The Psychological aspect in building school curriculum

Abstract

The present paper attempts to show the recognition of the importance of the learner’s
psychological aspect when building school curriculum. It highlights the significant position
of capabilities and inclinations and previous experiences of the learner, which is a basis for
selecting the content of the school curriculum and organizing it, and from it the learner
becomes the centre of building the school curriculum. This research started from the
achieved results of psychological and educational studies which have put the learner at the
centre of the Teaching-Learning process, making of him the main actor. In fact, this new
trend represented a revolution against the classical theories that had made of the teacher the
main actor and cornerstone of the Teaching-Learning operation. Indeed, a strong need was
manifested to highlight the crucial place that should be accorded to the learner’s
psychological aspect in the Teaching-Learning process, for the impact it has on educational
success or failure. Thus, the classical theories that considered the teacher the main actor in
class and the student just a receiver of knowledge were rejected. Indeed, the traditional
school curriculum which concentrated on making the learner acquires knowledge and learn
by heart the information, and ignored his psychological aspect, realized the failure of the
teaching process. Accordingly, it became prerequisite to take into account the learner’s
personality in all aspects of its growth and make of the psychological basis a background
worth of the name to be defended when building school curriculum. This, in fact, leads us to
ask the following questions: what is the importance of the psychological aspect in the
Teaching-Learning process? And what is its relationship with the school curriculum?