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1tA~ul,7 ct; rplo h ir7!y: t .d .Supwivisf, 3nFe,ISi.p2nI 2

RETHINKING SCHWAB: CURRICULUMTHEORIZING AS A VISIONARY ACTIVITY

WILLIAM A. REID. The C.nivetsity f Texyas at Auistin,

ABSTRACT. Though Dewey raised the philosophical question of the relationship oftheorizing to the field of cumculum, it was no t one that was pursued with mucnenthusiasm through the first half of the 20th century, However. Schwab's return toit in his first "Practical t paper (19o9) imnm-lediately launched an intense debate thathas rumbled on ever since. On the surface he was making an intellectual poinu;Girven the essentially practical nature of curriculum, what relevance can theory

have to it? However, reference to his other writings suggests that his argument a.-asnot merely an inteliectal one. Though Schwab was certainly concerned with mat-ters of philosophy, he was also pursuing a visionary agenda centered on the ideaof a "moral comrunity. t Interestungly. publication of his paper was closely followedby the launching of the "reconceptualist" movemnent in curriculum, .whichppeared.n some ways to share in this visionary aspect of his ideas. Was he then a 'proto-reconceptualist"? In some ways he could be so categorized, but against that onemust weigh his profound respect for tradition. Though his paper did mark 3 turn-inig point in th e history of curriculum. the field did not subsequently develop alonglines he woould have approved of.What kind of theorizing, if anv, is appropriate to the field of

curriculum? This was a question that was seldom asked invV the era of "classical" cLurriculum work in the United States.by which I mean roughlv the first tw.o-thirds of the 20th centurv. Theleading figures of that period-Snedden, Bobbirt. Charters, Tyler,and so on (with. of course, the vast presence of Dewey lurking over-head, and occasionallv intervening with the kind of critical com-ments to be expected from a major philosopher-were thought ofas indiv iduals, each getting on wNrith the job to be done in his or herown particular wMay. Curriculum theorizing was simplv what curricu-Lum workers did when general points or propositions needed to be

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30 RetRinking Schwab: CurriculumTheorizing as a VisionaryActivity

cal schools. When Jackson put together his Handbook of Curricu-lum Research, he could happily lump them all together in a categoryhe labeled the "Dominant Perspective"'

Then suddenly, in 1968, Joseph Schwab announced that theqyestion of how the field was to regard theory was by far the mostimportant one for curriculum workers and scholars. Judging by thereaction that his AERA, Division B, paper provoked, many peopleagreed, or at least felt that his remarks touched on some deep prob-lematic of the field that needed to be addressed. Subsequent publi-cation of his paper in School Retiew intensified the debate.2 WhatSchwab had to say-as he himself would have been ready toadmit-was not new. Most, if not all, of it could have been gleanedfrom a reading of Dewey. But somehow, through decades of cur-riculum work in the earlier part of the century, Dewey's ideas hadbeen background, not foreground, in discussion. Perhaps this wasbecause he was a philosopher on a larger stage, rather than simplya curriculum theorist. Or perhaps it was because there was so muchto be worked on in the field of curriculum, so many practical agen-das to pursue, that doing was always more pressing than pbilos-ophizing. In any event, Schwab's strictures on the field for not rais-ing the Deweyan questions suddenly became relevant in a way thatDewey's own worrying around the same issues never had been.Schwab, as a lifelong Chicago scholar, was, of course, close toa philosophical tradition that, emanating from Dewey and sustainedby the advocacy of Richard McKeon and others, had never lost sightof fundamental questions about appropriate relationships betweenphilosophy and the practical arts.3 But the immediate provocationfor Schwab's intervention was his sense that, without any argumentor debate, the curriculum field had, in the 1950s and '60s, grown toacquiesce in the idea that curriculum theorizing was simply a sub-category of scientific theorizing; that just as, for example, physiciststry to produce universal explanations for the behavior of atomic par-ticles, a new breed of curriculum theorists was setting out to estab-lish universal principles and explanations concerning the events sur-rounding teaching and learning. This worried Schwab on two grounds.First, he felt that such an endeavor was logically mistaken. As hepointed out,

