| In this dissertation I use Elliott Eisner's method of educational criticism to explore the metaphorical dominance of technological language in the curriculum enterprise of the church, to see how it functions in our language and our practice to suppress the value frameworks of the esthetic and the ethical.;This dissertation addresses the future of Christian education curriculum by, first, examining some of the assumptions and principles that guide current curriculum development and design by tracing these assumptions and principles historically, then showing their dominance in current curriculum practices. I demonstrate that many of the assumptions that undergird the principles of educational process are technological, growing out of a cultural preunderstanding that has dominated both public education and religious education since the early twentieth century.;Second, I demonstrate that the dominant attitudes toward curriculum trends in religious educational have grown out of technological trends in public education, and have remained unchanged, in spite of numerous curricular projects. This is evidenced by the continuing set of technological assumptions that undergird each new curriculum proposal.;Third, I use the philosophy of Gabriel Marcel as a guide for suggesting foundational assumptions for curriculum development. An exposition of the basic tenets of Marcel's thought allows the pursuit a fourth task: to formulate guidelines for curriculum development that take into account aesthetic and ethical values currently ignored by the technological rationality governing curriculum practices. |
