"Man: A Course of Study" in Retrospect: A Primer for Curriculum in the 70's

Author(s): Peter B. Dow

Source: Theory into Practice, Vol. 10, No. 3, A Regeneration of the Humanities (Jun., 1971),
pp. 168-177
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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Man: A Course Study
of
A Primer for Curriculum
Peter B. Dow
Director, Social Studies CurriculumProgram
Education Development Center
The decade which opened with the publica-
tion of Jerome Bruner's The Process of Educa-
tion (1960) and ended with the appearance in
English of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Op-
pressed (1970) has been a challenging one for
curriculum designers. In the early 1960's edu-
cators sought to reform the schools by stressing
the structure of the disciplines and the method-
ologies of academic scholarship. Bruner put the
task succinctly: "The schoolboy learning physics
is a physicist, and it is easier for him to learn
physics behaving like a physicist than doing
something else."'
This predominantly intellectual emphasis
in curriculum building, which first took shape in
a variety of federally supported science and
mathematics programs (PSSC, SMSG, BSCS,
etc. ), in time brought on a reaction from Freu-
dian psychologists like Lawrence Kubie and
Richard Jones who urged educators to pay
closer attention to the emotional needs of grow-
ing children. In Kubie's view, "The child's fifth
freedom is the right to know what he feels . . .
this will require new mores for our schools,
ones which will enable young people from early
years to understand and feel and put into words
Jerome S. Bruner, The Process of Education
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 14.
168
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in Retrospect:
in the 70's
all the hidden things which go on inside of
them. ..."
Finally, in the past few years there has been
an increasing demand on the part of social revo-
lutionaries like Ivan Illich and Paulo Freire for
a recognition of the social implications of edu-
cation and the power of the schools either to
domesticate or to liberate their students. As
Richard Shaull observes in his foreword to
Freire's recent book:
There is no such thing as a neutral educa-
tional process. Education either functions as
an instrument which is used to facilitate the
integration of the younger generation into
the logic of the present system and bring
about conformity to it, or it becomes "the
practice of freedom," the means by which
men and women deal critically and creative-
ly with reality and discover how to partici-
pate in the transformation of their world.3
Considered together, these diverse pres-
sures for educational reform emphasize the
2 As quoted in Richard M.
Jones, Fantasy and
Feeling in Education (New York: Harper and Row,
1968), p. 126.
3Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Herder
and Herder, 1970), p. 15.
growing problem which educators face in meet-
ing the complex intellectual, emotional, and
social needs of children. What should we do?
As a curriculum designer concerned with the
translation of educational theory into class-
room practice, I believe we must consider how
these varied concerns can be integrated in our
teaching programs so that education can become
an increasingly humanizing enterprise. What are
the intellectual and pedagogical assumptions up-
on which a curriculum is built? What image of
man and what view of society does it reflect?
What sort of future does it strive to invent?
These are the questions that must guide the
development of curriculum in the 1970's.
The Process of Education, Revisited
In his now celebrated book The Process of
Education,4 Jerome Bruner proposes that cur-
riculum design be based upon the structure of
the academic disciplines: "The curriculum of a
subject should be determined by the most funda-
mental understanding that can be achieved of
the underlying principles that give structure to
the subject."5 The argument rests on the grounds
of economy: such learning permits generaliza-
tion, it makes knowledge usable beyond the
context in which it is learned, and it facilitates
memory, for unconnected facts are easily for-
gotten.
A second major contribution of Bruner's
book is the controversial hypothesis that "any
subject can be taught effectively in some intel-
lectually honest form to any child at any stage of
development."" This is not a denial of Piaget's
findings regarding the stages of a child's cogni-
tive growth7-which are, in fact, carefully articu-
lated in the book-but an invitation to educators
to experiment with the presentation of new
knowledge to young children in order to stimu-
late intellectual growth as early as possible.
Bruner suggests a "spiral" curriculum in which
central issues and problems are returned to in
4Now translated into approximately 20 lan-
guages, this work has become a handbookfor edu-
cators in dozens of countries, including the Soviet time in the social and behavioral sciences, was
Union. In addition to Bruner's views it represents a
compilation of more than 30 educators who met underway. Stimulated in part by a conference
together for a two-week conference at Woods Hole held at Endicott House, Dedham, Massachusetts,
in September,1959.
5 Bruner, The Process of Education, p. 31.
6
Ibid., p. 33.
7 Preoperational
thought, concrete operations,
formal operations.
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appropriate forms at different stages of develop-
ment.
A third idea, largely ignored by educators,
is Bruner's distinction between intuitive and
analytic thinking. He defines intuition as "the
act of grasping the meaning, significance or
structure of a problem or situation without ex-
plicit reliance on the analytic apparatus of one's
craft."8 Bruner urges the cultivation of intuition
-of clever guessing-as a complement to ana-
lytic thinking and suggests that the grading
system used in schools may tend to inhibit
intuitive thought.
