Educational Objectives

This week discussion centered on educational objectives, there is a push in academia for the incorporation of “behavioral objectives” in curriculum design. According to this theory all instruction should have a specific measure within a specific degree of competency. While Skinner or Pavlov might find this ideal there are clearly some issues with design. One, you subscribe to a cognitive or social learning type model there is often times additional learning which goes on which is not immediately observable, Myron Atkins makes a similar point in his article as well. Last semester, I used an example of a song by Billy Holiday entitled “Strange Fruit”, my mother used to listen to this song routinely during my youth and although I could sing the words I never actually grasped the meaning. It was not until my junior year in high school when I truly understood what Ms. Holiday was signing about I needed additional information, images and explanations to thoroughly grasp the concept. There are host of theories to explain this phenomena, but for the purpose of this argument they were all defied. My mother did not set an objective when she played the song, there was no intended outcome, no subject matter test. I became intrigued by the song and the brutality it described and went on to get a bachelors degree in history. Could my mother have envisioned that as a learning objective when she played the song? I doubt it. There is always going to be intended and unintended outcomes as a result of instruction. This is not an argument against clear objectives, however, I am hesitant because the past suggest that when objectives of these kinds are employed other useful and meaningful outcomes are ignored and in some cases lost. I often hear teachers refer to teaching to the test, more importantly what is left out in this practice?

You can follow the attached link to see a live performance of "Strange Fruit" by the late Billie Holiday