Synoptic Textbooks

Synoptic textbooks were developed to summarize and conceptualize curriculum literature for curriculum leaders and burgeoning scholars as it began to expand and differentiate during the first half of the 20th century. The term synoptic text in curriculum literature was first used in 1980 by William H. Schubert and Ann Lopez Schubert in Curriculum Books: The First Eighty Years. Application of the term to curriculum studies derives from the theological labeling of the Christian Bible's New Testament gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) as synoptic because they provide synopses of the life of Jesus Christ. Historically, another source called Q has not been located, but is believed to contain many direct quotations of Christ. Metaphoric use of synoptic in curriculum studies then sees synoptic curriculum textbooks as summaries of central contributions in the life of the curriculum field, and collections of primary source articles as equivalent to Q. Although it might seem out of place to use such a religious analogy, the contention fits with the seriousness of theorizing about what children and youths need to know to live good and just lives. This is the essence of the question (What is worthwhile?) that lies at the heart of curriculum inquiry. James B. Macdonald is often quoted for capturing the seriousness of curriculum theory as a prayerful act.

The first widely recognized synoptic curriculum text was Curriculum Development by Hollis Caswell and Doak Campbell, published in 1935. Early synoptic texts often used the term curriculum [Page 833]development in the title. This is indicative of the curriculum development era as distinguished from the era, begun in the 1970s, that has become known as the curriculum studies era. The latter placed focus on understanding curriculum in schools and other educational dimensions of society rather than on merely developing preordained learning experience in schools. These two curriculum eras were principally distinguished by William Pinar and colleagues.

Several curriculum texts preceded those by Caswell and Campbell (e.g., by Franklin Bobbitt, W. W. Charters, Henry Harap, and L. Thomas Hopkins), but they were designed to be guidebooks for curriculum leaders in schools, more than synoptic conceptualizations of the literature. Only Hopkins's 1929 Curriculum Principles and Practices moved beyond the how-to manual approach, by engaging readers in philosophical underpinnings of questions that perplexed practitioners. This creative variation of synoptic questioning had precedent in the 26th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Constructed by an all-star team of curriculum scholars from different intellectual persuasions and led by Harold Rugg, this volume resulted in a composite statement, and comments of rebuttal by members of the team. Despite the indelible contribution of Rugg's 1927 committee, the Caswell and Campbell effort was the first to attempt to organize knowledge of the field as a basis for curriculum development. Thus, it is deemed the first synoptic curriculum textbook.

The synoptic text was considered to be a scholarly achievement in its own right, since it was at once a review of the literature and a reorganization of salient ideas of the field. For at least seven decades, synoptic textbooks set the stage for curriculum scholarship and leadership, especially during the curriculum development era. Dominant synoptic texts of the 1940s were authored by J. Minor Gwynn in 1943, who published editions across four decades, and was joined in the late 1960s by J. B. Chase; Harold Alberty, in 1947 who was joined by Elsie Alberty in subsequent editions; by Florence Stratemeyer and coauthors H. L. Forkner, M. G. McKim, in 1947, joined by A. H. Passow in a 1957 edition.

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