Didactic in Continental European pedagogy: An analysis of its origins and problems

DOI: 10.31704/ijocis.2018.006 The aim of this study is to describe, in a historical and philosophical context, the foundations and developmental lines of a tradition defined as curriculum science or “didactic” in Continental Europe, particularly in Germany and Scandinavia. The principal aim here is introducing a theoretical approach based on a different philosophy, in addition to the techno-scientific Anglo-American theoretical approach. Didactic tradition has been of particular interest for curriculum researchers especially in the past two decades. With such an interactive focus, this paper is divided into four sections. Because this paper traces historical and philosophical pathways of inquiry, its research method is purely qualitative, based on document analysis. The findings of this analytical study are expected to contribute to the wider recognition of a philosophical-pedagogical tradition, which has not hitherto been paid much attention in Turkey. Article History: Received Revised Accepted Online 27 April 2018 07 June 2018 21 June 2018 30 June 2018


Introduction
Considering its usage in the Turkish and English contexts, the word "didactic" does not seem to have any positive connotations. Expressing an interaction based on a certain discipline between the teacher and the student, this word is often used negatively in the literature of education research (Kansanen, 1995;Westbury, 2000). As the dominant paradigm in the field of curriculum and instruction, an Anglo-American perspective appears to dictate the definition of almost all concepts (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 2008;Tahirsylaj, 2017). However, especially in the context of the internationalization of curriculum studies, attempts to determine new and different perspectives seem to be gaining ground as well. For example, the reconceptualization which began to develop at the beginning of the 1970s, the Neo-Marxist curriculum analyses, critical theory, and poststructuralist curriculum thought, can be given as some examples for these new perspectives. In addition to these diverse perspectives emerging in the curriculum theory, approaches that are developed in relation to different philosophical traditions addressing the paradigm of curriculum and instruction from different angles, especially with regards to the internationalization of curriculum studies have drawn attention. As such, the didactic tradition dominant in the Continental Europe and Scandinavian educational thought has been carefully studied as a new venue of research in the field of curriculum and instruction (Deng, 2015(Deng, , 2016Gundem, 2000;Kansanen, 1995;Künzli, 1998Künzli, , 2013Kruger, 2008;Westbury, Hopmann & Riquarts, 2000). What is the meaning of this concept attracting such considerable attention in the field of curriculum and instruction? What does "didactic" really mean and how does it differ from the Anglo-American curriculum paradigm? When the root and philosophical context of the word "didactic" is examined, it becomes clear that it is an important conceptual approach that directs the teaching process. It can be described both as a science that comprises all the variables of the learning and teaching process including the formal / informal dimension (Dolch, 1965cited in Gundem, 2000, and as a method used for the formation of the new generations through education. The origins of this word can be traced back to the ancient Greek word "didaskein/didaskio" meaning "to be a teacher" or "to teach" (Antel, 1952;Hopmann, 2007). Over time, this meaning has expanded to include more comprehensive and detailed connotations. When the evolution of this concept is examined, it can be seen that there is a certain meaning attached to it that has been developing since the time of Plato and Aristotle, expanded by Thomas Aquinas, Hugh of Saint Victor, Quintillianus, Comenius and Racitus. In particular, the Didaktika Magna written by Comenius was the first systematic work on the subject published in Europe (Hopmann, 2007). Unlike his predecessors, Comenius conceptualized "didactic" as the sequencing of the education process. More recently, in addition to the contributions made by some German educators like Salzmann and Basedow, Herbart has also made remarkable contributions to the development of didactic by following in the footsteps of Swiss educator Pestalozzi. However, the development of a philosophical approach to the didactic perspective, and thus the birth of a rich philosophical sociopedagogical orientation has become possible only through Wilhelm Dilthey's humanist pedagogy. The theoretical framework of our study is this humanist pedagogy [Geistteswisseschaftliche Padagogik]. This paper is outlined as a four distinct yet interrelated sections. The first part describes the historical development of didactic. The second part focuses on the contributions made by Herbartian pedagogy to didactic. The third section discusses the concept of "Bildung" and its contributions to the didactic perspective in its Diltheyan sense. The fourth part compares the Anglo-American Curriculum and instruction perspective with that of the didactic.
touch upon the philosophical and historical evolution of didactic either. Another similar study on the theory of didactic situations was conducted by Baştürk Şahin, Şahin and Tapan Broutin (2017), who used didactic only as an approach to teach a subject (mathematics), and did not include any discussions of the developmental process or historical background of didactic. In the research conducted by Yurdatapan and Şahin (2012), "didactic transformation theory" was used in the evaluation of teacher knowledge, and the reflection of the transposed didactic approach, a dominant approach in the French didactic tradition, is emphasized in subject teaching. An overall analysis of the didactic research literature in Turkey thus indicates that didactic is mostly used to carry out research on subject teaching or content knowledge, but no conceptual framework is provided about what didactic really is. Therefore, the current study is expected to fill this extant gap in the Turkish research literature.

