What is a foundation?

 1. The basis or ground work of any things.

 2. The natural or ground on which some structure rests
 3. The lowest and supporting layer of a structure.

Curriculum Foundation
 The curriculum foundation may be defined as those basic forces that influence and shape
the minds of curriculum developers and enhance the content and structure of the
subsequent Curriculum.
Foundation of curriculum
 Philosophical
 Psychological
 Sociological

What is Philosophy?
Marx, Karl (Thess on Feuerbach, #11)
“The Philosopher have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point. However, is
to change it.”

Philosophical Foundations
 Every society is held together by a common faith or philosophy which serve as a guide
for living a good life.
 Philosophy provides systematic procedure for clarifying issues and making decision on
critical point or curriculum development.

Philosophy and Curriculum

 Philosophy provides educators, teachers and curriculum makers with framework for
planning, implementing and evaluating curriculum.
 It helps in answering that educational institutions are for,
 What subject are important,
 How students should learn and
 What materials and
 Methods should be used.
 Four Major Philosophical categories
Four major philosophical categories that have, influenced curriculum development:
I.Idealism
II. Realism
III. Pragmatism
IV. Existentialism

Idealism
 Chief Representatives:
Socrates, Plato, Fitche, Hegel, Hume, Kant Nunn and Ross
 Kant (Kant’s Idealism, Pg: 5)
“idealism may be defined as the view that reality or “the world” is a product of the mind”
 Features:
1. The doctrine of idealism suggests that matter is an illusion and that reality is that which
exists mentally.
2. Reality exists as it is experienced
3. Truth is same today as it was yesterdays.

Implications for Curriculum

 Teachers are expected to act as role models of enduring values.
 And the school must be highly structed an should advocate only those ideas that
demonstrate enduring values.
 The materials used for instructions, therefore would center on broad ideas particularly
those contained in great works of literature and/ or scriptures.
 Since it is based on broad ideas and concepts, idealism is not in line with the beliefs of
those who equate learning with acquisition of specific facts.
 Curriculum should aim at inculcation of three spiritual of specific values: Truth, Beauty
and Goodness, these three values determine three types of activities: intellectual,
aesthetic and moral.

Realism
Features:
1. Concerned with world of ideas and things that are fixed within established subject matter.
2. Theory and principles come first in learning experience, application and practice follow.
Implications for Curriculum:
 The paramount responsibility of the teacher is to impart to learners the knowledge
about the world they live in.
  What scholar of various discipline have discovered about the world constitute this
knowledge.
 However, like the idealist, the realists too stress that education should reflect
permanent and enduring values that have then handed down through generations,
but only to the extent that they do not interfere with the study of particular
desciplines.
 Unlike the idealist, who consider classics ideal as subject matter for studies, the
realist views the subject expert as the source and authority for determining the
curriculum.
 Textbooks and other written materials prepared by experts are important media
for helping children learn what they should learn.
 Curriculum should include essential knowledge, not the “fads and frill”.

Implications for Curriculum

 Curriculum should teach learners how to think critically rather than what to think.
 It should be child centered.
 What is to be included must have practical effect on students.
 Teaching should, therefore be more exploratory in nature than explanatory.
 The role of the teacher should simply be to spread information but to construct
situations that involve both direct experience with the world of the learner and
opportunities to understand these experiences.
 Curriculum should be based on: Utility, Natural interests of children. Child’s own
experiences, and integration.

Existentialism
Features:
 Existentialism has gained greater popularity in recent years.
 Today, many educationists talk about focusing on the individual, promoting diversity in
the curriculum and emphasizing the personal needs and interest of learners.
 This philosophy emphasizes that there are no values outside human beings, and thus,
suggests that human being should have the freedom to make choices and then be
responsible for the consequences of those choices.
 Existentialist suggest complete autonomy of learner. According to this philosophy.
Learners should be put into a number of choices making situations, i.e., learners should
be given freedom to choose what to study.
 It emphasizes that education must center on the perceptions and feelings of the individual
in order to facilitate understanding of personal reactions to life situations.
 What might have been relevant in a particular situation need not necessarily always be so.
In essence, social changes demand changes in the existing pattern of education.
 To plug the gap between the needs of the learner, the society and the curriculum content,
rethinking in the area of curriculum development appears to be unavoidable.
 Chief concern is to free the child so that he/she can do his/her own thinking/things.
 Want children to find their own identifies and set their own standards.
 Tries to free children to choose for themselves that they are to learn and believe.

Implications for Curriculum

Individual learners should not be forced into pre-determined programmed of study.
 Whatever the learner feeds he/she must learn should be respected and facilitated by the
system.
 An existentialist curriculum, therefore, would consist of experiences and subjects that
lend themselves to philosophical dialogue and acts of making choices, stressing, self-
expressive activities and media that illustrate emotions and insights.
 The teacher should have a non: directive role.
 The teacher should view himself/herself as a partner in the process of learning.
 As a professional, the teacher should serve as a resource facilitator, rather than imposing
some predetermined values or interests on learners.