The Sabre-Tooth Curriculum

A man by the name of New-Fist-Hammer-Maker knew how to do things

his community needed to have done, and he had the energy and the will to
go ahead and do them. By virtue of these characteristics, he was an
educated man. New-Fist was also a thinker. Then as now, there were few
lengths to which men would not go to avoid the labour and pain of
thought. . . . New-Fist got to the point where he became strongly dissatisfied
with the accustomed ways of his tribe. He became to catch glimpses of ways
in which life might be made better for himself, his family and his group. By
virtue of this development, he became a dangerous man..
New-Fist thought about how he could harness the childrens play to
better the life of the community. He considered what adults do for survival
and introduced these activities to children in a deliberate and formal way.
These included catching fish with bare hands, clubbing little wooly horses,
and chasing away sabre-toothed tigers with fire. These then became the
curriculum and the community began to prosper with plenty of food, hides
for attire and protection from threat. It is supposed that all would have gone
forever with this good educational system, if conditions of life in that
community remained forever the same. But conditions changed.
The glacier began to melt and the community could no longer see the
fish to catch with their bare hands, and only the most agile and clever fish
remained who hid from the people. The wooly horses were ambitious and
decided to leave the region. The tigers got pneumonia and most died. The
few remaining tigers left. In their place, fierce bears arrived who would not
be chased by fire. The community was in trouble.
One day, in desperation, someone made a net from willow twigs and
found a new way to catch fish and the supply was even more plentiful than
before. The community also devised a system of traps on the path to snare
the bears. Attempts to change education system to include these new
techniques however encountered stern opposition.
These are also activities we need to know. Why cant the schools teach
them? But most of the tribe particularly the wise old men who controlled the
school, smiled indulgently at this suggestion. That wouldnt be education
it would be mere training. We dont teach fish, grabbing to catch fish, we
teach it to develop a generalized agility which can never be duplicated by
mere training . . . and so on.

If you had any education yourself, you would know that the essence of
true education is timelessness. It is something that endures through
changing conditions like a solid rock standing squarely and firmly in the
middle of a raging torrent.