Method
This is a qualitative study that examines the development and origins of didactic in continental Europe. Qualitative research is generally used for an in-depth study of the facts or phenomena. It aims to describe the historical roots of didactics and its development in a philosophical context. The main data source for this study is the related literature. The literature was analyzed via document analysis, which is a qualitative research method used in analyzing the relevant literature with specific techniques. The method of document analysis involves the collection of data from written materials containing information on the cases or phenomena targeted for investigation in a form suitable for the purpose of research (Yıldırım and Şimşek, 2008). For document analysis, the literature regarding the specific research problem is of great importance. Obtaining the related literature according to the purpose of the problem is the first step in document analysis. The books included in the literature used in this study were obtained by accessing as many original copies as possible, and certain parts of the works without accessible original copies were used as they pertain to the research problem. Although indexed journals were preferred as the sources for the cited articles, some web pages were also utilized. The article searches were based on keywords, and the full-length articles cited in the bibliographies of the key didactic books were obtained from various university databases. In the research process, a literature review regarding the research problems was carried out and the necessary resources were categorized. Each resource was critically read and coded vis-à-vis the research problems. The notes classified according to the coding were then used in the analysis of each problem. In the document analysis, it was first tested whether the obtained literature was related to the problems of the research in order to ensure its reliability and validity. In this process, researchers explored the sources separately, and sought a consensus on the adequacy of the obtained literature sources. In addition, agreement on the code and the themes revealed by the research problems was sought. Further consensus was also ensured for the notes taken about the literature regarding their relevance to the research problems. The research problems of this study are the following: (1) What trajectory has didactic followed in the historical continuity? (2) What are the contributions made by Herbartian pedagogy to didactic? (3) How have the relationships of the humanist pedagogy with didactic developed? (4) What are the similarities and differences between the Didactic tradition and the Anglo-American curriculum thought? Our study was designed to answer these four questions. Hopmann (2007) proposed a conceptual framework that clearly defines the historical evolution of didactic. According to this framework, the historical development of didactic was driven by three main concepts which are ordering, sequencing and selection. The first step in the development of didactic concerns the question of how to determine the order of the subjects to be taught. In other words, how should the subject be systematized, and what kind of order should be followed in its presentation to the student? This specific meaning of the concept is found in the texts by Plato and Aristotle of the Ancient Greece. In the dialogue called "Meno," Socrates explains how to solve a geometry problem to a slave. In their dialogue, the only thing Sokrates does is asking the slave meaningful questions that progress in a certain order. Each answer given to a question raises another question. While the point made by Socrates here demonstrates the epistemology of the idealist philosophy, it actually underlines the key dimensions of the teaching process (Jarvis, 2006). When didactic is approached from Socrates' perspective, the primary role of the teacher is initiating and facilitating the interaction between the learner and the content. The content becomes meaningful through the questions asked by the teacher during the learning process. With its origins in the Ancient Greece, how was the didactic approach transferred to Europe?

The Evolution of Didactic
The heritage of the ancient Greek civilization was transferred to Europe by the Islamic world (Gutas, 1999;Hodgson, 1974;Makdisi, 1981). In this transfer process, Europe learned about the ancient Greek classics, but more importantly, it was introduced to the cultural contributions made by the Arab-Andalusians. This heritage played a significant role in Europe's rise out of its Dark Age (Saliba, 2007). Naturally, European thinkers were influenced by the Islamic civilization's view of learning and teaching. This influence bears the marks of some important Middle Age philosophers' perspectives on the teaching process. In other words, didactic became a problem of European philosophers in the middle ages. For these philosophers who taught Dominican and Franciscan schools of thought in the monasteries, didactic played a key role in allowing them to grasp some difficult and ambiguous issues. One of these philosophers, Hugh of Saint Victor, was one of the first to study didactic. Hugh describes the teaching process as a disciplined action and emphasizes that learning can take place only through a disciplined process in a disciplined environment (Hopmann, 2007;Roest, 2000;Rorem, 2009). Another Catholic philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, developed Hugh's thoughts further. In his work titled "Summa Theologica," he underscores the importance of the learner's active role in the learning process, and defines the teacher as a person helping the student in this process (Copleston, 1962;DeWulf, 1959).
