Ohio State University Collective of Curriculum Professors

During the tenure of Dean George Arps of the College of Education from 1920 to 1937, individuals and projects came together that set the course for curriculum studies at Ohio State University for nearly 60 years. The people included Boyd H. Bode, W. W. Charters, and Laura Zirbes. Arps lured Bode, a distinguished philosopher, to Columbus, Ohio, and to education in 1921. Three elements of Bode's philosophy shaped the pattern of curricular thinking that emerged in the college. Bode argued that curriculum development necessarily requires both a theory of mind or intelligence and a social theory, that the two necessarily go together. These elements were joined by a third, general education as that education essential to learning the ways of democracy required by all students. Bode argued that every aspect of schooling taught a way of life and that way of life should be explicitly democratic.

Charters came to Ohio State University in 1928 to direct the Bureau of Educational Research. Charters's model of curriculum development, known as job or activity analysis, began with determining ideals and activities arising from good performance of the many activities of life. These were analyzed into units to be arranged logically and prioritized according to importance and time availability. Next, the best approaches to teaching the ideals and activities were identified and, finally, ideals and activities were arranged in an order that most suited the material and how children learn. In contrast to Bode, Charters asserted that ideals were objective and enduring.

Zirbes also came to Ohio State University in 1928 where she served as professor of elementary education. Within the college, Zirbes elevated the importance of school experimentation, founding a summer demonstration school to develop and test progressive practices in the classroom and later serving as director of research within the laboratory school. Her use of workshops and various experimental classroom practices served as venues for exploring the educational implications of democracy at the early childhood and elementary school levels. Additionally, she championed aesthetics and in her own practice modeled creativity as essential components of effective teaching.

Ohio State University housed the Eight Year Study. As a member of the directing committee, Bode brought to the forefront democracy as a guiding ideal, a position Charters came to embrace. The Ohio State University School, one of the participating 30 schools, was founded explicitly to test Bode's theories of education. Opening in 1932, the school and several of the later directors gave leadership in developing the programmatic implications of democracy as a way of life and, in varying degrees, experimentalist conceptions of mind.

Bode, Charters, Zirbes, and the activities of the Eight Year Study profoundly influenced the history of curriculum across the nation as well as at Ohio State. Charters brought Ralph W. Tyler to the Bureau in 1929. Occupying offices across from one another, Bode knew of Tyler's innovative approaches to assessment. Tyler was appointed in 1934 to direct the evaluation of the study, an experience that would significantly shape his curricular thinking. When one reviews the Tyler Rationale, the influence of both Bode and Charters is apparent Charters's in its logic and Bode's in the place given to philosophy and learning theory. Zirbes was a guiding force behind the University School, considered one of the six most experimental schools participating in the Eight Year Study.

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