Ralph W. Tyler: One of the Most Important Educators of the Twentieth Century

This chapter explores the background, influences, and most well-known achievements of Ralph W. Tyler, arguably one of the most important and influential educators of the twentieth century. Tyler spent a lifetime working in and influencing education, and particularly curriculum, throughout the world. Unfortunately, this chapter will only be able to give a brief taste of his ideas and achievements. Finally, this chapter will briefly take aspects of Tyler’s most famous work Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (2013) and reconceptualize them through the lenses of holistic thinking and liberatory philosophy and psychology as a way to counter criticism of it being inherently hegemonic in nature.