The second step in the evolution of didactic is sequencing, which appeared during the reform era in Europe. After the Renaissance, especially after the struggle with the church, the events that took place during the reform era caused the didactic to acquire a new dimension. The bloody fights against the Catholic Church brought a major breakthrough in terms of the spread of Protestantism. A more important development than this spread of Protestantism was the quest that began in the field of education and social welfare (Lindberg, 2010). The most important result of this quest was the debate about the nature of the teaching process. Obviously, the thinker who made the most significant contribution to the didactic thinking of the reform era is Comenius. This Protestant pastor of the Czech Republic, who lived between 1592 and 1670, is perhaps one of the greatest thinkers leaving an indelible mark on the history of pedagogy and didactic. For Comenius, who lived in Europe in a time of a rapid pace of reform, schools were vitally important for the happiness of society and for the development of Christianity. For Comenius, who saw education as the main driver of social development, the most urgent problem was the inefficient and useless education delivered at schools. The most important dilemma of this useless education was the teaching methods. If reforms could be made in methods, schools could be the places where the light would shine and dissipate the darknesses. As a first step in solving these problems, he wrote a course book. It is possible to find the earliest foundations of didactics in this work bearing the name of Orbis Sensualium Pictus. In this book, with short stories, Comenius gradually introduces the world to young children. Written by him later, and elaborating on the pedagogical principles of "from closer to farther" and "from known to unknown," which are used in teaching even today, Didactica Magna is one of the pioneering books explaining the basic principles of didactic (Leek, 2011;Lukaš & Munjiza, 2014). Comenius describes his own didactic system in terms of the interrelationship among three Latin concepts: Omnes, omnia and omnino (Siljander & Sutinen, 2012). Omnes [Everybody] signifies the school system. Beginning from childhood, a graded education system must be designed for everybody. Thus, Omnes means "an individual to be educated." Omnia means knowledge [everything or all kinds of information]. It is only possible for individuals to be enlightened if they have knowledge. Omnino [with all perceptions] refers to the method (Gundem, 1992;Menck, 2014). Therefore, the relationship between the teacher and the learner is built through knowledge forms the basis of didactic. In this relationship, Comenius views sequencing as the key concept. The presentation of information to the learner in small pieces and in stages is the essence of Comenian didactic. Comenius states the basic aims of didactic as follows: The following must be the primary purposes of our education: finding a teaching method whereby teachers teach less but learners learn more, and turning the schools into the environments where instead of noisiness, reluctance, and waste of effort more pleasant time and a definite development prevail. In this way, the Christian community can be redeemed from the darkness, confusion, and disorder, and reach light, peace, and order (Comenius, 1907, p.5). The third step in the evolution of didactic is selection. Didactic constitutes the basis of what to teach students. However, didactic did not have this meaning until the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. The Seven Year Wars that affected the whole of Europe, followed by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars in the following years led to a debate on what to teach the new generations in order to help them fight the chaos in Europe. The idea of teaching useful information, as stressed by Comenius, instead of teaching everything to everyone resulted in an expansion in the meaning of didactic. This idea was first applied by the Prussians. In the Prussian state, while the education bureaucracy was being created, some important regulations and directives were made about how teachers were to give lessons and what to look for when choosing subjects (Blackbourn, 1998;Levinger, 2000). With these arrangements of the Prussian education bureaucracy, the first written curriculum was officially created by the state (Hopmann, 2007). Goodson (2004) and Westbury et al (2016) share the same view, who see the plan [Normalplan für Gymnasien] implemented by Prussia right after the Waterloo Battle in 1816 as a comprehensive effort by the state with the aim of making education a social product. With this plan, curricula were prepared by the government in accordance with school levels, textbooks were printed, schedules were organized, and some detailed rules were made regarding the prizes and examinations to be given. Thus, the selection of knowledge was included among the basic meanings of didactic. Indeed, this was nothing more than asking, in continental Europe, "What knowledge is of most worth?" which was also asked by Herbert Spencer in the Anglo-Saxon world. For the first time in continental Europe, education had become a social product and the reconstruction of new generations by subjecting them to a certain cultural formation (shaping) took place in Germany. The effectiveness and efficiency of such a formation process is a systemic and structural problem. Didactic attempts to solve this problem, which is at the nexus of all actions