Abstract

The most fundamental issue in pedagogy is the question of what should be taught. The need to specify the content of learning applies at every stage of instruction from kindergarten to postgraduate school and at every level of curriculum from the institutional course catalogue to the daily class or lesson plan. On the broadest scale, implementation of one or another set of priorities on this matter will tend to dictate the direction of our entire educational system. Indeed, for well over a century now a schism has existed between those on the one hand who maintain that specialized, preprofessional training is the necessary and proper goal of higher education and those on the other who advocate a generalist...