Historical Foundations of Curriculum

 Dr Sultan Muhammad Khan

Keywords; Psychological foundations of Curriculum, The Role of the History of curriculum in the development of curriculum, the history of the curriculum guides the future plans of curriculum, Curriculum of Imam Ghazali,  Methods of Teaching and Techniques of the Curriculum

Foundations of Curriculum

   Historical Foundations of Curriculum

Foundations are the forces that influence the minds of curriculum developers.

In this way they affect the content and structure of the curriculum. The five most important foundations of the curriculum are;

1.      Philosophical foundation of Curriculum

2.      , Psychological foundations of Curriculum

3.       Socio Cultural Foundation of Curriculum

4.       Historical Foundations of Curriculum

5.       Economical Foundations of Curriculum

Historical Foundations

It includes

1. Role of curriculum in achievements of nations.
2. Guides future plans
3. Factors that influence development of nation e.g. unity
4. Eliminates the useless traditions.

Role of the History of curriculum in the development of curriculum

History of the curriculum plays a very important role in the development of the nation. It takes long and tedious time to formulate a good curriculum which represents the need of the society and the experiences of the past. The history of the curriculum tell the curriculum planner how to develop and modify the curriculum, what to teach and what should be the core material of the subjects, what objectives they want to achieve through the curriculum. History also tell them how the teacher should teach, what are the best practices they need to incorporate in curriculum teaching and what kind of teaching need to be avoid.

                                                                                               

The history of the curriculum also explains the teacher psychology at different time and how to improve their teaching styles. The history also provides a detail about the learner behavior at different times. It also provides information about the psychology of the students, how they learn and what they want to learn. In times curriculum changed its shapes and patterns from teacher center curriculum to learner center curriculum due to the long history of the curriculum development process from Plato to modern curriculum. the history of the curriculum also changed the teaching methods, now every researcher are finding new ways to teach and it is also becoming the part of curriculum  an history.

Today majority of the develop countries are those countries who have a long history of freedom and proper education system. They achieved their successes through education and implementation of time needed curriculum. They modified their curriculum according to the need of time. Some of newly born countries also achieved that status because they adopted successful model of other developed countries and modified according to their own needs and culture.

The history of the curriculum guides the future plans

The history of the curriculum guides the future plans because curriculum is always based on the future demands of the country and the lesson learned through history, tell the curriculum developer not to repeat the mistake of the past and develop a curriculum which is based on the future need of the society and international demands. History is the profile of past successes and failures. 

   History helps in the eliminations of useless traditions

The history of education tells the curriculum developer what not to include in the curriculum. What of lessons can bring no good to the curriculum and what type of contents material are good for the teaching learning process, so history of the curriculum eliminate all those useless traditions from the modern curriculum and help the developer to incorporate what is needed for the curriculum.

A short history of the curriculum and curriculum development process

Plato was the earliest most important Greek Philosopher and educational thinker. Plato thinks education as a key for a society and he stress on education, for this purpose he want to go to the extreme level even removing children from their mothers and rise them by the state, he want to identify the skills of the children and give them proper education for that particular skill which they have so they could be become a suitable member of the society and fulfil their duty in society.

 Plato describes different stages of education in his republic. According to Plato the education of child should be start at the age of seven year and before this stage the child should stay with their mother or elders and learn moral education from them.

After the age of six years both girls and boys should be separated and boys should play with boys and girls with girls and they should be taught the use of different arms to both sexes. This stage goes up to the age of seventeen years. During these years they should teach them music and early education. After the age of seventeen years the youth should be brought to battle field to learn real life experiences.

The fourth stage start at the age of twenty five to thirty years and in this age they get the training of Mathematical calculation and last for another ten years, after the completion the selected one’s are admitted in the study of dialect.

 

During fifth stage they study dialect for another five years and after that, at the sixth stage one is ready to become a ruler and philosopher and the one enter in practical life.

The 11^th century was a dark era for education. Few people in Western Europe were receiving any kind of schooling and across the globe; contributions were being made to the future of education.  In China, printing by movable type was invented in 1045, and proved to be one of the most powerful inventions of this era which affect the curriculum development process and bring huge change in the improvement of curriculum and contents of the curriculum around the world. With future educational systems focusing on the written word, the invention of type printing set the path for future publications. The first paper mill was built in France in 1338. Paper was a Chinese invention (c. 600 AD), brought to Europe by the Arabs in the 11th century.

