The document provides a historical overview of curriculum foundations from the colonial period to the early 20th century. It discusses the evolution of curriculum from basic elementary education focusing on religion and the three R's, to the establishment of Latin grammar schools and academies, and the rise of universal public education. Key developments included Dr. Benjamin Rush advocating for free public schools, the emergence of committees to standardize high school curriculum, and early 20th century educators like Dewey, Bobbitt, and Tyler establishing principles for a modern, progressive curriculum focused on students' needs, experiences, and societal goals.

1. Historical Foundations
of Curriculum
Prepared by
Siti Maryam binti Kamaruzaman

2. THE COLONIAL PERIOD
1642-1776

3. COLONIAL SCHOOLS
IMPORTANT !
A MUCH SMALLER OF CHILDREN THAN NOWADAYS.

4. TOWN SCHOOLS
• A public elementary schools attended by boys
and girls of the community.
• Children ranging from 5-6 years old to 13-14
years old.
• Weather and farming conditions decided the
children attendance.

5. • Elementary schools based on
religion and ethnicity.
• Focused on reading, writing and
religious sermons.
• Attended by upper-class
children.
• Focused on reading, writing,
arithmetic, primer and bible.
PAROCHIAL
SCHOOLS
PRIVATE
SCHOOLS
CHARITY
SCHOOLS
• Attended by less fortunate children.
• Learned to recite religious hymns and
vocational skills.

6. LATIN GRAMMAR SCHOOLS
• Secondary level for upper-class
boys as preparation for college.
• For boys at age 8 or 9 and
remains for 8 years.
• Catered to those who planned to
enter the professions
Medicine, law, teaching, the
ministry, business or merchants
• Latin apparently three-quarters
of the curriculum taught.
• One of colonial America’s
closest links to European
schools.
• The classical humanist
curriculum of the Renaissance
 Support the era's religious and
social institutions

7. ACADEMIES (1751)
• Second American institution
provide education.
• Based on Benjamin Franklin’s
ideas and offered practical
studies.
• Commons studies
• English grammar, classics,
composition, rhetoric and
public speaking.
• Students can choose foreign
language based on their
vocational needs.
• Introduced practical and manual
skills
• Carpentry, engraving, printing,
painting, cabinet making,
farming and bookkeeping.

8. COLLEGES
• Harvard or
Yale.
• Admitted into
college upon
examination.
• College curriculum
- Latin - Ethics
- Grammar - Logic
- Metaphysics - Natural
- Rhetoric - Sciences
- Arithmetic
- Astronomy
Showing competency
in being able to
- Read
- Construe
- Parce Tully
- Vergil and the Greek
Testament
- write in Latin
- understand the Rules
of Prosodia
- Common Arithmetic

9. TEXTBOOKS
FOR THE COLONIOL PERIOD

10. Example of textbooks:
Hornbook, Primer,
Westminster Catechism, Old
Testament and Bible
• Children learned the alphabet, the
Lord’s prayer and some syllables,
words and sentences by memorizing
hornbook.
• In 1960’s, the New England Primer
was published.
• Most used textbooks for 100 years.
• 3 millions copies were sold
• ABC’s were learned through rote and
drill.
In 1740, the new guide to
English tongue was
published followed by
The School Master’s
Assistant
(Mathematics text)

11. THE NATIONAL PERIOD
1776 - 1850

12. Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813)
Science, Progress and Free Education
• Outlined a plan
of education for
Pennsylvania
• Free elementary schools for
towns with 100 or more families.
• A free academy at the country
level
• Free colleges and universities at
the state level for societies future
leaders

13. • Tax dollars pay for expenses, but ultimately reduced taxes because a productive, well
managed work force was a result of the plan
Elementary schools
- Reading
- Writing
- Arithmetic
Secondary and college
- English
- German
- Arts
- Sciences
All levels
- Good manners
- Moral principles

14. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Education for Citizenship
• Created a bill for Virginia to
allows taxes to finance schools.
• Divides Virginia’s counties into
wards
• free elementary schools for
teaching of reading, writing,
arithmetic and history.
• There was an Elementary
school, secondary school and
William and Mary school.
• The proposal was never enacted.
But did provide good education
for society.

15. Noah Webster (1758-1843)
Schoolmaster and Cultural Nationalist
“unshackle your mind and act like
independent being”
• Created the US American
Language.
• Known for Webster dictionary.
• Identified the US as nation.
• The use of a US language would
eliminate the European language,
and make the US more uniform.

