THE SABER-TOOTH

CURRICULUM
BY HAROLD BENJAMIN
SABER TOOTH-CURRICULUM
 New-Fist was a doer, in spite of the fact that there was
little in his environment with which to do anything very
complex.

 New-Fist gained his name and a considerable local

prestige by producing one of these artifacts in a less
rough and more useful form than any previously known
to his tribe.
 His hunting clubs were generally superior weapons,
moreover, and his fire-using techniques were patterns of
simplicity and precision.

 He knew how to do things his community needed to

have done, and he had the energy and 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
labor and pain of thought.

 New-Fist got to the point where he became strongly

dissatisfied with the accustomed ways of his tribe.

 He began 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.
 He saw these children at the cave entrance before the fire
engaged in activity with bones and sticks and brightly
colored pebbles.

 He noted that they seemed to have no purpose in their

play beyond immediate pleasure in the activity itself. He
compared their activity with that of the grown-up
members of the tribe.
 The children played for fun; the adults worked for
security and enrichment of their lives.

 The children dealt with bones, sticks, and pebbles; the

adults dealt with food, shelter, and clothing.

 The children protected themselves from boredom; the

adults protected themselves from danger.
  If I could only get these children to do the things that
will give more and better food, shelter, clothing, and
security, thought New-Fist, I would be helping this tribe
to have a better life.

 When the children grew up, they would have more meat
to eat, more skins to keep them warm, better caves in
which to sleep, and less danger from the striped death
with the curving teeth that walks these trails by night.
 Having set up an educational goal, New-Fist proceeded
to construct a curriculum for reaching that goal. What
things must we tribesmen know how to do in order to
live with full bellies, warm backs, and minds free from
fear? He asked himself.
 To answer this question, he ran various activities over in
his mind. We have to catch fish with our bare hands in
the pool far up the creek beyond that big bend, he said to
himself. We have to catch them in the same way in the
Pool just this side of the bend. And so we catch them in
the next pool and the next and the next. Always we catch
them with our bare hands.
 Thus New-Fist discovered the first subject of the first
curriculum:
fish-grabbing-with-the-bare-hand
 Also we club the little woolly horses, he continued with
his analysis. We club them along the bank of the creek
where they come down to drink. We club them in the
thickets where they lie down to sleep. We club them in
the upland meadow where they graze, Wherever we find
them we club them. So woolly-horse-clubbing was seen
to be the second main subject of the curriculum.
 And finally we drive away the saber-tooth tigers with
fire, New-Fist went on in his thinking. We drive them
from the mouths of our caves with fire. We drive them
from our trails with burning branches. We wave
firebrands to drive them from our drinking-hole. Always
we have to drive them away, and always we drive them
with fire.
 Thus was discovered the third subject: saber-tooth-tiger-
scaring-with-fire.
 Having developed a curriculum, New-Fist took his
children with him as he went about his activities. He
gave them an opportunity to practice these three
subjects. The children liked to learn. It was more fun for
them to engage in these purposeful activities than to play
with colored stones just for the fun of it. They learned
the new activities well, and so the educational system
was a success.
 As New-Fist's children grew older, it was plain to see
that they had an advantage over other children who had
never been educated systematically. Some of the more
intelligent members of the tribe began to do as New-Fist
had done, and the teaching of fish-grabbing, horse-
clubbing, and tiger-scaring came more and more to be
accepted as the heart of real education.
 This 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 well forever with 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. Few
remaining tigers left.

 In their place, fierce bears arrived who would not be

chased by fire.
 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 then before.

 The community also devised a system of traps on the

paths to snare the bears. Attempts to change educational
system to include these new techniques however
encountered “stern opposition”
 These are also activities we need to know. Why can’t the
schools teach them? But most of the tribe particularly the
wise old men who controlled the school, smiled
indulgently at the suggestion. “That wouldn’t be
education… it would be more training”. We don’t 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”
 The story then was written in 1939. Curriculum then was
seen as a tradition of organized knowledge taught in
schools of the 19th century.
 Harold R. W. Benjamin was a professor of education and
university administrator whose written work spoke to
educational policy concerns.

 He was born in Gilmanton, Wisconsin and received

degrees from Oregon Normal School, the University of
Oregon, and Stanford University.
 Benjamin had a long and illustrious career in education
as an elementary and secondary school teacher, a school
administrator, a university professor (professor emeritus
at Vanderbilt University), and

 Dean of the College of Education at the universities of

Colorado and Maryland
 Benjamin is most well known for the 1939 publication of
his satirical commentary on the nature of schooling and
school reform, The Saber Tooth Curriculum.

