The Development of Institutional Understanding of Curriculum: From operational to The Practical

Curriculum is an institution and for that very reason is governed by rule-specific behavioral patterns and well-established routines in curriculum making. This could in turn lead to a sort of amnesia or a taken-for-granted state of affairs. We should not forget, however, that our institutional understanding through our emphases and orientations can become subject to revision and change. In other words, operationalism in its hard core manifestation is only one way of encountering with curriculum as an institution, and of course, the dominant one. We need an alternative view by which to refrain from side effects of extreme form of operationalism in all levels, especially at the national level of curriculum making. Our specific aim in writing this article is to discuss the transformation of the institutional understanding of curriculum from ‘operational’ to ‘the practical’, and make possible to improve our understanding by unique possibilities of “the practical” views. We should call to the attention of all readers that both the tendency to operational and the practical are considered practical approaches to curriculum. However, practicality is construed by the former as being ‘operational’ and by the latter as being ‘the practical’. Indeed, the main problem is to examine neglected and untapped qualities embraced by Schwab’s view, ‘the practical’, as well as the practical approach to curriculum. For this purpose, first we explore how ‘operational’ and ‘the practical’ approaches to curriculum evolved, and then, examine how one could develop his or her understanding of curriculum within the possibilities of the practical theory, particularly, ‘deliberation’.