The deliberative, the Didaktik, and the quest for a North American synthesis

The historic curriculum field in North America has always been grounded in curriculum development work closely connected to school-based concerns. The deliberative approach that Joseph Schwab first galvanized in the late 1960s worked within this tradition, as it aroused a new regard for the wisdom grounded in the locality of the school and for the teacher’s independent professional judgment. This simultaneously opened the North American door to a European tradition rooted in the idea of the Didaktik, which put a finer grade of focus on the involvement of teaching with deep curriculum questions and concerns—a focus that was never well-developed in the North American literature. But the Didaktik turned out to be a short-lived interest in North American curriculum studies and, to this day, there has been almost no connection established in the work of North American curriculum scholars to the Didaktik, even as the Didaktik continues to be font for the work of European curriculum scholars. I argue that, by looking more closely at the general principles and assumptions of the European Didaktik system, the North American curriculum field can bring a more holistic vision to the work of the curriculum with the effect of strengthening teaching practices.