When Best Practices Aren't: A Schwabian Perspective

• In Event: Roundtable Session 106
  In Roundtable Session: Questioning Curricular Norms: Just Wars, Best Practices, and Hidden Curriculum

Abstract

The curriculum literature has much to say about the ecological fallacy embodied in the ‘best practices’ movement. The work of Schwab anticipated much of it by reminding us of the dangers of trying to control classroom practices from afar, with the use of theoretical representations of classroom that were, by definition, never fully like the real thing. This essay raises questions over whether the logic of best methods is even appropriate for the educational situation. The caution offered here has much to do with a standing principle in the curriculum development literature, advanced most persuasively in the work of Schwab.

Author

• Peter S. Hlebowitsh, University of Iowa