QualityEducationThroughaPost-ModernCurriculum.pdfVIP

Hong Kong Teacher’s Centre Journal《香港教師中心学報》, Vol. 1, Spring 2002 ? Hong Kong Teacher’s Centre 2002 Quality Education through a Post-modern Curriculum Koo Hok-chun, Dennis This paper seeks to present a framework for the school curriculum in the twenty-first century. It first describes and appraises critically the Tyler rationale, which has been influential for many decades. The rationale forms the basis of the school curriculum in many eastern and western countries. Next, the concept and features of modernism which underpin the rationale are described, leading to a discussion of its major strengths and weaknesses. The paper goes on to present an alternative view of the curriculum - Doll’s Model, which better meets the challenges of the fast changing world. The model, with its prominent nature of postmodernism, is discussed. Strengths and weaknesses of the model are also analysed. The author also makes a comparison of the two models, explaining why the latter is preferable to the first in laying the foundation of school curriculum in the coming century. In the concluding section, recent curriculum initiatives in Hong Kong are described. There is discussion on the merits and limitations of The Target Oriented Curriculum. Then the new curriculum framework and its features are described leading to discussion on the implications for the Hong Kong curriculum. It is stressed that key concepts of postmodernism need to be taken into consideration so that the quality of education can be improved. Key words: curriculum; modernism; postmodernism; open systems; self-organisation; transformation; higher order thinking skills INTRODUCTION There are many conceptions of the school curriculum, and therefore many views of what it should be for and what it should contain. This paper will characterise two such interpretations a