Curriculum Studies in Relation to the Field of Supervision

Curriculum studies and the field of supervision have been influenced by two somewhat complementary enterprises: bureaucracy and professionalism. In education bureaucratic needs are focused on political, practical, and efficient patterns for organizing and maintaining effective institutions. Professional needs are concerned with knowledge and experience that can ensure qualified (and in most cases, licensed) workers. A third enterprise is scholarship, the work of academics in creating new knowledge associated with the needs of the other two.

In the 1890s, supervision was cast within a bureaucratic organizational framework of administration. Supervisors as administrators paid little attention to curriculum making. Administrators concerned themselves with the new political demands associated with organizing and running their schools. Curriculum and supervision seemed to have been on paths that signaled two separate evolutionary fields. And although there have been repeated calls by scholars and practitioners to recognize the importance of viewing the two as integral partners in providing effective learning experiences for students, major forces have continued in different directions. There have been, however, periods of connection that reinforced the notion that teaching can be enhanced with the cooperative engagement of teachers, curriculum workers, and supervisors.

Curriculum scholars have speculated about the origins of curriculum as a field of study. Hollis L. Caswell, prominent professor at Teachers College who organized the new Department of Curriculum and Teaching in 1938, suggested that curriculum has been a subject of study and innovation since the beginning of organized education. Others have argued that the Herbartian movement in the late 1890s was a defining effort. However, Lawrence Cremin, educational historian and former president of Teachers College, posited that although the roots of curriculum date back to the late 19th century, curriculum did not emerge as a distinct field of study until the widely publicized program of [Page 262]curriculum revision was introduced in the Denver school system in 1922. It was the superintendent who implemented an initiative in which classroom teachers participated significantly in a systemwide effort at reform. At that time, in most of the country, curriculum development was minimal and episodic. In urban districts, the supervisor's duty was to carry out the rigid and fixed courses of study determined by the superintendent. Both supervision and curriculum were under administrative structure. And although curriculum issues were the concerns of educators interested in philosophic challenges, school people were chiefly interested in structural, administrative reform to achieve their goal of standardization and uniformity, especially in large districts. Once the administrative innovation of systemwide curriculum development in both the Denver and Detroit schools caught on nationally, it became apparent that educators other than the superintendent would be needed to manage the process. It was training such curriculum specialists that provided a benchmark effort in the history of the field.

In 1926, the publication of two volumes by the National Society for the Study of Education contributed to the increased interests in curriculum across the country. Harold Rugg and George Counts, in a discussion of the current methods of curriculum making, suggested that a nationwide movement was under way and the time for curriculum revision had arrived. The publication strongly advocated for competent and knowledgeable professional curriculum specialists. In the last half of the 20th century, curriculum planning and development grew steadily, achieved wide popularity, and was perceived as useful in reconstructing courses of study. Education in curriculum studies through academic coursework was viewed as necessary and curriculum development as a professional enterprise became legitimate.

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