Macmil-

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32 Retbinking Schwab: Curriculum 7heorizing as a visionary Activity

SCHWiAB'S VISION OF COMMUNITYTo some extent, interpretation of sources like Schwab's "Practi-

cal" papers is a matter of discovering what you are looking for. Eventhe most apparently factual statements in areas such as curriculumtheory will always leave room for interpretation. We are not dealingwith the demonstrable propositions of mathematics or the logicallyconsistent theories of physical science. As Jackson says of Tyler'sRationale: "It is, quite simply, an expression of opinion. It is not a the-ory. a model, a system, a taxonomv, an algorithm, a recipe, or a for-mula."8 Then, too, there is the problem that writings in fields such ascurriculum will always contain undisclosed premises or undiscussedcommitments-there is only so much that can be overtly stated aboutsuch complicated matters within a given compass. But, in the case ofSchwab, yet another difficulty exists. The four "Practical" papers rep-resent only a small fraction of the output of a man whose favoritegenre of writing was the essay. And essay writers are notoriouslyhard to understand in depth without extensive reading of their works.As the editors of the 1978 edition of Schwab's papers remark:There is in his writing a complex back-and-forth between the particular andthe more general so that grasp of any one essav requires appreciation bvthe reader of other essays, and of problems already discussed and closed.9

Thus, to understand the moral commitments that underpin theapparently unvisionanr statements of the "Practical" papers, we needto look beyond them and seek out other texts. Arrmed with theknowledge that these yield, we may then be able to see the "Practi-cal" papers in a different light. Sources that might be studied includehis essays on teaching, such as "Eros and Education" and "The 'Im-possible' Role of the Teacher in Progressive Education"; and attackson inappropriate theorizing that long predated the "Practical" papers,such as "On the Corruption of Education by Psychology."10 But themost important text fo r our present purpose is the lengthy paper thatSchwab contributed to the 1976 volume of The Great Ideas Todaypublished by Encyclopaedia Britannica, under the title "Educationand the State: Learning Community.""

8Ibid., p. 27.9L , Westbury and N. J. Wilkof, eds., Science, Curriculum, anldLiberal Educa-

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lVilhen A. Reid

Here me are introduced to a rather different kind of writer thanthe one who emerges from the pages of the "Practical" papers. Firstof all, he is much more plavful. We note the deliberate ambiguity ofhis title. *'Learning Commiunitv." The idea of "community" is some-thing we can learn about, but. also. iearning is something essentiallyimplicated with the idea of communitv:The knowledge we learn has been garnered by a com-unitx of which weare onrv the most recent members and is conveyed by languages of wordand gesture devised, preserved, and passed on to us bv that communit .1 2But inmmediatelv the apparent ambiguitv is resolved.These two meanings of 'learning community" meet, in practice, to consti-tute one whole. The propensities that constitute communitv are learnedoniv as we undergo with others the processes through which we learnoither things."'The practical and the theoretic, which are foreground in the "Practi-cal" papers, are here background to a more inclusive view of theworld. the role of the theoretic is to objectively clarify the notion ofcommunity" by dividing it up: but within the conspectus of thepractical. "community" must be an undivided whole.Next, this other Schwab unexpectedly sw-itches to narrativemode and. tells us a storv. It is that of a 10-year-old boy who runsaway from home. After a 25-mile trip on a freight train, he gets off

and sits on the porch steps of a frame hotel (we are in the Ameri-can South) There he meets a man who, although he is careful notto sav so , realizes the bov is a runawav. Thev go to a caf& for somerefreshment. He tells the boy about himself and then asks him somequestions about school. what he is reading, and so forth. Then,When the food was gone. fthe mran' said. "You're not from here are you?""No. from Columbus.'He said, "I onlv asked because there's a train headed south from here inabout ten minutes," A short silence. Then, Ydu vant to go home?".(. Another short silence). 'Yes,'He pulled a dollar from his pocket and said, "For carfare, You can payme back some tine.' '4And so the young Schwab returned home to Columbus, Mississippi.having undergone a vivid practical experience of "leaming commu-

