Curriculum As Process

We have seen that the curriculum as product model is heavily dependent on the setting of behavioural objectives.  The curriculum, essentially, is a set of documents for implementation.  Another way of looking at curriculum theory and practice is via process.  In this sense curriculum is not a physical thing, but rather the interaction of teachers, students and knowledge.  In other words, curriculum is what actually happens in the classroom and what people do to prepare and evaluate.  What we have in this model is a number of elements in constant interaction.   It is an active process and links with the practical form of reasoning set out by Aristotle. 

Perhaps the two major things that set this apart from the model for informal education are first, the context in which the process occurs ('particular schooling situations'); and second, the fact that teachers enter the classroom or any other formal educational setting with a more fully worked-through idea of what is about to happen.  Here I have described that as entering the situation with 'a proposal for action which sets out essential principles and features of the educational encounter'.  

This form of words echoes those of Lawrence Stenhouse (1975) who produced one of the best-known explorations of a process model of curriculum theory and practice. He defined curriculum tentatively: 'A curriculum is an attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice'. He suggests that a curriculum is rather like a recipe in cookery.

Stenhouse shifted the ground a little bit here.  He was not saying that curriculum is the process, but rather the means by which the experience of attempting to put an educational proposal into practice is made available.  The reason why he did this, I suspect, is that otherwise there is a danger of widening the meaning of the term so much that it embraces almost everything and hence means very little.  For example, in a discussion of the so-called 'youth work curriculum' (Newman & Ingram 1989), the following definition was taken as a starting point: 'those processes which enhance or, if they go wrong, inhibit a person's learning'. This was then developed and a curriculum became: 'an organic process by which learning is offered, accepted and internalized' (Newman & Ingram 1989: 1). The problem with this sort of definition, as Robin Barrow (1984) points out, is that what this does is to widen the meaning of the term to such an extent that it just about becomes interchangeable with 'education' itself.  More specifically, if curriculum is process then the word curriculum is redundant because process would do very nicely!   The simple equation of curriculum with process is a very slap-happy basis on which to proceed. 

We also need to reflect on why curriculum theory and practice came into use by educators (as against policy-makers).  It was essentially as a way of helping them to think about their work before, during and after interventions; as a means of enabling educators to make judgments about the direction their work was taking.  This is what Stenhouse was picking up on.

Stenhouse on curriculum As a minimum, a curriculum should provide a basis for planning a course, studying it empirically and considering the grounds of its justification.  It should offer: A. In planning: 1. Principle for the selection of content - what is to be learned and taught 2. Principles for the development of a teaching strategy - how it is to be learned and taught. 3. Principles for the making of decisions about sequence. 4. Principles on which to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of individual students and differentiate the general principles 1, 2 and 3 above, to meet individual cases. B. In empirical study: 1. Principles on which to study and evaluate the progress of students. 2. Principles on which to study and evaluate the progress of teachers. 3. Guidance as to the feasibility of implementing the curriculum in varying school contexts, pupil contexts, environments and peer-group situations. 4. Information about the variability of effects in differing contexts and on different pupils and an understanding of the causes of the variation. C. In relation to justification: A formulation of the intention or aim of the curriculum which is accessible to critical scrutiny. Stenhouse 1975: 5

There are a number of contrasts in this model of curriculum theory and practice as compared with the product model.  First, where the product model appeals to the workshop for a model, this process model looks to the world of experimentation.

Thus, in this sense, a curriculum is a particular form of specification about the practice of teaching.  It is not a package of materials or a syllabus of ground to be covered.  'It is a way of translating any educational idea into a hypothesis testable in practice.  It invites critical testing rather than acceptance' (Stenhouse 1975: 142). 

Second, and associated with the above, given the uniqueness of each classroom setting, it means that any proposal, even at school level, needs to be tested, and verified by each teacher in his/her classroom (ibid: 143).  It is not like a curriculum package which is designed to be delivered almost anywhere.

Third, outcomes are no longer the central and defining feature.  Rather than tightly specifying behavioural objectives and methods in advance, what happens in this model of curriculum theory and practice is that content and means develop as teachers and students work together. 

Fourth, the learners in this model are not objects to be acted upon.  They have a clear voice in the way that the sessions evolve.  The focus is on interactions.  This can mean that attention shifts from teaching to learning.  The product model, by having a pre-specified plan or programme, tends to direct attention to teaching.  For example, how can this information be got over?  A process approach to curriculum theory and practice, it is argued by writers like Grundy (1987), tends towards making the process of learning the central concern of the teacher.  This is because this way of thinking emphasizes interpretation and meaning-making.  As we have seen each classroom and each exchange is different and has to be made sense of. 

However, when we come to think about this way of approaching curriculum in practice, a number of possible problems do arise.  The first is a problem for those who want some greater degree of uniformity in what is taught.  This approach to the theory of curriculum, because it places meaning-making and thinking at its core and treats learners as subjects rather than objects, can lead to very different means being employed in classrooms and a high degree of variety in content.   As Stenhouse comments, the process model is essentially a critical model, not a marking model.

To some extent variation is limited by factors such as public examinations.  The exchange between students and teachers does not float free of the context in which it arises.  At the end of the day many students and their families place a high premium on exam or subject success and this inevitably enters into the classroom.  This highlights a second problem with the model we have just outlined - that it may not pay enough attention to the context in which learning takes place (more of this later).

Third, there is the 'problem' of teachers.   The major weakness and, indeed, strength of the process model is that it rests upon the quality of teachers.  If they are not up to much then there is no safety net in the form of prescribed curriculum materials.  The approach is dependent upon the cultivation of wisdom and meaning-making in the classroom.  If the teacher is not up to this, then there will be severe limitations on what can happen educationally.  There have been some attempts to overcome this problem by developing materials and curriculum packages which focus more closely on the 'process of discovery' or 'problem-solving', for example in science.  But there is a danger in this approach.  Processes become reduced to sets of skills - for example, how to light a bunsen burner.  When students are able to demonstrate certain skills, they are deemed to have completed the process.  As Grundy comments, the actions have become the ends; the processes have become the product.  Whether or not students are able to apply the skills to make sense of the world around them is somehow overlooked (Grundy 1987: 77). 

Fourth, we need to look back at our process model of curriculum theory and practice and what we have subsequently discussed, and return to Aristotle and to Freire.  The model we have looked at here does not fully reflect the process explored earlier.  In particular, it does not make explicit the commitments associated with phronesis.  And it is to that we will now turn.