CURRICULUM // EDUCATIONAL PIONEER
An enduring educational legacy AS IN ANY AREA OF HUMAN ENDEAVOUR, EDUCATIONAL IDEAS HAVE BACK-STORIES THAT HELP US UNDERSTAND THEIR BEGINNINGS, ADVOCATES AND MANIFESTATION IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS, EXPLAINS DR DON CARTER, SENIOR LECTURER IN EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY SYDNEY.
Dr Don Carter is senior lecturer in Education at the University of Technology Sydney. He has a PhD, Master of Education (Honours), Master of Education (Curriculum), Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education. Dr Carter is a former Inspector, English at the NSW curriculum authority and led a range of projects including the English K-10 Syllabus. His research interests include the effects of standardised testing, literacy pedagogies and curriculum theory and history. Dr Carter has published extensively on a range of issues including curriculum reform, English education and standardised testing.
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Previously in Education Matters, I drew attention to significant figures in our educational past. In keeping with this historical focus, this article illuminates key ideas of the German philosopher, psychologist and educationalist Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841) whose ideas and their ensuing development by his acolytes (often called ‘Herbartians’) influenced major figures and practices in education for decades afterwards. One key idea of Herbart’s was concentration. Based on the association of ideas – their relatedness - concentration involves placing one topic (or a group of topics) at the centre with other subordinate topics connected to it. This idea was extended by a follower of Herbart’s, Tuiskon Ziller, who advocated the deliberate establishment of a relationship between topics which he labelled correlation. This idea saw that the study of a topic such as American history would connect with the study of American literature, and so on. In fact, a version of correlation, called the complex method, was implemented in the USSR in the 1920s. This involved abolishing individual subjects such as reading, science and history in favour of integrating the disciplines into a thematic unit that might, for example, focus on daily life. More recently, an approach to teaching the NSW primary curriculum known as Connected Outcome Groupings (COGs) was undertaken between 2006 and 2013 to promote the teaching of a “balanced curriculum across key learning areas” aimed at “making connections between ideas” to enhance student learning. Furthermore, a version of this idea was again apparent in the NSW senior English syllabus from 1999 to 2018 with the Area of Study requiring the investigation of a number of prescribed texts through the lens of a specified
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concept such as ‘belonging’ and ‘journeys’. Each is reminiscent of a Herbartian approach to the correlation of topics and subjects. The idea of a ‘pivotal topic’ was also extended to curriculum organisation where a specific subject was anointed to develop a student’s sense of morality and for Herbart, the study of literature satisfied this criterion. Again, this idea was discernible in the early 20th century in NSW with the subject of English becoming the hub of both the primary and secondary curriculums where the development of students as active, responsible citizens was to be achieved through the study of literature. In addition, the scholar Peter Meadmore argues that the 1905 NSW primary syllabus was based on Herbartian educational principles and points out that this syllabus was subsequently appropriated by Queensland educational authorities a year later without amendment, thus introducing a Herbartian approach in that state. Another key idea of Herbart’s adopted by his followers was a ‘many-sided’ interest which, as Herbart wrote, was the “readiness to form new ideas”. This was based on the notion that by capturing a student’s attention, motivation can be cultivated and with that, interest in an object, idea or activity, resulting in the retention of specific knowledge. This then leads to a deeper opportunity for the student to develop an interest into the variability and multi-faceted nature of issues and topics – thus demonstrating a many-sided interest. This emphasis on interest was central in the development of the Dalton Plan pioneered by Helen Pankhurst in the early 20th century, an approach still used today in Dalton schools in the US, the Netherlands, Japan and one in Sydney, Australia. In the 1920s and early 1930s,