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4Rethinking Schwab.' Curriculum 7Theonzing as a VisionaryActivity

helped; collaboration; relations between persons, not merely be-tween ranks or roles; honoring of difference; nurture of seiflhood,Schwab offers his story as "a sketch of what is involved in conmmu-nity conceived as propensities and as the acts that issue frompropensities." 15 And he goes on to a detailed elaboration of this in-troductory sketch, suggesting that community and individuality aremutually interdependent:Quite contrary to the popular sociology which opposes individual and so-ciety. individuality can only arise in society, only through community. In-dividuality is not a genetic given, growing of itself and merely awaiting dis-covery. It must be made."6

But at this point a more recognizable Schwab takes the stage.Just as the impulse fo r his "Practical" papers came from a doom-laden scenario-"the field of curriculum is moribund"-so, it turnsout, his passionate support fo r the idea of community also stemsfrom a perception of imminent collapse: 'Community is threatenedwith extinction in Amrerica,"'17 he says. So, what is to be done? Un-like others who have offered similar analyses of the death of com-munity in the face of industrialization. urbanization, or colonializa-tion, Schwab recognizes that the clock cannot be put back: "Onlvthe very romantic believe that we can reconstitute durable, smallgeographic communities on a useful scale. The city is here to stay.`SBut if Schwab is a realist, he is not a pessimist. Human beings areresourceful and adaptable. What matters is not that traditional formsof community should survive or be resurrected, but that communityshould be enabled to flourish as ia state or condition of persons, aset of internalized propensities, of tendencies to feel and act in cer-tain ways with other people."I9 And the place where such propen-sities and tendencies can be nurtured, to the benefit of all, is thepublic school.If there is to be a revival of American community, it requires an institutionwhich is an American place, a place open to all and receiving all in fact,cutting across and including the numerous economic, social, ethnic, and re-ligious groups which constitute us. The tax-supported school is the Amer-ican institution which comes closest to being such a place.2 0

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36 Rethinking Scbwab. CUrniculum Theorizingas a VisionaryActivity

Lesson materials are distributed as in the ordinary school, but there is some-thing different about the distribution. It is not a duplicate sheet or duplicatedevice to each child. It is a packet at each table. The children open it upand look the contents over.24

Altogether, we are a very long way from the apparently "hands-off' strategy that emerges from the 'Practical" papers. The reason isthat, in his championship of 'conmmunity," Schwab supports a lorng listof aims that includes key tenrs such as "collaboration,"* "service,""sympathy," "friendship," and "sensitivity to the moral force of ideas. "25The resonance of these terms indicates a cast of mind far removedfrom that espoused by proponents of curriculum making based onobjectives. The Schwab we meet here is someone with a clear moralvision of what schooling should be about and, consequently, anequally clear conception of the limits within which choice of cur-riculum should be made.

RETHINKING TI-IE "PRACTICAL" PAPERSIf now we come back to the "Practical" papers with these dis-

coveries in mind, an alternative interpretation of what Schwab wasabout suggests itself. Here, too, though the agenda is much less visi-ble, we are in the presence of a visionary and morally based programof school reform. The putting aside of "theory" does not, as Jacksonsuggests, signal a retreat to a "problem-centered, as opposed to avision-centered conception of curriculum" that has "nothing to set itin motion beyond the recognition of an immediate difficulty or theexpectation that such difficulties are bound to occur."26 On the con-trary, the move to the "practical" enables vision to play its part, be-cause we are no longer hobbled by the ambiguities of the theoretic.Just as the contradictions of the ambiguous meanings of "learningcommunity" disappear when we move from the realm of the theo-retic to the realm of the "practical," so , too, do other contradictions,such as that between individual aspirations and societal constraints.Only under conditions like these can visionary impulses be seen asimperatives for action, and Schwab's concern is not fo r the articula-tion of ideals, but for their pursuit, which can come about onlythrough action. We begin to see that his espousal of "the practical,"far from being a sell-out to a pragmatic, problem-centered approach

