Study Guide 3: Foundations of Curriculum

Week 3

Ayala, Kyla Marie A.

2nd year, BEED

Learning Task 5

Franklin Bobbitt (1876–1956)

A professor of educational

administration at the University of

Chicago, was a pioneer in creating

curriculum as a field of expertise

within the science of education during

the first three decades of the twentieth

century. Bobbitt was born in English,

Indiana, a small town in the state's

southeast corner with a population of fewer than 1,000 people. He

attended Indiana University for his undergraduate degree and then

went on to teach, first in rural Indiana schools and then at the

Philippine Normal School in Manila. He joined the faculty of the

University of Chicago after obtaining his Ph.D. from Clark

University in 1909 and stayed there until his retirement in 1941.

As part of his university responsibilities, Bobbitt conducted

quarterly surveys of local school districts, evaluating their

operations, notably the quality of their curricula. A 1914 review

of the San Antonio Public Schools and a 1922 analysis of the Los

Angeles City Schools' curriculum are two of his most well-known

surveys. The Curriculum (1918) and How to Make a Curriculum

(1919) are two of Bobbitt's best-known works (1924). In these and

other works, he established a philosophy of curriculum

development based on the ideas of scientific management, which

had been defined earlier in the century by engineer Frederick

Winslow Taylor in his attempts to make American industry more

efficient.

Bobbitt's Contribution

Bobbitt's legacy falls into four areas. First, he was one of the

first American educators to advance the case for the

identification of objectives as the starting point for curriculum

making. He, along with the authors of the National Education

Association's Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, argued

that the content of the curriculum was not self-evident in the

traditional disciplines of knowledge, but had to be derived from

objectives that addressed the functions of adult work and

citizenship. Bobbitt did not value education in and of itself.

It’s worth was in the preparation is provided for children's

adult life. Second, his so-called scientific approach to

curriculum development served as a model for many educators over

the following half-century in laying out the methods for creating

study programs. It was a strategy that became and has remained

the accepted wisdom among American educators when it comes to the

construction of curricula. Third, Bobbitt and other early-

twentieth-century efficiency-oriented school reformers argued

that the curriculum should be differentiated into multiple

tracks, some academic and preparatory and others vocational and

terminal, and that students should be directed to these tracks

based on their abilities. His work lends credibility to

initiatives to vocational the curriculum, as well as to

techniques like tracking and ability grouping, which have become

one of the most contentious aspects of the current school

curriculum. Finally, Bobbitt was one of the first American

educators to describe the curriculum as social control or

regulatory tool for solving modern society's issues. He regarded

the mission of schools as imparting in children the skills,

information, and beliefs they needed to operate in the urban,

industrial, and more heterogeneous society that America was

becoming during the early years of the twentieth century,

according to the principles of social efficiency.

Werrett Wallace Charters (1875–1952)

was a trailblazer in teacher education

and curriculum development research.

His scientific approach to curriculum creation based on life

activity analysis pioneered a new discipline of curriculum

research. Charters was born in Hartford, Ontario, and attended

Hartford Village School before enrolling at McMaster University

in Toronto for a year after graduating from Hagersville High

School. He took a two-year sabbatical from McMaster to teach at

the Rockford Public School before returning to complete his

bachelor's degree in art. Charters has always been a leader, and

during his last year at McMaster, he served as class president.

His alma institution awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1923.

Charters graduated from Ontario Normal College with a teaching

credential in 1899 and went on to become the principal of

Hamilton City Model School. He eventually became the school's

administrator and a teacher-in-training instructor. His teacher

preparation practices were so successful that the Board of

Examiners designated the Hamilton Model School as Ontario's top

model school. Charters went on to obtain a bachelor's degree from

the University of Toronto, a master's degree from the University

of Chicago, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His

dissertation advisor was John Dewey, a prominent educational

philosopher and the first Laureate of Kappa Delta Pi. Charters

served as principal of the Winona State Normal School in

Minnesota after obtaining his Ph.D. before going to the

University of Missouri as a Professor of Theory of Teaching and

Dean of the School of Education. Charters went around Missouri to

visit and evaluate high schools, frequently walking miles between

train stations and the schools themselves because they were

particularly concerned about education in rural schools. In 1909,

he published his first book, Methods of Teaching. Charters taught

at four universities between 1917 and 1928: The University of

Illinois, Carnegie Institute of Technology, University of

Pittsburgh, and University of Chicago. He left the University of

Chicago in 1928 to join The Ohio State University as Professor of

Education and Director of the Bureau of Educational Research.

From 1920 to 1949, he was the Director of Research at Stephen's

College in Columbia, Missouri.

Harold Rugg (1886–1960)

One of the most well-known educators

during the Progressive era in the

United States was a long-time

professor of education at Teachers

College, Columbia University. From

1929 through the early 1940s, he

published the first-ever series of

school textbooks. Rugg was the son of

a carpenter and was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. His early

poverty seemed to keep him from going to college. Despite this,

he was accepted to Dartmouth College, where he received a

bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1908 and a master's

degree in civil engineering from Dartmouth's Thayer School of

Civil Engineering in 1909. Rugg worked as a civil engineer for a

short time before teaching civil engineering at Milliken

University in Decatur, Illinois, where he developed an interest

in student learning. In 1915, he earned a doctorate in education

from the University of Illinois, and he began his collegiate

teaching career at the University of Chicago, where he remained

until 1920. He subsequently proceeded to Columbia University's

Teachers College, where he taught until 1951 when he retired.

After retiring, he continued to write educational publications

and worked as an educational consultant in Egypt and Puerto Rico.

Rugg was a co-founder of the National Council for Social Studies

and published yearbooks for several prestigious educational

institutions. Rugg, on the other hand, stayed away from such

groups' duties and responsibilities, preferring to focus on his

study and writing endeavors.

References:

Franklin Bobbitt (1876–1956) - Social Efficiency Movement, Bobbitt's

Contribution - Curriculum, Education, Century, and Schools -
StateUniversity.com https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1794/Bobbitt-
Franklin-1876-1956.html#ixzz74Q7Ac0ip
Charters, W. W. 1923. Curriculum construction. New York: Macmillan.

Charters, W. W. 1933. Motion pictures and youth: A summary. New York:

Macmillan.
Dale, E. 1970. Associations with W. W. Charters. Theory into
Practice 9(2):116–18.

Johnson, B. L. 1953. Werrett Wallace Charters: Particularly his contributions

to higher education. The Journal of Higher Education 24(5): 236–40, 281.

Kliebard, H. M. 1975. The rise of scientific curriculum making and its

aftermath. Curriculum Theory Network 5(1): 27–37.

Rosenstock, S. A. 1984. The educational contributions of W(erret) W(allace)

Charters. Ph.D. diss., The Ohio State University, Columbus.

Seguel, M. L. 1966. The curriculum field: Its formative years. New York:

Teachers College Press.

Wraga, W. G. 2003. Charters, W. W. 1875–1952. In Encyclopedia of Education,

Vol. 1, 2nd ed., ed J. W. Guthrie, 263–65. New York: McMillan.
Harold Rugg (1886–1960) - Education, Social, School, and Curriculum -
StateUniversity.com https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2381/Rugg-
Harold-1886-1960.html#ixzz74R2NWLW9