to be performed regarding schools. The basic function of didactic is to make sure the schools effectively perform their task of shaping the individuals in a cultural, mental and spiritual sense. However, before this task can be accomplished, this cultural shaping needs to be philosophically analyzed. This is the point that the concept of Bildung comes into play. This concept, which is translated in to English simply as "education," and into Turkish as "terbiye" or "eğitim," is undergirded by some profound meanings and philosophical implications. Eduard Spranger, a prominent 20th century pedagogue, defines the concept of Bildung as follows: "`Bildung' is the formation of an individual's essence which is acquired by cultural influences and which is homogeneous, structured, and suitable to be developed; this formation of his essence enables the individual to objectively valuable cultural achieve ments, and it enables him to experience (to comprehend) objective cultural values. Bildung' "is formation of the individual's essence; for, we would not consider transient characteristics as `Bildung'... Further, `Bildung' is homogeneous and structured, i.e. manifold and yet comprehensive. A person with a quite one-sided psychic culture would not be called `gebildet' (educated); but also not the multi-sided one, who is dispersing to all directions without contours and who has no centre, no firm essence, no form." Real `Bildung' always contains "developmental dispositions and continuous growth, because principally, it is nothing else than a refined result of development... This refinement is achieved by cultural influences... By the cultural influences themselves, an objective content of value is represented..."They enable the person to understand a cultural content on the one hand; on the other hand, they rouse in himself value-creating forces which again transform understanding and experience to objective cultural values (achievements)... For these experiencing and creative forces there must also exist a personal centre, and by relating the cultural values to it in a homogenous way, the raw individuality rises to a formed individuality or to a fully educated (`gebildete') personality (Spranger, 1968, pp.24-26). During its development in continental Europe, Didactic's crossing paths with Bildung was quite crucial. Bildung, as a concept produced in the cultural context of the German pedagogy, has brought the didactic perspective to a more sophisticated level. At this stage, the significant roles played by Comenius and Wolfgang Ratke in building the German didactic is of particular notice. Both of them shared the common goal of finding a method to build the teaching process in an efficient and effective way (Kansanen, 1995). The German didactic perspective, developing under the leadership of Ratke, gradually assumed a new meaning colored by the concept of Bildung. This movement, especially guided by the idealistic character of the German philosophy, has led to the formation of a rich pedagogical accumulation and the development of the different dimensions of the didactic. In this developmental process, especially the end of the 18th century and the 19th century witnessed some significant events. This period was crucial in the process of didactic's integration into the human sciences or humanist pedagogy. Regarding this process, the first thing to analyze here is Johann Fredrich Herbart and the Herbartian didactic that was later refined and systematized by his followers.

Herbart and the Herbartian Didactic
Johann Fredrich Herbart (1776-1841) is a systematic and doctrinal philosopher who made a significant contribution to the development of American pedagogy with his views, and left behind an important didactic legacy in the history of pedagogy (Hilgenheger, 1993;Gutek, 2013). His most important contribution was making pedagogy a scientific and systematic field of study, based on the scientific principles applied since Locke. In other words, he pioneered the formation of the scientific pedagogy. For Herbart, scientific means a rational, logical and philosophical system. Science is not used here in a positivist sense but in an idealistic philosophical context. Undoubtedly, Herbart's contribution to the field of didactic is his synthesizing the Bildung concept with didactic, and constructing the theory of an approach called "educative instruction." The basic aim of Didactic is to present the teaching process in a rational and logical system, order, and sequencing. This Bildung process is possible not only by implementing certain technical steps but also providing a comprehensive structure. That is, didactic must consider some key variables to be able to realize the Bildung. Egemen (1965) defines three of these key variables as the administration, teaching and discipline. Administration refers to the child's protection from all kinds of harmful effects in the school environment, ensuring obedience, and getting him/her accustomed to a certain organizational order. Teaching refers to all kinds of actions towards making the child well-behaved, knowledgeable, and skillful. The purpose of teaching, for Herbart, is to discipline/ educate (Bildung) the child. An education that only provides dry facts without instilling discipline, making certain habits adopted, and ensuring the learner's adaptation to the social environment is not really education. Discipline means that these formative processes of the individual take place within a certain system. Therefore, it is not possible to talk about any character formation without a system.