 Written under the pseudonym J. Abner Peddiwell,

 The Saber Tooth Curriculum is considered a classic work

that illustrates how unexamined traditions of schooling
can result in resisting needed change.
 In our current Philippine Educational System, different
schools are established in different educational levels
which have corresponding recommended curricula.

 The Educational levels are:

 1.Basic Education

 2. Technical Vocational Education

 3. Higher Education
 Basic Education This level includes
 Kindergarten

 Grade 1 to Grade 6 for elementary and

 secondary Grade 7 to Grade 10 Junior High School

 Grade 11 and Grade 12 Senior High School

 Each levels has its specific recommended curriculum.

The new basic education level are provided in the K to 12

Enhanced Curriculum of 2013 of the Department of
Education
 Technical and Vocational Education

 This is post secondary technical vocational education

and training.

 For the TechVoc Track in SHS of DepEd, DEpEd and

TESDA work in close coordination.
 Higher Education includes

 Baccalaureate or Bachelor Degrees

 Graduate Degrees(Masterate and Doctorate) which are

under the regulation of the Commission on Higher
Education(CHED)
TYPES OF CURRICULA IN SCHOOL
 Recommended Curriculum
 Forbasic Education, these are recommended by the
Department of Education(DepEd)

 ForHigher Education by the commission on Higher

Education(CHED)

 For Vocational Technical

Education by Technical Education,
Skills Development Authority(TESDA)
TYPES OF CURRICULA IN SCHOOL
 Written Curriculum
 Includes documents based on the recommended
curriculum.

 They come in form of course of study, syllabi, modules,

books, instructional guides among others.

 Teachers lesson plan is a packet of this curriculum

 Most recent written curriculum is the Kto12 Philippine

Basic Education
TYPES OF CURRICULA IN SCHOOL
 Taught Curriculum
 This is where the teacher and the learners put life to the
written curriculum.

 This involved skills of the teacher to facilitate learning

base on the written curriculum

 Aid of instructional materials

 Depends largely in the teaching styles of the teacher and

the learning styles
TYPES OF CURRICULA IN SCHOOL
 Supported Curriculum
 These are support materials that the teacher needs to
make learning and teaching meaningful.

 This includes print materials like books, charts posters,

worksheets, or non-print materials.

 This also includes playground, science laboratory, audio-

visual rooms, zoo, museums, market or plaza where
authentic direct learning experince occur.
TYPES OF CURRICULA IN SCHOOL
 Assessed Curriculum
 an assessment is done to find out out if the teacher has
succeeded or not in facilitating learning.

 It can either be assessment for learning, assessment as

learning or assessment of learning
TYPES OF CURRICULA IN SCHOOL
 To find progress of the learning – assessment of the
curriculum is for learning

 To find out how much has been learned or mastered –

assessment of learning
TYPES OF CURRICULA IN SCHOOLS
Learned curriculum

Question: How do we know that the students has

learned?

These are measured by tools in assessment, which can

indicate the cognitive, affective and psychomotor
outcomes.

Learned curriculum also demonstrate higher order and

critical thinking and life long skills
TYPES OF CURRICULA IN SCHOOLS
 Hidden /Implicit Curriculum
 Not deliberately planned but has great impact in the
behavior of the learner.
 Factors that create the hidden curriculum

 Peer influence

 Natural calamities

 School environment

 Media

 Parental pressures

 Societal changes

 Cultural practices
TAKE ACTION
 Activity 1 THINK-PAIR-SHARE
 1. Get a partner(A and B)

 2. Discuss the Saber-Tooth Curriculum and answer the

following questions?
 a. Does the Saber-Tooth Curriculum still exist at
present. Give examples of your evidence.
 b. Describe the type of curriculum that exists as
described in the article.
 c. What does the author mean, when he said “A
curriculum should be timeless.” Explain
 3. What’s the difference between education and training?
TAKE ACTION
 Observe a curriculum in a classroom
 Visit a classroom other than your own with permission
from the teacher.(Elem., High School, College)
 Do the two activities:

 1. Observe the classroom situation

 2. Interview the teacher

 Is it necessary for teachers to learn about school
curriculum? Why?
THE TEACHER AS CURRICULARIST

Facilitating
Exciting Planning Frustrating
Knowledge

Growing Evaluating
Growing
Initiating Innovating

Broadening Building Rewarding Believing

Recommending Showing Copying

THE TEACHER AS CURRICULARIST
 KNOWER

 knows the curriculum – master what are included in the

curriculum
 acquiring academic knowledge both formal, (disciplines,
logic) and informal(derived from experiences, vicarious
and unintended)
 knowing about the curriculum

 the subject matter/content

THE TEACHER AS CURRICULARIST
 2. WRITER
 Writes the curriculum – taking concepts, subject matter
or content which needs to be written or preserved.
 He writes books, modules, laboratory manuals,
instructional guides and reference materials .
THE TEACHER AS CURRICULARIST
3. PLANNER
 the teacher makes a yearly, monthly or daily plan of the
curriculum. Which serves as a guide in the implementation of the
curriculum.