16. William Holmes McGuffey (1800-1873)
The Readers and American Virtues
• Paved the way for the grading
system in the US.
• His book still used today in
rural, conservative school
• Created the most popular
textbook of his era called 5
readers
• Patriotism
• Heroism
• Hard work
• Diligence
• Virtuous living

17. NINTEENTH-CENTURY
EUROPEAN EDUCATORS

18. Johann Pestalozzi (1746-1827)
General and Special Methods
Created the basics
principals in
education
• General Teaching
• Educators provide emotional
security and affection.
• Special teaching
• Considers children’s auditory
and visual senses.
McClure, Neef, Mann and Barnard introduced these ideas to US schools.

19. Freidrich Froebel (1782-1852)
The Kindergarten Movement
• Focused on 3 and 4 years old.
• Surrounded their schooling with
play and individual group
interests and activities.
• Encouraged and child centered
curriculum based on love trust
and freedom.
• The formal curriculum
consisted of
• Colourful materials
• Song
• Stories and games

20. Johann Herbart (1776-1841)
Moral and Intellectual Development
• Contributed to morals in education.
• Five ideas to found moral character
• Inner freedom
• Perfection
• Benevolence
• Justice
• Retribution
• Two major bodies of interest
• Knowledge of interest
• Factual data and
speculative ideas
• Ethical interest
• Sympathy and social
relationship

21. Herbart Spencer (1820-1903)
Utilitarian and Scientific Education
• English social scientist
• Based on his ideas of education on
Charles Darwin’s theory:
“Survival of the fittest”
• Teach HOW to think not WHAT
to think.
• His popular books
• “What knowledge is of most
worth”
If you were lazy or weak,
you would not survive

22. THE RISE
OF UNIVERSAL
EDUCATION
1820-1900

23. Monitorial Schools
• European invention.
• Highly structured school with
lots of rote learning and drilling
the three R’s education.
• Focused on systematic
instruction and good
citizenship.
• Monitorial teaching kept all
students busy while teacher
could focus on one student.
• It was mechanical way of
teaching and the students were
poorly informed by their
educators.

24. Common schools
• Established by Massachusetts
(1826).
• Every town was able to choose a
board of education to be
responsible for the local schools.
• Devoted to elementary
education with large emphasis
on the Three R’s of Education.
• Attended by children from 6-14
years old and the school districts
elected the schools board.
• It flourished on the frontier with
all of the pioneers.
• Abe Lincoln said that, it was a
boring school but it was where
common kids could come learn
the basic.

25. Elementary Schools
• Through 1800’s people could not
agree on the appropriate
curriculum for a child.
• It was ever changing which
reading, spelling, grammar and
arithmetic.
• In 1825 Religion mandated that,
morality and manners should be
taught as well.
• 1850
• Geography and history
• 1875
• Science and visual arts
• 1900s
• nature study and biology
• music and homemaking

26. Secondary schools
• Attendance was very rare in 1900s.
• 1930
• School enrolment figure exceed
50%.
• 1970
• 98% of elementary children would
move on to secondary school.
• Form of high school students to
graduate up to after elementary school

27. Academies
• 1800’s, academies replaced the
Latin Grammar School.
• Offered better range in
curriculum.
• Taught useful things and
subjects of modern nature.
• Help focus on preparing
students for college.
• Academies taught
• Latin, Greek, English Grammar,
Geography, Arithmetic, Algebra,
Composition, Rhetoric, Natural
philosophy and US history.
• Continued through the 1870’s

28. High Schools
• Kalamazoo School Case.
• Attended by only small amount
of youth.
• Many families did not care about
college preparatory.
• Curriculum continued expand.
• Making it easier for student to
determine their interest and
capabilities

29. THE TRANSITIONAL
PERIOD
1893-1918

30. Committee of Fifteen
• Harvard University President
Charles Eliot influenced the
committee.
• The committee adopted Eliot’s
plan to move from 10 grades to 8 in
elementary school.
• Emphasizes of the three R’s,
English Grammar, literature,
geography and history.
• Hygiene, culture, vocal music and
drawing were part of curriculum.
• 7th and 8th grades
• Sewing, manual training, cooking,
algebra and Latin

31. Committee of ten
• Also chaired by Charles Eliot.
• 9 subject matters in the high
school curriculum
• Latin, Greek, English, Other
Modern Languages,
Mathematics, Physical
sciences, Natural history, Social
sciences and geography.
• Committee recommended four
different tracks
• Classical, Latin scientific,
modern language and English
• The committee ignored
physical education and arts.
• The committee started
college preparatory courses.

