Catrina R. Comoda & Sheena Rose S.

Famanilay
The Teacher and The School Curriculum
3-A BSED Social Studies

Lesson 2.4 Foundations of Curriculum

1. PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION
 Perennialism
- A teacher-centered education philosophy that cultivates rational thinking and intellectual
development through classical subjects.
- It emphasizes timeless knowledge, critical thinking (HOTs), and enduring value of Liberal Arts
over changing trends.
 Essentialism
- A teacher-centered philosophy that promotes intellectual growth by focusing on essential subjects.
- Trends include back-to-basics education, excellenece, and cultural literacy
 Progressivism
- A learner-centered approach that fosters democratics social living and lifelong learning.
- Teachers guide students’ growth through interdiciplinary, contextualized, and outcome-based
education.
 Reconstructionism
- An education-for-change philosopy where teachers act as reformers, shaping a better society.
- Focuses on present and future challenges, driving school reforms, and global education, and
collaboration for progress

2. HISTORICAL FOUNDATION
 Franklin Bobbit
- He started the curriculum development movement.
- Curriculum as a science that emphasizes students’ need.
- Curriculum prepares students for adult life.
- Objectives and activities should group together when tasks are clarified.
 Werret Charters
- Like Bobbit, he posited their curriculum is science and emphasizes students’ needs.
- Objectives and activities should match. Subject matter or content relates to objectives.
 William Kilpatrick
- Curricula are purposeful activities which are child-centered.
- The purpose of the curriculum is child development and growth. He introduced this project method
where teacher and student plan the activities.
- Curriculum develops social relationships and small group instruction.
 Harold Rugg
- Curriculum should develop the whole child. It is child-centered.
- With the statement of objectives and related learning activities, curriculum should produce
outcomes.
- He emphasized social studies and suggested that the teacher plans curriculum in advance.
 Hollis Caswell
- Curriculum is organized around social functions of themes, organized knowledge and learner's
interest.
- Curriculum, instruction and learning are interrelated.
- Curriculum is a set of experiences. Subject matter is developed around social functions and learners
interests.
 Ralph Tyler
- Curriculum is a science and an extension of school's philosophy. It is based on students' needs and
interest.
- Curriculum is always related to instruction. Subject matter is organized in terms of knowledge,
skills and values.
- The process emphasizes problem solving. Curriculum aims to educate generalists and not
specialists.
 Hilda Taba
- She contributed to the theoretical and pedagogical foundations of concepts development and critical
thinking in social studies curriculum.
- She helped lay the foundation for diverse student population.
 Peter Oliva
- He described curriculum change as a cooperative endeavor.
- Teachers and curriculum specialist constitute the professional core of planners.
- Significant improvement is achieved through group activity.

3. SOCIAL FOUNDATION
 Schools and Society
- Society as a source of change
- Schools as agents of change
- Knowledge as an agent of change
 Emile Durkheim
- Influence of society and social context in education
- Things that surround individuals can change, develop their behavior.
- Considered two fundamental elements which are schools and civil society
 Alvin Toffler
- Wrote the book Future Shock
- Believed that knowledge should prepare students for the future
- Suggested that in the future, parents might have the resources to teach prescribed curriculum from
home as a result of technology, not in spite of it. (Home Schooling)
- Foresaw schools and students worked creatively. collaboratively, and independent of their age

4. PSYCOLOGICAL FOUNDATION
 Association and Behaviorism
- This theory is based on the idea that learning occurs through associations between stimuli and
responses. It emphasizes observable behaviors and the effects of reinforcement or punishment in
shaping learning.
- Learning through stimulus-response associations, reinforcement, and repetition.
 Ivan Pavlov
- Father of the Classical Conditioning theory
- The key to learning in early years of life is to train them what you want them to become.
- S-R Theory is a foundation of learning practice called indocrination.
 Edward Thorndike
- He proposed the connectionism theory
- Proposed the three laws of learning:
- Law of readiness
- Law of exercise
- Law of effect
- Specific stimulus has specific response
 Robert Gagne
- He proposed the hierarchical learning theory. Learning follows a hierarchy.
- Behavior is based on prerequisite conditions.
- He introduced tasking in the formulation of objectives.
 Cognitive Information Processing Theory
- This theory views learning as an active process where information is received, processed, stored,
and retrieved in the brain. It focuses on how learners organize and apply knowledge rather than
just responding to stimuli.
- Knowledge acquisition through memory, problem-solving, and active thinking.
 Jean Piaget
- Cognitive development has stages from birth to maturity:
- Sensorimotor stage (0-2),
- preoperational stage (2-7),
- concrete operations stage (7-11)
- formal operations (11-onwards).
- Keys to learning:
- Assimilation (incorporation of new experience)
- Accommodation (learning modification and adaptation)
- Equilibration (balance between previous and later learning)
 Lev Vygotsky
- Cultural transmission and development stage.
- Children could, as a result of their interaction with society, actually perform certain cognitive
actions prior to arriving at developmental stage.
- Learning precedes development. Sociocultural development theory.
 Howard Gardner
- Multiple Intelligences
- There are 8 intelligences: linguistic, logico-mathematics, musical, spatial, bodily/kinesthetics,
interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic
 Daniel Goleman
- Emotion contains the power to affect action
- He called this Emotional Quotient

 Humanistic Psychology
- This approach emphasizes personal growth, emotions, and the development of self-actualization. It
considers students’ feelings, motivations, and individual needs in the learning process.
- Emphasizing personal growth, motivation, and learner-centered experiences.
 Gestalt Theory
- learning is explained in terms of wholeness of the problem
- human beings do not responds to isolated stimulibut to an ogranization or pattern of stimuli.
- Keys To Learning:
- Learners analyze the problem,discriminate between essential and nonessential data, and
percieve relationships.
- Learners will perceive something in relation to the whole.
 Abraham Maslow
- Hierarchy of Needs Theory
- A child whose basic needs are not be interested in acquiring knowledge of the world
- He put importance to human emotions, based on love and trust.
 Carl Rogers
- Nondirective and Therapeutic learning:
- He established counselling procedures and methods for facilitating
- Children’s perceptions, which are highly individualistic, influence their learning and
behavior in class
- Keys to learning:
- Curriculum is concerned with process, not product; personal needs, not subject matter,
psychological meaning, not cognitive scores.