WEEK 5 - Ralph W. Tyler

Ralph W. Tyler- Leadership role of the school administrator in curriculum and instruction

This particular article mainly talks about the role of school administrators and the concepts they need to master about curriculum and teaching. At the very beginning, Tyler points out that some school administrators show no concern for instructional leadership. (P.200) Actually, the improvement of curriculum and instruction is the most important task of the school administrator but they often being confused by the misconceptions about leadership. 

To give effective leadership in the improvement of instruction, the school administrator needs to not only understand the process of curriculum development and instruction but also know what educational leadership involves. I would totally agree that an administrator cannot make decision, select personnel or do any of the other administrative tasks intelligently, without a clear understanding of what the schools are doing. From my point of view, school administrators should pay much attention to their roles because their decisions and behaviors will affect teachers, students, and even the entire school. They suppose to know how signify objectives are derived and able to evaluate the program of the school so that they can provide a better education for students.
As Tengxue Zuo, a Japanese scholar said in his book "The Quiet Revolution", the so-called curriculum is the experience and trajectory of learning. Leadership in curriculum development is a way of curriculum practice. It influences the process and results of curriculum reform and development. To improve leadership, an administrator needs to find a scientific approach to implementation. School administrators need to get ideas from persons who are not administrators such as teachers, students, or even parents because different roles must have different expectations for school construction. So they need to be involved rather than reacting superficially. That is what Taylor calls democracy leaders.

After reading Tyler’s article, I found that leadership in curriculum development refers to the ability of administrators to develop, implement, and evaluate curricula in accordance with national and local requirements. School administrators should make the school's educational philosophy become an acceptable code of conduct for every member of the school. They should fully listen to teachers' and students’ different voices on curriculum construction. By communicating and sharing opinions timely, they can grasp the feasible direction of curriculum development.

All in all, the curriculum is the carrier of school education, which reflects the personality of the school culture. The quality of the curriculum determines the quality of the school's education. Only by focusing on the improvement of the curriculum, can we break through the obstacles of school development.

Comments

  1. SteveFebruary 14, 2019 at 5:12 AM

    Thank you for your blog! I agree with you and Tyler that administrators can have an important role in shaping the curriculum, but I also agree with Sydnie that many don't take as active a role as they may like due to time constraints. It is a thankless job to be a school administrator, and thus the person who is called in to deal with any and all big problems facing the school. This is why as we talked about in previous articles, it is so important to plan ahead when it comes to curriculum. Preferably, curriculum should be something that is molded and set over the summer, when principals can have time to meet with teachers outside of the pressures of school-year deadlines to come up with plans, policies, procedures and implementation strategies for the following year. Again, thank you for your thoughts!

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 14, 2019 at 9:42 AM

    Thank you for sharing! To be a leader needs strong insight and farsightedness. To be a administrator with the leadership in curriculum development needs to draw on collective wisdom and absorb all useful ideas from teachers, students, communities, and others who have beneficiary relationship. Administrators also need to abreast with the times, and keep in line with the requirements of the society. It is not easy to meet all people's standards and requirements, just as any policy implemented by the government. So it is a long journey for school administrators to master their educational leadership in instruction and curriculum development.

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  3. Yesenia BuenoFebruary 14, 2019 at 3:13 PM

    Your point that decisions around curriculum should not be made superficially is really powerful. I agree that administrators should approach it as a democratic endeavor, with the opinions and consideration of all voices that are a part of the community of the school. I imagine this might be easier for a principal and a bit more of a challenge for other types of administrators such as superintendents who are not as involved microscopically in the day-to-day. This is why vetting is extra important when it comes to the selection of school principals. The candidates need to be familiar with the staff, student body and community they service in order to implement curriculum effectively.

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  4. AnonymousFebruary 17, 2019 at 6:40 PM

    Thank you for sharing and I thought you have brought up very interesting insight on Tyler's article. I agree with your point that administrators should have open conversations with other personnel in the academic setting in order to implement a curriculum that is not only aligned with the school's interests, but the interests of the teachers and students. One kind of administrator Tyler mentioned in his reading is the administrator who fears exercising leadership in instruction can be perceived as undemocratic, or those who would rather leave important decision to supervisors of directors of instruction. I think communication is one way to keep curriculum design a democratic process (ideally). One thought I took away after reading this article that the job or designing a curriculum should not only fall on one set of people, such as administrators, curriculum planners, or teachers; that designing a curriculum can be a shared effort and all parities are responsible for understanding the objectives of their curriculum.

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