Another remarkable dimension of this theory proposed by Herbart is the system that it introduced to didactic. Called "Formal Steps," Herbart outlines a framework to serve the purposes of the Bildung. According to this framework, for a course to be educative, it needs to include the steps of (1) Preparation, (2) Presentation, (3) Association, (4) Sistematization, and (5) Application (Herbart, 1904, p.59). These steps proposed by Herbart for the didactic process were to make teaching both more effective and efficient, which had been an objective since Comenius' time. However, the Herbartian didactic, although criticized for limiting the teaching process to a mechanical dimension and thus killing creativity, achieved something that could not have been achieved up to that point and transformed didactic into a methodology. In the post-Herbart period, his followers, especially Tuiskon Ziller, Wilhelm Rein, and Ludwig Strümpell made great contributions to the improvement of the Herbartian didactic theory. While it was later overshadowed by the Work School (Arbeitschule) especially from the 20th century onwards, thanks to this humanist pedagogical reinterpretation, it achieved the recognition it deserved. Approached as a certain technical process by Herbart, Didactic assumed a deeper philosophical character as illuminated with the humanist pedagogy. This philosophical character contributed to an effective and in-depth debate of a wide range of educational concepts, while paving way for the growth of diverse didactic perspectives. Wolfgang Klafki and Eric Weniger, two of the most influential didactic theoreticians of the 20th century, are among the most distinguished architects of this process. Wilhelm Dilthey and his approach to human sciences contributed to the birth of a new pedagogical tradition: humanist pedagogy.

Humanist Pedagogy and Didactic
Arguably, the most important point in the historical development of the didactic approach is its integration into the German pedagogy. Indeed, a critical analysis of the history of pedagogy reveals that the German pedagogy followed a different course in the evolution of education as a science distinct from philosophy. Notably, this line of development of the German pedagogy created the basis for a strong pedagogical discourse that had a clear impact on the American pedagogy in the 1875-1925 period (Gutek, 2013;McNeil, 2015;Ohles, 1978). The development of the humanist educational science is vital to understand the roots of Didactic, since the most fruitful interaction of Didactic with Bildung was enabled by the humanist pedagogy, even if it was adopted by different schools of thought in the 20th century.
While the humanist pedagogy has deep philosophical roots, its major development occurred in the 1910-1920 period. The humanist pedagogy, based on the philosophical-historical work of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1864) and Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), was intellectually refined into a more systematic structure in this period. Therefore, while its systematization was realized in the early 20th century, this pedagogical approach was dominant in the 19th century Germany. Contributing to the formation of a very important tradition, the humanist pedagogy also contributed to the creation of a rich perspective within the Didactic tradition. Herman Nohl, Theodor Litt, Eduard Spranger, Wilhelm Flitner and Erich Weniger are some of the leading pedagogues and didacticians of this humanist school. Nohl and Weniger's followers Wolfgang Klafki and Klaus Mollenhauer, who represent another branch of this school called "Göttingen School," are some of the first names that come to mind regarding Didactic (Biesta, 2013;Van Manen, 2015;Wulf, 2014). Tröhler (2003) explains the developmental process of humanistic pedagogy [Geisteswissenschaftliche Padagogik] on the basis of some factors like institutional literature and scientific publishing. The strongest among these factors is the central role played by idealist philosophy in the German philosophical tradition. The strong effect of idealism on the German literature, and its treatment of humans as spiritual beings had a significant impact on the evolution of humanist pedagogy. Particularly, Wilhelm Dilthey's conceptualization of it brought a new dimension to the development of this tradition. Therefore, Dilthey's interpretations can be said to lie at the heart of the humanist pedagogy and Didactic. Dilthey reinterpreted the idealistic philosophy with a historical and human-centered perspective. According to Dilthey, the human is a historical, social and cultural entity, and therefore, understanding the human can only take place in a historical, social and cultural context. The main characteristic that makes a human a human is his/her historical entity. All artifacts [artificial facts] produced by man, that is, language, art, philosophy, law, literature, and education, only have meaning in a certain sociocultural context with their specific historical time frame and historical identity attached to them (Bulhof, 1980). Education and all concepts related to education are a part of this world of meaning as well. Pedagogy has an important place in the human sciences because it refers directly to the human being -with sorrows, pains, worries and joys. Therefore, for Dilthey, pedagogy is not a natural science but a human science. With this perspective, he vehemently opposes to the classical positivist definition of humans and science. For Dilthey, the task of the pedagogy is to determine how homogeneous the structure within which a historical social reality emerges at a specific time is, to identify the nature of the elements that affect it based on the contributions of these elements to the formation of this homogenous structure, and to discover the unique dimensions of this social historical reality by defining the factors governing its development. Only in this way the human nature can be understood, and the effect of all