The document outlines the historical foundations of curriculum in the United States from the colonial period to the early 20th century. It describes how curriculum evolved from focusing on religious teachings and basic reading/writing in colonial New England schools to incorporating ideas from European educators like Pestalozzi and Froebel. It also discusses how thinkers like Jefferson advocated for more universal education. By the early 1900s, curriculum began to be studied as its own field as progressive philosophy gained influence and principles of scientific inquiry were applied to education.

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HISTORICAL
FOUNDATIONS OF
CURRICULUM
Sem. Patrick Garbo

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Outline:

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
• Largely rooted in Colonial Massachusetts
• The first New England schools were closely tied to the Puritan
church.
• Reading was the most important subject, followed by writing and
spelling, which were needed for understanding the catechism
and common law
• Reading and related language skills have been basic to American
education and the elementary school curriculum

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
1642 legislation which required parents and guardians to ensure
that children could read and understand the
principles of religion and the laws of the
Commonwealth;
“Old Deluder Satan” Act of 1647 which required every town of 50 or more families
to appoint a reading and writing teacher.

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
• The Puritans valued literacy
• They also wanted to ensure that their children would
grow up committed to the religious doctrines

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
• “Competition among political and religious groups
retarded willingness to expend the public funds for
educational purposes.”
• The current notion of cultural pluralism thus took shape
some 250 years ago

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
• Until the end of the 18th century, educational decisions in
the southern colonies were generally left to the family.
• The law prohibited slave children from learning to read or
write.

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
• The schools of New England, the middle Atlantic
colonies, and the South all were influenced by English
political idea.
• “The curriculum of the colonial schools consisted of
reading, writing, and [some] arithmetic along with the
rudiments of religious faith and lessons designed to
develop manners and morals”

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
Town Schools
• controlled public elementary school.
• one-room structure dominated by the teacher’s pulpit at the
front of the room and attended by boys and girls of the
community
• The children ranged in age from 5 or 6 to 13 or 14
• Attendance was not always regular

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
Parochial and Private Schools
• parochial and private schools predominated.
• these schools focused on reading, writing,
and religious sermons.

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
Latin Grammar Schools
• first established in Boston in 1635, as preparation for
college.
• catered to those who planned to enter the professions
(medicine, law, teaching, and the ministry) or become
business owners or merchants.

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
Academies
• Established in 1751, the academy was the second
American institution to provide education.
• French, German, or Spanish. Mathematics
• carpentry, engraving, printing, painting, cabinet
making, farming, bookkeeping, and so on.

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
Colleges
• College was based on the Puritan view that
ministers needed to be soundly educated in the
classics and scriptures
• The students had to demonstrate competency in
Latin and Greek and the classics

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The Colonial Period 1642-1776
Old Textbook, Old Readers
• Hornbook
• Primer
• Westminster Catechism
• Old testament
• Bible

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The National Period 1776-1850

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The National Period 1776-1850
• Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) represented this new era.
• The traditional school curriculum that had previously stressed
• Latin and Greek needed to be replaced by one that would function
• immediately.

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The National Period 1776-1850
• Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
• A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge,”
introduced in the Virginia legislature in 1779
• Jefferson advocated a plan that provided educational
opportunities for both common people and landed
gentry “at the expense of all.

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The National Period 1776-1850
• In 1789, when the Constitution became the law of
the land
• Webster argued that the United States should have
its own system of “language as well as government.”

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19th Century European Educators

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19th Century European Educators
• Pestalozzi proposed a “general” method and a “special”
method
• William McClure and Joseph Neef—and later Horace Mann
and Henry Barnard—worked to introduce Pestalozzi’s ideas
into U.S. schools

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19th Century European Educators
• Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852)
• The children could manipulate objects (spheres, cubes, and
circles), shape and construct materials (clay, sand, cardboard),
and engage in playful activities (build castles and mountains,
run, and otherwise exercise)

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The Birth of the Field Curriculum 1918-1949

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The Birth of the Field Curriculum 1918-1949
• Kilapatrick a colleague of Dewey at Teachers College,
Columbia University
• “Project Method” (later called purposeful activity).

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Conclusion
From the colonial period to around World War I,
curriculum was a matter of evolving subject matter.
Some reform ideas concerned pedagogical principles of
the mid- and late 1800s, mainly as a result of European
influence and the emerging progressive reform
movement of the early 20th century, but these ideas
were limited to theoretical discussions and a few
isolated, innovative schools.

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Conclusion
The perennialist curriculum, which emphasized the
classics and timeless and absolute values based on religious and
then moral doctrines, dominated for the first 150 years of our
nation’s history. The idea of curriculum principles and processes
began to take shape after 1900, and scientific principles and
progressive philosophy were increasingly influential. Curriculum as
a field of study—with its own methods, theories, and ways of
solving problems—has made real advances since the 1920s. Most
of the advances have taken place since Tyler wrote his basic text
on curriculum.

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SOURCE
Ornstein and Hunkins, Curriculum: Foundations,
Principles, and Issues, Pearson Education Limited 2018

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Thank You!