that are annexed to them" (p. 70). Although Locke
acknowledged the human capacity for reflection, he
did not adequately reconcile it with his theory that the
mind is passive in the way it receives sensations.
Locke (1889) applies his concept of the mind as
a tabula rasa to teaching and learning in Some Thoughts
Concerning Education, where he
states that sensation arises first and is followed by ideas
coming to the mind; ideas give rise to actions; actions lead
to habits; habits form a person's character. In other words,
education is essentially a process of habit formation.
But pray remember, children are not to be tatight by
rules which will be always slipping out of their memories.
What you think necessary for them to do, settle in them
by an indispensable practice, as often as the occasion
returns; and if it be possible, make occasions. This will
beget habits in them, which being once establish'd, operate
of themselves easily and naturally, without the assistance of
the memory. But here let me give two cautions.
1. The one is, that you keep them to the practice of what
you would have grow into a habit in them, by kind
words, and gentle admonitions, rather as minding
them of what they forget, than by harsh rebukes
and chiding, as if they were wilfully guilty.
2. Another thing you are to take care of, is, not CO
endeavour to settle too many habits at once, lest by

variety you confound them, and so perfect none.

When custome has made any one thing easy and
natural to 'em, and they practise it without
reflection, you may then go on to another. (p. 39)
Locke's view of education as habit formation is
congruent with the atomistic paradigm in that he sees
habit formation as the putting together of small
behavioral components.
His contention, that to develop habits in students the
teacher must