the artifacts on the human can be analyzed. It can be used to examine the context of student and teacher relations in the class, as well as the elements that influence the actualization of the didactic process. As the key concerns of Didactic, the selection of content to be taught, the systematization of the content, and the learning of it through interactions with the students are also among the most important issues that such a human sciences pedagogy emphasizes. Curricula and textbooks, which guide the teaching process in schools, are prepared by adults on the basis of certain ideological and ethical beliefs, determining the way schools educate the future citizens. The analysis of this process in terms of the learner, the content and the teacher, should be carried out philosophically. The method used here is hermeneutic. Thus, human sciences pedagogy accepts hermeneutics as its primary method. The humanist pedagogy describes all its concepts, including didactic, from this hermeneutical perspective. The definition of education by Herman Nohl, who has an important place in this tradition, aligns with this perspective as well. According to Nohl (1949), education is the relationship between an adult and a developing entity that perceives and shapes its own life. Once education has been defined in this way, the didactic perspective becomes clearer. With this definition of education, Nohl (1949) manifests his belonging to a different philosophical world. However, a different philosophical world is also present in the Anglo-American curriculum and instruction field. These two traditions try to solve similar problems with different questions.

Curriculum and Didactic: Different Questions but the Same Phenomena
Didactic is a field that emphasizes the philosophical dimension of understanding the nature of the learning and teaching process as a fundamental problem, but at the same time examines the processes involved in a socio-pedagogical perspective. Not satisfied with the technical analyses of the teaching process, this approach advocates for an in-depth analysis of all dimensions of learning and teaching, and with different conceptual frameworks it proposes, proposes a new perspective on the pedagogy debates, particularly on the construction of the teaching process. As can be seen from the questions asked during the didactic process, it reflects a viewpoint that is grounded more in the idealist philosophy conceptualizing pedagogy as a human science, rather than driven by questions posed by the positivist or experimental perspectives. What does it mean to be a child? What is the difference between a child and an adult? What are the dimensions and meaning of the relationship between the child and the educator? What are the educational objectives? What are the general characteristics of educational outcomes? What are the socio-pedagogical aspects of these characteristics? How can these educational objectives gain legitimacy? What does the thing that we want children to become in the future mean for the children? What are the differences between educating and teaching a child? (Danner, 1994). These are the questions asked by Didactic in general, thinking that the nature of the interaction with the students in the school and the classroom environment can be determined more clearly. Klafki (1995) tackles these questions in a different dimension, stressing the need for a profound didactic analysis of the learning and teaching process. According to Klafki (1995), the questions that need to be asked in the didactic process are as follows: (1) How much does the content presented to the student in the teaching process open up a broad or general understanding of reality? (2) In the minds of children in my class, what is the significance of this course content regarding the experience, knowledge, ability or skill already available to them? (3) What is the significance of the subject for the future of the child? (4) How is the content structured? (5) How much of the content determined by these questions should be permanent (minimum information) to qualify as acquired knowledge? This didactic model, as proposed by Klafki (2000), was criticized by student movements that emerged towards the end of the 60'sfor being too rigid and conservative. Klafki then revised this model to construct a critical constructivist didactic model. Rather than being technical, this model is more sociopedagogically oriented. Influenced by the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, which served as the most important social research center of the period, Klafki succeeded in creating a new perspective within the humanist pedagogy. This new didactic perspective consists of two main dimensions. The first dimension relates to teaching and learning [objectives, content, methods, and forms of regulation], and the second dimension includes school-related social processes and social conditions (Klafki, 1998). Although there are different didactic perspectives in German-speaking countries and Scandinavian countries, this study highlights the main problems of the didactic approach that developed from the humanist pedagogy. When the development of the pedagogy in the US is examined, it is clear that the tradition of German pedagogy, and especially the Herbartian school, played an influential role in American pedagogy for a certain period of time. Despite this effect, a combination of factors such as the rapid development of experimental and educational psychology in the US, the development of the field of curriculum in 1918 with the publications of Franklin Bobbitt, and the Taylorist management approaches caused the Herbartian tradition to weaken towards the mid-1920s in the US. Particularly by the end of the 1800's, graduates from large and well-established universities in Germany (such as Halle, Leipzig, Jena) where about fifty American educators received their PhDs had now lost their influence and began to keep a low-key profile. This period was no longer the age of