Imam Ghazali  Curriculum

The great educator of Islam, Imam Ghazali was born in 1059 AD near Tus in Khurasan, a part of the then Persia.

His educational philosophy based on his personal experience. The philosophy, which he formulated over a period of 10 years, resembles to the Philosophy of Plato. He used his personal experience and concluded the reasons

According to Ghazali, there are four categories of Knowledge;

1.  Prophetic

2.  Rulers

3.  Philosophers/scholars    4. Preachers

 Curriculum:

 Ghazali strongly criticizes the curriculum of his time. He raises the basic question of criteria for selection of subject matter for curriculum. He studied the various curriculums in his times and reached the following conclusions:

. More time is spent on religious education and worldly education is completely ignores

.  Worldly education is equally important

.  While teaching religious education, a great number of differences arise among the teachers, which result in mudslinging on each other

.

There is no Prioritization and it is only left to the interest and opinions of the teachers to concentrate on certain subjects, while ignore others.

.   No place for character building in curriculum

Ghazali included industrial education, textile, agriculture, tailoring and hair cutting in the curriculum

Methods of Teaching and Techniques:

Ghazali has recommended the following teaching methods and techniques, which are based on psychological principles. These methods and techniques are widely used and educators all over the world agree with their usefulness and today they are the foundation of curriculum development process.

•        Teaching of lessons to be based on previous knowledge and experience of the students.

•        Teachers should simplify the difficult concepts by stories, tales etc. otherwise his teaching will not be effective

      Move from simple to complex.

 This is a very important principle of today curriculum which was presented by Ghazali at those times. History of curriculum laid down the basic foundation of curriculum development

Proper planning

 Ghazali stresses the importance of planning and advises that teachers should do his preparation before teaching to make it effective

Abilities of students:

 Ghazali stresses that while teaching the abilities of students should be kept in mind. Concepts, which are above the mental level of the students, will not make the teaching effective. Today in modern curriculum teachers are asked to keep in mind the individual differences.

 In the era of colonist, the colonist came to indo-pack and they set up schools exactly like the ones they knew in Europe. The curriculum was centered on the learning of letters, numbers, and prayers. Their strict learning environment did not allow for crafts nor recess breaks, and only one out of ten children attended school.

There were common characteristics shared by these colonies:

1. Religious Education; its major aim was personal salvation

2         Education was centered on social class, dual system or class system.  The children of workers should have minimal primary education, they learned the 4 R's (reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion

3          With the exception of few Schools, education was only for boys

4          Most children in colonial times received their education through informal means such as the family, the farm, and the shop.

Changes in educational philosophy and curriculum came about in this era as well.  In 1901, John Dewey wrote The Child and the Curriculum, and later Democracy and Education, in which he shows concern for the relationship between society and education. Dewey was a philosopher, psychologist, and educator.

His philosophy of education focused on learning by doing rather than rote memorization. He criticized the old education system which keeps students busy.  From Dewey’s educational philosophy came the emphasis on experience, activity, and problem-solving that helped to reshape our thinking about education and schooling. 

Maria Montessori opened her first school in 1907.  Maria Montessori was credited with developing a classroom without walls, manipulative learning materials, teaching toys, and programmed instruction.  Many considered her to be the 20th century's leading advocate for early childhood education. 

Anna Freud, Jean Piaget, Alfred Adler, and Erik Erikson studied under Montessori and made their own contributions to education and child psychology

The civil rights movement and technology change the face of the 20th century classroom.

In the 1990s, the computers invade the classroom around the world and now it the most important part of the curriculum.

In short history is the foundation of the modern curriculum

Read more articles about Foundations of Curriculum

Psychological foundations of Curriculum

https://research-education-edu.blogspot.com/2020/01/psychological-foundations-of-curriculum.html

Philosophical foundation of Curriculum

https://research-education-edu.blogspot.com/2014/08/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html

Socio Cultural Foundation of Curriculum

https://research-education-edu.blogspot.com/2020/01/socio-cultural-foundation-of-curriculum.html

 Historical Foundations of Curriculum

https://research-education-edu.blogspot.com/2020/01/historical-foundations-of-curriculum.html

 Economical Foundations of Curriculum

https://research-education-edu.blogspot.com/2020/01/economical-foundations-of-curriculum.html