32. Committee on College Entrance
Requirements
• Met in 1985
• Affirmation of the college
preparatory curriculum.
• Created college admission
requirements
• Discussed credits required for
different subjects during college,
• Discussed credits for admission
imposed during high school

33. Harris and Eliot
Two Conservative Reformers
• Dominated the reform movement during the transitional period.
• Eliot played a role in shaping
higher education.
• He allowed independent
learning.
• Advocated for vocational schools
to be different from high school
• Harris wrote that common
high schools should teach
morality and citizenship.
• Instill social order.
• View school as one of the
many factors in educating and
socializing children

34. Vocational education
• 1917, Smith - Hughes act provided
federal aid for vocational education.
• Working class students were placed
in vocational programs due to
biases of middle class educators

35. Abraham Flexner (1866-1959)
A modern curriculum
• Advocate for abolishing Latin in
America schooling.
• He argued that tradition was
inadequate criteria for students
and educators should make
changes to the curriculum.
• 4 basics areas in modern
curriculum
• Science, industry, civics and
aesthetics
• The Lincoln school of teachers
college, Columbia University
adopted this curriculum in 1971

36. Dewey
Pragmatic and scientific principles of
education
• Believes in democracy and
education (has a book)
• Democracy was a social process
that needed to be enhanced
through schooling
• Study of any subject could
enhance a child’s development.
• He formed the basis of child
development movement in the
1930’s and 1940’s.

37. Charles Judd (1873-1946)
Systematic studies and social sciences
• An evolutionist who believed in
laws of nature.
• Prepare to change the world
• Believed in preparing students
to deal with problems and not
acquire endless knowledge.
• Emphasized reading, writing
and spelling based on words,
science and mathematics

38. Commission on Reorganization of
Secondary Education
• 1918’s, NEA’s Commission published the “cardinal principles of secondary
education”
• The principles for democratic society
• Educations should promotes seven aims
• High schools should be a comprehensive institution
• High schools curriculum should meet varied needs of students
• Current educational psychology should be applied to secondary education
• US educational should function with one another

39. Franklin Bobbitt (1876-1956)
W.W.Charters (1875-1952)
• A major goal in the 1920’s was to
eliminate small classes and increase
the students to teacher ratio.
• Behaviourist ideas included
• Objectives derived from students
needs
• Learning experiences relate to
objectives
• Activities organized by teacher
should be integrated into subjects
matter
• Instructional outcomes should be
evaluated
• Bobbitt curriculum should outline
the knowledge important for each
subjects.
• Bobbitt guideline for objectives
• Eliminate objectives
• Emphasizes objectives
• Avoid objectives opposed by
communities
• Involve the community

40. Kilpatrick
The Progressive Influence
• Divided methodology in four steps
• Purposing, planning, executing and
judging
• He argued for integrated subject
matter and a general education
emphasizing values and social
issues.
• Organized experiences or activities
that related and developmental in
nature:
• One activity should lead to another
• Curriculum should derive from real
life experiences not organized
bodies of subject matter.

41. The 26th
Yearbook
The books outlining of the ideal curriculum
 Focus on affairs on human life.
 Deal with local national and international issues.
 Enable students to think critically about various forms
of government.
 Foster open minds.
 Consider students interests and needs.
 Deal with the issues of modern life and society’s
cultural historical aspects.
 Consider problem activities.
 Organize problems and exercise in graded
organization
 Deal with humanitari an themes in purposeful way.
• The committee that
developed the yearbook
• Rugg, Bagley, Bobbitt,
Charters, Counts, Judd
and Kilpatrick.
• Created in 1930

42. Harold Rugg and Hollis Caswell
Curriculum should address the students needs and provide proper
scope and sequences of subject matter
• Caswell wanted to improve
instruction and help teachers to
coordinate their activities with
students needs.
• Caswell coordinated step by step
curriculum building procedures.
• Rugg insisted that teacher
should pre-plan and implement
the curriculum needed for the
students
• Rugg advocated for cooperation
among educational professionals

43. Eight Year Study (1932-1940)
• Launched by The Progressive
Education Association.
• A study designated to show that
curriculum can meet the needs of
students interests as well as a
curriculum based on tests.
• Members understood that
evaluation must determine whether
a curriculum objectives had been
achieved.
• The showed that they needed data
on
• Students achievement
• Social factors
• Teaching and learning processes
• Instructional methods

44. Ralph Tyler (1902-1994)
Basic principles
• Created more than 700 articles and
16 books
• Known for his books “Basic
Principles of Curriculum and
Instruction”
• Created 4 basics questions for any
curriculum
• What educational goals should a
school seeks?
• What educational experiences are
likely to lead these goals?
• How can these educational
experiences be effectively
organizes?
• How can we determine whether a
school’s goal are being
accomplished?

45. John Goodlad (1920-)
School Reform
• He views that schools should
helps individuals fulfil their
potential but should promote
societal goals.
• He launched a study of 260
kindergarten and first grade
classrooms in 100 schools to
discuss curriculums.
• His conclusion in his study
showed that schools are
emphasis on test score and they
are the bottom line!

46. THE END
THANK YOU