philosophy or history, but rather the age of an educational science that operated according to the rules of natural sciences, a fact that was summarized well by the American educational historian Ellen C. Lagemann: "You cannot understand the history of American education without accepting that John Dewey lost in the 20th century and that Edward L. Thorndike won" (Lagemann, 1989, p. 185). Thorndike's win was also the victory of the technical scientific paradigm in the field of curriculum studies, required by the Zeitgeist of the period as well. The Eight Year Study is, from this point of view, an important milestone in addressing the issues of curriculum and instruction in a serious way. Only ten years later, Ralph W. Tyler, Hilda Taba, Benjamin Bloom, who are the authors of the world's most influential books in the field of curriculum, actively participated in this project. Tyler proposed the program development model with the experience he gained from this study. Tyler's curriculum development model is completely school-focused. This model, which clearly reflects the technical scientific and linear dimension, addresses learning and education in the context of behavioral change and assigns a critical role to educational psychology in determining objectives. Although this model also includes educational philosophy, the task of philosophy is only determining the consistency and importance of the objectives. In his book titled Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction, Tyler (1949) asks the following questions about curriculum development: (1) What are the educational objectives that the school wants to achieve? (2) What learning experiences are needed to achieve these objectives? (3) How can these learning experiences be organized effectively? (4) How do we determine if these objectives have been achieved? (Tyler, 1949, p.2). A closer look into Tyler's questions reveals that these questions are appropriate for measurement by their nature, and that they require technical expertise. In the period following Tyler, especially the studies conducted on instructional design in the US have almost always based their models on the Tyler Rationale. The basic aim of the instructional design models is sequencing the teaching process in a logical-analytical way to ensure effective learning. Thus, each step of the teaching process can be designed in a linear and related manner, just like an engineering project which means less philosophy, but more educational psychology and instructional design. Hopmann and Riquarts (1995) investigate the difference between curriculum and didactic in three levels as lesson planning, research process and theory. The questions both traditions ask in these levels are important in terms of reflecting the diverging perspectives of the two traditions. During the planning level, the curriculum focuses primarily on the "how," and the didactic on the "what" and "why" questions. The questions in the didactic process are asked according to the nature of the Bildung, so it is always central to the process. Table 1 compares these two traditions.

Discussion, Conclusion and Implications
With its own philosophical foundations and historical trajectory, the didactic tradition developed in continental Europe represents a different pedagogical tradition than the Anglo-American curriculum approach. After reaching a certain level of sophistication with the work of Comenius and Raticus, this pedagogical tradition was then systematized by J.F. Herbart's contributions. However, it was Diltheyan pedagogy that reinterpreted Didactic in a certain philosophical tradition. Arguing that as a branch of human sciences, pedagogy would have problems understanding the human if it acted with a structure like natural sciences, Dilthey approached pedagogy as a science that studied the human within his/her historical, cultural and social context. What pedagogy has to do to progress is to analyze, understand and reinterpret problems from a historical point of view. The foundation of a philosophical pedagogy is a hermeneutical perspective based on understanding. Starting to develop as a humanist pedagogy, this movement made a remarkable progress, especially in Germany, and became increasingly popular at universities. The contribution of the idealist philosophical roots of humanist pedagogy to this progress is undeniable. Based on German romanticism, and the work of philosophers like Fichte, Herder and Humboldt, this pedagogy soon became highly inspiring and influential. This movement, which has continued to develop since the beginning of the 20th century, has maintained its influence after both world wars. Didactic, whose main purpose is to realize an effective and efficient teaching process, is clearly distinguished from the American educational science tradition, as it achieves this aim in a philosophical context. Because Bildung, a central concept in the didactic tradition, aims to cultivate individuals who are aware of their own realities and have culturally adapted to their social life, it has had to be philosophical by its own didactic nature. After the Second World War, the influence of Americanization in Europe has manifested itself in the didactic field, and some didactic models have emerged that closely resemble the American educational sciences. However, Wolfgang Klafki, one of the representatives of the humanist pedagogy, developed a new didactic structure by synthesizing the tradition of humanist pedagogy with the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. This point of view stands out with its uniqueness and originality among the other didactic models. The originality of this Klafkian perspective undoubtedly stems from its roots in Dilthey's work. Revising his model to strengthen its social dimension after having been inspired by the Frankfurt School and critical theory towards the end of the 60s, Klafki represents a stronger philosophical and socio-pedagogical stance compared to the other didactic instruction models.
