How did teachers teach, 1890–1980

Finally, in the last decade that I have served in two districts, another question I have had to deal with as a decision maker puzzled me: In institutions so apparently vulnerable to change as the schools are, why do so few instructional reforms get past the classroom door? These questions, I believe, are linked together; that is, the apparent uniformity in instruction regardless of time and place is related to the apparent invulnerability of classrooms to change. In a paper commissioned by the National Institute of Education (NIE), I sought answers to these questions through a study of curriculum change and stability since 1870 (Cuban, 1979). In examining how various forces shaped the curriculum and their consequences for classrooms over the last century, I used the metaphor of a hurricane to distinguish between curriculum theory, courses of study, materials, and classroom instruction. Hurricane winds sweep across the sea tossing up 20-foot waves; a fathom below the surface turbulent waters swirl; and on the ocean floor there is unruffled calm.