 Factors to be taken into consideration when planning for a

curriculum
 The learners

 The support material

 Time

 Subject matter

 The desired outcomes

 The context of the learner

THE TEACHER AS CURRICULARIST
 INITIATOR
 Recommended curriculum from Deped, CHED, TESDA,
UNESCO, UNICEF must be implemented.
THE TEACHER AS CURRICULARIST
 INNOVATOR

 Creativity and innovation are the hallmark of an

excellent teacher.

 A curriculum is always dynamic, hence keeps on

changing.
THE TEACHER AS CURRICULARIST
 IMPLEMENTOR

 The heart of the school is the curriculum.

 A curriculum that remains recommended or written will
never serve its purpose. Somebody must implement it.
THE TEACHER AS CURRICULARIST
 EVALUATOR
 How can one learn that the desired learning outcomes
have been achieved?

 Is the curriculum working?

 Does it bring the desired results?

 What do outcomes reveal?

 Are the learners achieving?

 Are there some practices that should be modified?

 Should the curriculum be modified, terminated of

continued?
THE TEACHER AS KNOWER OF THE
CURRICULUM
 Read Today’s Headlines
 1. “Philippines Shifts to K to 12 Curriculum”

 2. “Nature Deficit Syndrome on the Rise Among Schools

Children”

 3. “Teachers are reluctant to Teach Beyond the Written

Curriculum”

 4. Co-curricular Activities: Learning Opportunities or

Distraction?”

 “Parents Get Involved in School Learning”

SOME DEFINITIONS OF CURRICULUM
Curriculum is a planned and guided set of learning
experiences and intended outcomes, formulated through
the systematic reconstruction of knowledge and
experiences under the auspices of the school, for the
learners’ continuous and willful growth I personal social
competence(Daniel Tanner, 1980)
SOME DEFINITIONS OF CURRICULUM
 It is a written document that systematically describes
goals planned, objectives, content, learning activities,
evaluation procedures and forth.(Pratt 1980)

 The contents of a subjects, concepts and tasks to be

acquired, planned activities, the desired learning
outcomes and experiences, product of culture and an
agenda to reform society makes up a
curriculum( Schubert 1987)
SOME DEFINITIONS OF CURRICULUM

 A curriculum includes “all of the experiences that

individual learners have in a program of education
whose purpose is to achieve broad goals and related
specific objectives which is planned in terms of
framework of theory and research or past and present
professional practice.”(Hass 1987)
SOME DEFINITIONS OF CURRICULUM
 It is a program of activities (by teachers and pupils)
designed so that pupils will attain so far as possible
certain educational and other schooling ends or
objectives(Grundy, 1987)
 It is a plan that consists of learning opportunities for a
specific time frame and place, a tool that aims to bring
about behavior changes in students as a result of planned
activities and includes all learning experiences received
by students with the guidance of school.(Good and Su,
1992)
SOME DEFINITIONS OF CURRICULUM
 It provides answers to three questions:
1. What knowledge, skills and values are most
worthwhile?
2. Why are they most worthwhile?
3. How should the young acquire them?
(Cronbeth, 1992)
 CURRICULUM FROM TRADITIONAL
POINT OF VIEW
 Robert M. Hutchins views curriculum as “permanent
studies” where rules of grammar, reading, rhetoric, logic
and mathematic for basic education are emphasized.
 ( The 3 R’s) should be emphasized in basic education
while liberal education should be emphasized in college.

 Arthur Bestor an essentialist who believes that the

mission of school should be intellectual training, hence
curriculum should focus on the fundamental intellectual
disciplines of grammar, literature and writing.
 It includes mathematics, science history and foreign
language.
CURRICULUM FROM TRADITIONAL
POINT OF VIEW
 Joseph Schwab thinks that the sole source of curriculum
is a discipline, thus the subject areas such as Science,
Mathematics, Social Studies, English and many more.

 In college academic discipline re labelled as humanities,

sciences, languages, mathematics among others.

 He coined the word discipline as a ruling doctrine for

curriculum development.
CURRICULUM FROM TRADITIONAL
POINT OF VIEW

 Phillip Phenix asserts that curriculum should consist

entirely of knowledge which comes from various
disciplines.
 CURRICULUM FROM PROGRESSIVE
POINT OF VIEW

 John Dewey Believes that education is experiencing.

Reflective thinking is a means that unifies curricular
elements that are tested by application.