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WNllkim .4 Reid

ables curriculum making to become the responsibility of a "moralcommunity." In. fact, Schwab's proposals. as expressed in "The Prac-tical 4i,, for curriculum groups led by curriculun chairs are 'at oncethe reflection of, and the means of sustaining a vision of commu-nitv. lust as the resolution of probliems within the problematicmolde, as Schwab's Chicago colleague Richard McKeon puts it. turns..on the processes by which men come to agree on a conclusion orto acqluiesce in a course of action.' 29 so the education of the individ-ual has meaning only insofar as it involves internalization, throughpractical experience. of community-understood, in Schwab's wordss.to consist of propensities toward action and feeling, and to be con-

cerned Nwith the relations of persons. 3'(SCHWAB AkND RECONCEPU.TALISM

It seems to be no accident, then, that the consternation pro-voked by Schwab's vigorous rejection of scientific theory as the basisof curriculum work should have been the prelude to the reconcep-tualist movement of the 1970s, wvhich enthusiastically promoted is-sues of aesthetics. moralitv, and spirituality as its core., and embracedthe cause of groups whose place in the community was deniedthrough discrimination on the basis of class, race, or gender.31 Wasthis not closely akin to the agenda that Schwab himself would haveset out, if that had been his project in his 'Practical" papers? Andshould he not, then. be seen as some kind of proto-reconceptualist?if a reconceptualist is someone w-ho has a wider conception ofcurriculumrn than how to engage in the rational planning of schoolprograms, then Schwab certainly qualifies. But then so do many ofhis predecessors-Dewey. Rousseau, Comenius, Plato. There hasnever been a imne in recorded history when some thinkers were notapplying their minds to visionary omeven mystical conceptions ofteaching and learning. But if a reconceptualist is someone who ad-vocates revolution, who emphasizes personal development over thepursuit of societal goals, or who shuns anv stance that can be seenas in any wN-ay conservative" in favor of those vwhich, in the words of

2J. J Schw-ab. "The Practical 4. Something fo r (urriculunm Professors ic Do."Cur-rnicutlurn 1nqiirg 13, 3 i983): 239'265.

-a'NWillian, A. Reid. Curriculum. Communitv, and Liberal Education: A Re-sponse to The Practical 4i . CirrictlumntInquiry 14. 1 (1984J: 105.2

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38Rethinking Schuab: Curriculum Tbeorizingas a Visionary Activiti

Pinar and his collaborators, "challenge and subvert not onlv the cen-tral themes, organizing metaphors, and discursive strategies consti-tuting Western thought and informing the Enlightenment project, butall that is modernism itself,"32 then Schwab was emphatically not aproto-reconceptualist. His whole stance was built around the neces-sity of working within existing cultural traditions. This is not to saythat he was not in favor of change-as we have seen, his vision ofcommunity demands a radical rethinking of the nature of schools-but any project of change would, in his view, have to be undertakenin a manner that respected existing beliefs and traditions.Here we confront another side of Schwab's character: his senseof tradition and respect for the past, which stemmed from his intenseinvolvement with the classical-which is not to say well-known-texts of Western thought. We might suspect from his appearance ina volume of the Great Books series that he had this kind of interest,and that association with Robert Hutchins at Chicago would reinforceit. But the range of his reading was vast. Again, this is not somethingthat immediately strikes us as we read the "Practical" papers. Theseare notable, indeed, for their lack of references. In the course of al-most 100 pages of the first three "Practical" papers, as they appear inthe 1978 edited volume, there are only 20 citations of works otherthan Schwab's own. One reaction to this might be to suppose thathe seldom consulted texts. A more realistic one, in my view, is thatif he had tried to cite all the texts to which he was indebted. therewould have been little room for his own writing. It would be hardto come up with any source that he did not know about. When, inmy efforts to understand his ideas on liberal education, I proposedparallels with an obscure book by William Whewell published in1845,33 it turned out that he not only had an intimate knowledge ofWhewell's work, but also that of other English thinkers of the periodthat I had never heard of. He was, moreover, an avid reader of fic-tion and suggested to me that I should read George Eliot's 1872novel Middlemarch. And here, too, I found interesting connectionswith his espousal of community. As a recent commentator explains,despite Eliot's natural impulse to reject convention,[flamily and community remained [for Eliot] the best place for nurturing theindividual moral self. Social change must come gradually and only after athousand individuals had slightly widened their perceptions of how to live,