So what can such a point of view contribute to the field of curriculum and instruction in general? The reason for the wide adoption of the Anglo-American curriculum approach discourse, especially in the years following the Second World War, was not only because the US was the dominant power in the global hegemonic order, but also because the American scientific curriculum perspective was problem-solution oriented and the techno-scientific paradigm offered easy and feasible solutions especially for the problems in mass schooling, curriculum, and teaching. This prevalent discourse gained even further popularity with the rise of the US hegemony and the cold war threat. Even in Germany, since the late 60s, the American-centered educational research paradigm has become stronger and didactic models have been developed in accordance with the techno-scientific paradigm. From this point of view, it can be said that the Tyler Rationale was the peak of this ascension process. Despite this rising popularity of the Anglo-American approach, the existence of a crisis in the field of curriculum and instruction was first expressed by Joseph Schwab. With the Tyler Rationale and instructional design models enjoying their golden age, Schwab's criticisms and the structure he suggested were not met with popular approval. However, from the 70s onwards, his arguments provided a substantial basis for the intellectual Neo-Marxist and Re-conceptualizationist pedagogical movements. Schwab suggested a theoretical model that was very similar to the German didactic tradition. Could the didactic based on German humanist pedagogy be a solution for the crisis experienced by the Anglo-American curriculum and instruction field? What was to be placed at the heart of the education process, the objectives, or the human being? Did the Anglo-American curriculum and instruction thought developed in the context of management approaches targeting mass production such as Taylorism and Fordism think philosophically enough on some points regarding the humans? This is exactly the point stressed by Schwab (1969: 1): "The field of curriculum is moribund, unable by its present methods and principles to continue its work and desperately in search of new and more effective principles and methods".
What can the curriculum and instruction studies in Turkey gain from the didactic tradition? Obviously, the techno-scientific curriculum theory in Turkey has a very firm basis. In Turkey, especially from the 1960 onwards, since the structuring of the educational sciences programs in the faculties of education and publication of curriculum research has mostly been performed according to this technical-scientific tradition, and because the postgraduate programs are designed by this perspective, the continental European pedagogical discourses have remained quite weak, silent, and somehow disregarded. The most significant contribution of the humanistic pedagogy is the emphasis it places on the view that education is not to be seen only from a perspective that is dominated by positivism, but on the contrary, from a human-oriented perspective that puts the human in the center of the whole education process. The continental European didactic tradition and humanist pedagogy can also help save the curriculum studies field from being a pure field of engineering by contributing to some comprehensive analyses of the teaching and learning process through its hermeneutic and phenomenological methods. It can also be argued that the semantic web provided by the humanist pedagogical didactic approach regarding the concepts such as learning, teaching, school, and culture, will further enhance the Turkish curriculum studies. Viewing pedagogy not as discrete pieces, but as a whole studying the phenomenon called "human" is perhaps the most important benefit to be gained by the field of curriculum and instruction from the didactic tradition. Another potential benefit is its contribution to the teaching process by analyzing a multitude of factors affecting education through various disciplinary lenses, without limiting it to a simple teaching and learning process. Thanks to Didactic, educational concepts can be approached by not only technical procedures and asking "how" questions, but also asking "why" questions focusing on meaning and thus achieving multi-dimensional analyses. Different analyses of the teaching process may help solve the instructional crises experienced. For instance, an alternative explanation might be proposed for the root causes of the low success rates at the PISA exam when they are analyzed in light of teacherstudent relationships rather than purely technical problems. All in all, it could be argued that both the Anglo-American curriculum and instruction and Didactic come up with different solutions for the same problems by using different methods. Common to both traditions is an effort to make the teaching process effective and efficient. Since the scope of this study is limited to the historical development of Didactic, not all the didactic models are discussed in detail. Further, the dialogue between Didactic and Curriculum is not elaborated on at length. Further studies on various models of Didactic may help bring a wider recognition and deeper appreciation of this lesser-known pedagogical tradition in Turkey.