DePaul University Via Sapientiae College of Education Theses and Dissertations College of Education 6-2004 Bobbitt's window: Understanding turning points in reflective curriculum history and unmufflingeflectiv r e voice in adult learning: Doubt and identity J. Warren Scheideman Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/soe_etd Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons Recommended Citation Scheideman, J. Warren, "Bobbitt's window: Understanding turning points in reflective curriculum history and unmufflingeflectiv r e voice in adult learning: Doubt and identity" (2004). College of Education Theses and Dissertations. 139. https://via.library.depaul.edu/soe_etd/139 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Education at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Education Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DePaul University School of Education BOBBITTS WINDOW: UNDERSTANDING TURNING POINTS IN REFLECTIVE CURRICULUM HISTORY AND UNMUFFLING REFLECTIVE VOICE IN ADULT LEARNING- DOUBT AND IDENTITY A Thesis in Curriculum Studies By J. Warren Scheideman © 2004 J. Warren Scheideman Submitted in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education June, 2004 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3131105 Copyright 2004 by Scheideman, J. Warren All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform 3131105 Copyright 2004 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. We approve the dissertation of J.Warren Scheideman. Date of Signature: , E. Vill^erde "Assistant Professor of Education Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Ronald E. Chennault Assistant Professor of Education Barbara Radner Associate Professor of Education Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. /^STRACT Franklin Bobbitt (1875-1956), the author of The Curriculum (1918) is known as the proponent of utilitarian curriculum and the “factory metaphor” of education. Herbert Kliebard (1986), however, identifies doubts about student tasking that enter into Bobbitt’s perspective in 1926. John Wesley Null (1999) tracks these doubts in Bobbitt’s career and publications into the 1940’s. Null then asks, given that Bobbitt’s doubts are now recognized: What difference is made by knowing Bobbitt had doubts about tasked curriculum, and looked at life experience as educational outcome? This is the question my dissertation attempts to answer by using hermeneutic metaphor and historical consciousness in considering cumiculum history reflectively from the view point of a teacher in adult education. The dissertation is divided into two parts. First, after examining the historical context of Bobbitt’s doubts, the past, I create a new metaphor in the present to replace the factory metaphor and to elevate Bobbitt’s doubts: a window, which I name “Bobbitt’s Window.” Using what John Dewey calls “a moral telescope,” I look at images, art, and literature from the period which substantiates the window metaphor. Also I identify what Bobbitt did not do, talk with students. From “Bobbitt’s Window,” doubts about utilitarian curriculum are developed, and awareness of student voices in the Summit Seminar capstone experience at Chicago’s DePaul University is raised. My research approach for listening to student voices is primarily based on feminist multiple methods. Habermas’s concept of depth hermeneutics is used along with the subaltern theory of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and other theorists to analyze Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ethnographic observations of students in small breakout groups at Summit Seminar, along with participatory interviews of students, focusing on the question: “What did I get out of my education?” Student voices, student experience, and student metaphors validate educational outcomes as being reflective awareness and understanding connecting with life as from a window, the opposite of lifeless metaphor which denies student voice and results in “failed history.” My conclusion forwards postmodernist re-interpretation of Bobbitt and emphasis not on remnants of industrial metaphor, like tasking, but on creating life-filling identity through reflection and discovery of new spaces for learning. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKIMOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my appreciation to my dissertation director and chair, Dr. Leila E. Villaverde, for unfailing encouragement, support, and scholarly good counsel. My thanks I also give to my committee members. Dr. Ronald E. Chennault and Dr. Barbara Radner, for their good advice and scholarly support. I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Harry F. and Elizabeth M. Scheideman. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Chapter Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....... 5 INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................8 TIMELINE................................................................................................................................19 CHAPTER ONE: CONSTRUCTING “BOBBITT’S WINDOW,” AN OVERVIEW.... 21 Research Design ..................................................................................................................22 PART ONE: CONSTRUCTING THE METAPHOR OF “BOBBITT’S WINDOW” AND UNDERSTANDING TURNING POINTS IN REFLECTIVE CURRICULUM HISTORY ........................................................................................................................24 PART TWO: UNMUFFLING RIEFLECTIVE VOICES IN ADULT LEARNING AND CREATING MY WINDOW..................................................................................................30 Historical Consciousness ....................................................................................................35 Significance .........................................................................................................................36 CHAPTER TWO: HISTORIC LITERATURE REVIEW..................................................40 Historic Context of Franklin Bobbitt's Life: ..................................................................... 40 Principal Interpretations of Franklin Bobbitt .................................................................... 53 Analytic Criticism and New Historicism ...........................................................................55 Turning - Back to 1865 and Then 1920's and 1930's ...................................................... 58 Creating the Hermeneutic Metaphor .................................................................................65 CHAPTER THREE: HISTORIC FRAMEWORK AND CONCEPTUAL APPROACH 68 Historic View Point of the Researcher ..............................................................................69 Conceptual Standpoint for Reflection: Moral Imagination .............................................72 Recapping the Ontology of the Metaphor “Bobbitt’s Window” .....................................73 Moral Imagination .............................................................................................................. 74 Changes in 1930’s Cultural Perspectives ......................................................................... 79 PART TWO: PRAXIS IN CONTEMPORARY SELF-REFLECTIVE ADULT CAPSTONE LEARNING......................................................................................................85 CHAPTER FOUR - QUALITATIVE METHODOLOGY............................................85 Focus Question and Sub-Questions ................................................................................... 88 Theoretical Framework ............ 90 Habermas's Concept of Depth Hermeneutics ................................................................... 91 Importance of “Capstone” Learning ..................................................................................92 Adult Education Practice ....................................................................................................93 Transformative Theory ...... ......................................................................................94 Recap................................... ......................................................................................95 Women’s Learning Theory. ......................................................................................96