 Holin Caswell and Kenn Campbell viewed curriculum as

all experiences children have under the guidance of
teachers.
CURRICULUM FROM PROGRESSIVE
POINT OF VIEW
 Othaniel smith, William Stanley and Harlan Shore
defined curriculum as a sequence of potential
experiences in the classroom which are planned and
enacted by the teacher and also learned by the students.

 Colin Marsh and George Willis also viewed curriculum

as all the experiences in the classroom which are planned
and enacted by the teacher and also learned by the
students.
SUMMARY

 Curriculum is what is taught in school, a set of subjects,

a content, a program of studies, a set of materials, a
sequence of courses, a set of performance objectives,
everything that goes within the school.

 It is what is taught inside and outside of school directed

by the teacher, everything planned by school or what
individual learner experiences undergone by learners in
school or what individual learner experiences as a result
of school. In short, curriculum is the total learning
experiences of the learner under the guidance of the
teacher.
APPROACHES TO SCHOOL
CURRICULUM
 Three Ways to Approach a Curriculum
 First to approach it as a content or a body of knowledge
to be transmitted
 Second is to approach it as a product or the learning
outcomes desired of learners.
 Third, is to approach it as a process or what actually
happens in the classroom, when the curriculum is
practiced.
1. CURRICULUM AS A CONTENT OR
BODY OF KNOWLEDGE
 If curriculum is equated as content, then the focus will
be the body of knowledge to be transmitted to students
using appropriate teaching method.

 Four Ways of Presenting the Content in the Curriculum

 1. Topical Approach, where much content is based on
knowledge and experiences are included
 2. Concept approach - fewer topics clusters round major
and sub-concepts and their interaction, with relatedness
emphasized
CURRICULUM AS A CONTENT OR BODY
OF KNOWLEDGE
 3. Thematic Approach as a combination of concepts that
develop conceptual structures
 4. Modular Approach leads to complete units of
instruction
CRITERIA IN SELECTION OF CONTENT
 1. Significance
 It should contribute to ideas, concepts, principles and
generalization that should attain.

 It becomes the means in developing cognitive, affective

and psychomotor skills of the learner and addresses the
cultural context of the learner.
 2. Validity

 Authenticity of the subject matter forms its validity.

CRITERIA IN SELECTION OF CONTENT
 3. Utility - usefulness of the content in the curriculum is
relative to the learners who are going to use it. It can be
relative to time.

 It may have been useful in the past but not the future.
 Questions like: Will I use this in my future job?

 Will it add meaning to my life as a lifelong learner? Or

will the subject matter be useful in solving current
concerns?
CRITERIA IN SELECTION OF CONTENT
 4. Learnability
 The complexity of the content should be within the range of
experiences of the learners.

 Appropriate organization of content standards and sequencing of

contents are two basic principles that would influence learnability.

 5. Feasibility
 Can the subject content be learned within the time allowed, resources
available, expertise of the teachers and the nature of the learners?

 Are there contents of learning which can be learned ,beyond the

formal teaching teaching-learning engagement?
CRITERIA IN SELECTION OF CONTENT
 6. Interest
 Will the learners take interest in the content? Why? Are
the contents meaningful?

 What value will the contents have in the present and

future life of the learners?

 Interest is one of the driving forces for students to learn

better.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CURRICULUM CONTENT

 Balance
 Content should be fairly distributed in depth and breadth.

 Articulation

 Smooth connections or bridging should be provided to

ensure no gaps or overlaps in the content.

 Sequence
 The logical arrangement of the content refers to
sequence or order.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CURRICULUM
CONTENT
 Integration
 Content in the curriculum does not stand alone or in
isolation. It has relatedness or connectedness to other
contents in some ways. Content should be infused in
other disciplines whenever possible. This will provide a
wholistic or unified view of curriculum instead of
segmentation.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CURRICULUM
CONTENT
 Continuity
 Content when viewed as a curriculum should
continuously flow as it was before, to where is is now
and where it will be in the future.
 It should be perennial.

 It endures time.

 Constant repetition, reinforcement and enhancement of

content are all elements of continuity.
2. CURRICULUM AS A PROCESS

As a process it is seen as an interaction among the

teachers, students and content.
 Curriculum happens in the classroom as the questions
asked by the teacher and the learning activities engaged
in by the students.

 Ex. A recipe in a cookbook, a recipe is the content while

the way of cooking is the process.

 As a process, curriculum links to content. While content

provides materials on what to teach, the process provides
curriculum on how to teach the content.
CURRICULUM AS A PROCESS
 The intersection of the content and process is called
Pedagogical Content Knowledge or the PCK.

 The three words that connotes the process of the

curriculum are instruction, implementation and teaching.