Date of Award
8-2006
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Teaching, Learning and Educational Studies
First Advisor
Dr. G. Thomas Ray
Second Advisor
Paul Farber
Third Advisor
William W. Cobern
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Campus Only
Abstract
The process of secularization has brought about a crisis of meaningfulness that is exacerbated through schooling today. Students are socialized to perceive the world as void of sacred significance by cultivating a dependency on modernistic modes of thinking that amplify rational, scientific and objective knowledge and undermine the likelihood of a holistic consciousness taking shape. Evidence for the modernistic tendencies in current frameworks of curriculum and instruction is found in Ralph Tyler's Rationale (1949).
While making necessary and important critiques of the effects of Ralph Tyler's ( 1949) modernistic curricular framework, William Doll's postmodern curriculum (1993, 2005) fails to accommodate an environmentally aware understanding of educational reform. Given this shortcoming, Doll's work benefits from attention to C.A. Bowers' (2001) eco-justice pedagogy - an effort that takes into account social-justice issues as well as concern for environmental disarray. By highlighting the strengths of Doll's and Bowers' work, a vision of educational reform balanced in its understanding of the environment, morality and the sacred emerges. This thesis offers three guiding principles that may help guide reform efforts in this century as they seek to revalue the sacred through schooling.
Recommended Citation
Eerdmans, Jane M., "Revaluing the Sacred in Education" (2006). Masters Theses. 3488.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/3488