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William A Reicl

roes and heroines mav struggle against their small-minded communities.but in the course of their lives thev learn that true heroism entails givingup the glor of conflict. Reconciliation with what previously seemed pettyis the way that leads to moral growth. Romola. fleeing from her unfaithfulhusband, Tito, is tumed around in the road by Savonarola and sent backto achieve some kind. of reconciliation . .. Dorothea's fantasies of great-ness end up in the low-key usefiulness of becoming an MP's Wife.34Schwab. like Eliot, was. in many wavs, a writer looking for radicalchange; but also like Eliot. Schwab had a vision of the future thatwas rooted in respect for what has been built up over the centuries,rather than suspicion or even rejection of well-established traditionsof thought.

CONCLUSIONThus it appears that Schwab played a pivotal role in the history

of the curriculum field in the 20th century-though not the one townich he would have aspired. In one of his purposes he seems tohave succeeded. The message that curriculum could not be a branchof scientific theory, concerned with providing answvers to theoreticquestions. has been taken to heart, at least by those who producethe literature of the field-though one has to wonder to what extentthis espousal of science was, in any event, a transient phenomenon.HIowever, the positive message that lay behind the negative one-that curriculum should be about fostering the kind of liberal educa-tion that creates and is created by a moral communitv-went un-heard, and the vacuum has been filled bv theoretical positions basedon neo-.Marxism and `postmodern" individual self-fulfillment thatSchwab would certainlv not have approved of. Marxism represented,for him, a license for the dialectically initiated to Impose their ownvision of how a society should be constituted in place of a visionthat emerges from the conjoint deliberations of all its members; andnotions of an individuality that can be thought of separately from thenurture of a whole society with a history and traditions seemed tohim, like the enterprise of a "scientific" theory of curriculum, to beboth logically and morally mistaken.But perhaps the reception of the first "Practical" paper in 1969had more to do with the Zeitgeist than with the power or weaknessof Schwab's own arguments. One of the most significant features ofthat paper is the implicit assumption that the curriculum field has

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40 Rethinking Schwab: Curriculum 7Theorizingas a Visionary Activity

than a collection of individuals, as it had appeared up to the 1950s.35Schwab's principal-though nameless-antagonists in his 1969School Review paper are those for whom curriculum work that is notscientific (in the most limited sense of that word) is simply "horta-tory" 3( 6-- we might label them as the "hard science" group. They havemany disciplinary backgrounds but are united by a belief that cur-riculum propositions have to be "provable" and that progress is pos-sible only through data-based research.37 But there are also theschools or factions that represent flights, though these, according tocircumstance, may appear, in Schwab's own words. as "fruitful" or"irresponsible." The ones that are inevitably irresponsible, he says,are those that pursue flight to the sidelines and those that engagein "perseveration." The first group would be the "commentators"-those with much to say about the game but no intention of muddy-ing their boots on the field of play; whereas the second would bethe "neo-dominants," those "whose lives are made possible by con-tinuing restatement of the Tyler rationale."1 8Strangely, for one who promoted the particular over the generalor the universal, it is in his move fromn argument based on individu-als to argument based on ill-defined schools or factions that Schwabseems to have been most in tune with the direction that curriculumtheory was to take in the post-1970 period. Enrollment of students incurriculum courses increased., but scope for the involvement of cur-riculum specialists in active projects of reform diminished, as curricu-lum becanme focused on the achievement test programs of states andschool districts rather than on the reformist movements that federalagencies had supported in the 660s. Thus, curriculum scholars neededto find a role in programs within colleges of education, which wereattracting growing enrollinents but were increasingly perceived asmarginal to the mission of the universities. Toward the end of the cen-tury, factionalism was to triumph, with many groups building an iden-tity around key texts and leaders, forming "special interest groups"and producing their own 'in-house journals," so that today consider-ation of the value of contributions to the curriculum field tends tobegin with the question., "Well, what school does she belong to?" Afew- of Schwvab's "neo-dominants" continue to pursue their counter-cyclical activities, while the major focus is on "neo-Marxist," "recon-

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TITLE: Rethinking Schwab: curriculum theorizing as a visionary

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SOURCE: Journal of Curriculum and Supervision 17 no1 Fall 2001

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