The Saber-Tooth Curriculum

Darwin would contend that an animal with the ability to adapt to the environment has the best chance of survival. Rousseau would agree with the contention that a teacher who is flexible and adapts to and learns from the experiences that the environment provides has the best chance of success. I believe that adaptation, renewal and change exist in unison with learning from the educational and environmental context. Although, I may have a progressive point-of-view regarding education, I too fear change. I also fear dieting, but work on it every day because I know it will make me a healthier member of society. Change is unsettling and I believe that education should be unsettling as well; when an event is unsettling it leaves a mark in someone’s persona. Thus, change becomes a true learning experience. After reading The Saber-Tooth Curriculum, a lecture by J. Abner Peddiwell, I feel some very strong emotions about its elegant simplicity in explaining such a complicated convention.
The lecture is presented as story of Paleolithic times regarding an innovative thinker whose name was New-Fist-Hammer-Maker. He was given this name because he had created more effective tools due to his advanced thinking process. New-Fist, was an observer that reflected by the fire, while his counterparts rested after having dined. “The same quality of intelligence which led him to the socially approved activity of producing a superior artifact also led him to engage in the socially disapproved practice of thinking” (Peddiwell, 1939, p.1). This innovative thinker’s ability to observe his environment and wonder how things could improve rendered him dissatisfied.
Peddiwell (1939), continues in his lecture by describing how New-Fist constructed a curriculum for reaching a goal, which was that of teaching children how to improve the shelter they built, the food they gathered, the clothing they made, and the security they required. In the same way, we as educators try to improve the concepts we teach in order to prepare our students to be better thinkers and problem solvers. New-Fist created a curriculum to improve the manner in which fish catching, horse-clubbing, and saber-tooth tiger scaring where conducted. New-Fist was trying to improve the conventions that his tribe believed to be enduring. Many of the tribe’s people saw this as going against “The Great Mystery”, which today would be religion and human nature. They believed that if the supreme beings wanted to improve the aforementioned techniques it would have already been done. Moreover, New-Fist was going against human nature.
Since New Fist was a thinker, he was able to treat their polemics easily. “To the more theologically minded, he said that, as a matter of fact, the Great Mystery had ordered this new work done…by causing children to want to learn…” (Peddiwell, 1939, p.2). As time progressed, the culture became more advance and schools were created where New-Fist’s curriculum was promoted.
Many generations later, the environment began to change making fishing, clubbing and scarring obsolete; conversely, the schools continued to teach these skills. Similarly, today it feels we sometimes teach things that are no longer needed to thrive in our global society; moreover, other subjects are not honed due to time and money. For example, foreign language is still not considered a core requirement and only one year is needed to receive that “coveted” high school diploma. Are we trying to effectively improve our curriculums to meet the demands of the new millennium?
Luckily, for this tribe some men who had learned how to become learners and thinkers through the teachings of the New-Fist curriculum, were able to adapt to the environment and use nets for fish and traps for antelopes and bears, which gave the tribe more capital. Those men were reprimanded when they asked the wise men to revise the curriculum with the new more effective skills. The wise men believed that the essence of true education was timelessness. I wonder if they were truly wise?
Peddiwell’s lecture summarizes the struggles of today’s education in a simple yet elegant manner. The innovative men of the tribe were progressive in that they were able to embrace change in order to improve. The wise men were the traditionalists that believed in the timelessness of education; they though that they were protecting New-Fist’s struggles; on the other hand, they were actually suppressing the true product that New-Fist’s curriculum yielded—never ending learning and improvement. I wonder if New Fist’s curriculum allowed the men to be continuous learners? Here, they were most successful at adapting to the environment. Are today’s curriculums embracing the concepts of simultaneous renewal and continuous learning?