John Dewey's View of the Curriculum in The Child and the Curriculum

When we think of John Dewey and curriculum, The Child and the Curriculum may immediately come to mind—and justifiably for this work, although published in 1902, remains a centerpiece in Dewey's thinking about curriculum. Of course, there are other notable works related to his view of curriculum: some published around the time of The Child and the Curriculum (e.g., The Educational Situation, 1901) and some published much later (e.g., Experience and Education, 1938). And still many other works deserve attention in any thorough and comprehensive study of Dewey's curriculum theory or philosophy. However, we will restrict our inquiry to The Child and the Curriculum in this essay. This decision is largely a celebratory one, an effort to honor Dewey for his brief but influential volume published a hundred years ago. Today, whether in the name of accountability, higher standards, or economic competitiveness, we risk putting the formal school curriculum ahead of the child—a problem that Dewey addressed in 1902. Advantaged and influential individuals and groups unconsciously surrender the individuality, aspirations, and humanity of the child to privileged interests and voices, and in so doing, they unwittingly give or take away the professional roles and responsibilities of educators. That is, educators are frequently stripped of the freedom to think for themselves, to make professional judgments, and to teach in ways that they consider are in the best interest of children and youth, because we wish to prescribe precisely when students learn which specific skills and information. High-stakes testing, for instance, dominates the curriculum and, therefore, the teacher and the student in certain situations. But this scenario is not a completely new one, and we can learn much from Dewey's analysis of similar departures from sound educational thinking. Revisiting The Child and the Curriculum, then, may enable us to better understand and resist some unwarranted contemporary policies and practices. For Dewey, educational theory is largely a matter of making sense of education and warranted practices in schools. In fact, all theorizing is a question of giving meaning to experience, moving from private interpretations of them to publicly defensible understandings of the same. So, curriculum theorizing involves seeking to make sense of pertinent aspects of education, subjects, the child and related matters in order to clarify what should be publicly defensible learning experiences for students. As we consider his overall views in The Child and the Curriculum, consideration of his thoughts about educational theory, commonsense and theoretical controversies, and the curriculum itself offers insights and cautions for those who are keenly interested in children, schools, and society.