TEACHING WITHOUT SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES.

The article focuses on educational training programs for schools in the U.S. It is proposed that schools, while accepting a minimum number of training responsibilities, should take as their major purpose one of involving students in activities which have no preset objectives, but which meet other specified criteria. Regardless of the underlying bases on which curricula are selected for inclusion in a program, a major problem is that of justifying the activities children are asked to experience. It is the training paradigm perfected during both World Wars and utilized extensively in the armed forces and in industry to prepare persons for specific responsibilities. The ultimate training program is the research-based IPI model used experimentally in a few schools throughout the country. This observation is not meant to fault teachers as a group but merely to observe that in terms of the ways schools are organized. While carrying out a program composed of such activities, a teacher must perform many important and difficult tasks, but the functions seem less perfunctory and more challenging than those carried out under the training regimen.