The Saber-Tooth Curriculum

The Saber-Tooth Curriculum

            Fish-grabbing, Wolly-horse-clubbing, Saber-tooth-tiger-scaring, Oh My! You wouldn’t think a book that expounds on an ancient civilization’s survival techniques and how they teach them to their young would fit in with the state of our educational system today, but that’s exactly what this book does.

           

             The Saber-Tooth Curriculum is a book that excoriates the inefficiency in the American education system at the time that it was published in 1939. Written by an author who had been a school superintendent, assistant professor of education, assistant dean, and dean of the college of education, a few titles held by the esteemed Harold R.W. Benjamin. Benjamin wrote under the pseudonym J. Abner Peddiwell after the publishers decided the book should be published as a stunt, not as serious educational material but in a tongue-in-cheek manner to cautiously test reader reaction. It uses a satirical format of a student running into his old professor at a tourist bar in Tijuana and the professor’s subsequent lectures on the educational affairs of that prehistoric society. An educational process he names ‘The Saber-Tooth Curriculum.’ The lectures go into how the traditions of schooling can be so dutifully followed that even in the midst of environmental and cultural changes, an educational system can resist needed changes for the society to survive. Peddiwell –er- Benjamin believed that the education of his times were not responsive enough, or flexible enough to the burgeoning needs of the culture of that time. Much of what he wrote can extrapolate to our current educational state. He speaks of the elders, or those in charge, doing things the same way over & over because they’ve always been done that way. The religion of tradition, I call it, and none can waver.

            Looking at how I as an educator can apply the lessons Benjamin sought to bring to light in his satirical book, I think first I can begin to develop ways to bring living into learning. I can think of ways that learning experiences in life can be brought into the classroom by way of problem solving projects, group projects, and technological tools that we use in everyday life. To look at my students as curious and inquisitive learners who need a guide to help them to discover knowledge more than just content.

  

            In today’s education I believe there is less rigidity to hang onto old ways, but much like a large ocean-liner, the effort and amount of time it takes to change course is not going to happen overnight. There does seem to be more schools, superintendents, deans, and elders willing to accept the fact that we are constantly learning about human behavior and how we learn and look for ways to bring that additive knowledge and understanding into our classrooms. No longer can “academia” set firmly in place the capstone onto the pillar of innovative education, if we are to produce learners who know how to do the things our community needs to have done – while not extinguishing their energy and will that it takes to go do them.