누리과정의 교육철학에 대한 기독교적 조명 －듀이 교육철학을 중심으로－

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Nuri curriculum, a curriculum established in 2011 withan aim to integrate early childhood education and child-care, in order to enhanceChristian educators’ understanding of the philosophy behind the Nuri curriculumand to give them guidance as to how they should implement the curriculum byproviding a foundation that can be used to raise issues from a Christian educationperspective. The rationale behind this paper’s analysis of the Nuri curriculum is asfollows: (a) the introduction of the curriculum has immense negative ramificationsfor Christian early childhood education and (b) most early childhood educationinstitutions implement the Nuri curriculum because educators commonly believethat education should keep a religiously neutral stance. Thus, the chronology of thedevelopment of kindergarten curricula’s philosophy, the mother of Nuri curriculum,including the first to the sixth kindergarten curricula as well as the 2007curriculum reform was studied. As a result, it is founded that Dewey’s theorybased on humanist naturalism was at the nexus of the educational philosophy ofthe Nuri curriculum. Specifically, it is performed a careful examination from aChristian perspective on whether the Nuri curriculum emphasizes holistic educationas insisted by humanistic naturalism and what position the curriculum takes onanthropology and theism, as well as epistemology and axiology. Although from ahumanistic naturalism standpoint the Nuri curriculum may be considered holistic,but since it lacks a spiritual aspect it cannot be deemed as truly holistic. Furthermore, while Christian education acknowledges that mankind is a creation ofGod and that He should be at the very core of education, Dewey argues thatmankind is a creature of evolution and denies the existence of God puttingmankind at the center of education. In addition, Dewey’s stance on epistemologyand axiology is in direct conflict with that of Christianity.