In retrospect these ideas retain considerable
merit, but from our more troubled perspective
the rationalism and optimism of the arguments
are surprising. The belief seems to be that if
only we can get knowledge into the right form,
students will develop willingly into competent
intellectuals.
Perhaps the most challenging idea for us
today is the suggestion that intuitive thought is
as important as analysis. As education turns
increasingly to areas of human concern where
questions abound and where answers are few
and short-lived-whether the field be child de-
velopment, technology, international politics, or
race relations-a style of thought which can be
comfortable with the tentative hypothesis and
the unanswered question will be increasingly
necessary. Even school children must learn to
live comfortably on the frontiers of human
knowledge.
What is surprisingly missing from The Pro-
cess of Education is any exploration of the re-
lationship between learning and society. Bruner
warns of the dangers inherent in the trend to-
ward "meritocracy" in an increasingly intellect-
ualized world, but there is little discussion of
the social purposes of education, and the scien-
tific and technological bias of curriculum reform
of that period is not seriously challenged.
Man: A Course of Study
By 1965 a new curriculum movement, this
in the summer of 1962, and supported by the
National Science Foundation, the Office of Edu-
8
Bruner, The Process of Education, p. 60.
169
cation, and several major private foundations,
many prominent historians and social scientists
began to work with teachers and curriculum
specialists in an effort to reform the teaching of
the social sciences and humanities.
Abandoning his comfortable position as de-
tached observer, Bruner took leave from Har-
vard's Center for Cognitive Studies to try his
hand at curriculum by directing the early de-
velopment of a social studies course for fifth
grade students entitled Man: A Course of Study.f"
In a paper written in 1965 he established the
initial guidelines for that course and revealed
his own increasing interest in the cultural impli-
cations of curriculum building:
There is a dilemma in describing a course of
study. One must begin by setting forth the
substance of what is to be taught, else there
can be no sense of what challenges and
shapes the curiosity of the student. Yet the
moment one succumbs to the temptation to
"get across" the subject, at that moment the
ingredient of pedagogy is in jeopardy. For
it is only in a trivial sense that one gives a
course to "get something across," merely to
impart information. There are better means
to that end than teaching. Unless the learn-
er also masters himself, disciplines his taste,
deepens his view of the world, the "some-
thing" that is got across is hardly worth the
effort of tranmission.1(
Three central questions define the intellect-
ual and pedagogical concerns of Man: A Course
of Study: What is human about human beings?
How did they get that way? How can they be
made more so? The course strives to get children
to explore the major forces that have shaped
and continue to shape man's humanity-lan-
guage, tool use, social organization, mythology,
and prolonged immaturity. Through contrast
with other animals, including our close primate
relatives, the baboons, children examine man's
biological nature. By comparing American so-
ciety with that of a traditional Eskimo group,
9 This course is now published by Curriculum
DevelopmentAssociates, Inc., 1211 ConnecticutAve-
nue, N.W., Washington,D.C.
10Jerome S. Bruner, Man: A Course of Study,
Occasional Paper No. 3, Social Studies Curriculum
Program, Educational Services Incorporated (now
Education Development Center, Inc.), Cambridge,
1965, p. 4. p. 125.
170
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they explore the universal aspects of human
culture.
The principal aims of Man: A Course of
Study are intellectual: "to give our pupils re-
spect for and confidence in the powers of their
own mind, . . . to provide them with a set of
workable models that make it simpler to analyze
the nature of the social world,"11 etc. Yet the
question "How can man become more human?"
asks that children and teachers consider the
personal and social implications of their study
of man. If man, through the self-designing tool
of culture, becomes, in part, his own maker, then
those who participate in Man: A Course of Study
may be led to reflect upon how their individual
lives, as well as society itself, may be reshaped
in order to maximize the attainment of a fuller
humanity.
Toward a Complete Theory of Instruction
The first comprehensive critique of Man: A
Course of Study and the curriculum theory on
which it was built appeared in 1968 in Fantasy
and Feeling in Education by Richard Jones. A
psychologist of the Freudian school Jones criti-
cizes Bruner for failing to recognize and use the
potential which the Man: A Course of Study
materials contain for fostering the emotional
growth of children:
A comprehensive theory of instruction
should seek to prescribe not only optimal
levels of intellectual uncertainty, risk, and
relevance but also optimal levels of emo-
tional involvement and personal curiosity.
Pose the purely cognitive challenge to a
fifth grade child of speculating on the ab-
sence of social fatherhood among baboons
and he is likely to be led to levels of uncer-
tainty, risk and relevance that are either too
high or too low to support his best thoughts
-depending on what his uninstructed self-
interests happen privately to make of it.
But find a way to engage his heart in the
problem and you are likely to see the child
rise naturally to his own optimal levels of
uncertainty, risk and relevance. This is but
a long-winded restatement of the homily
that we learn best when we care most.12
11Ibid., pp. 22-23.
12Jones, Fantasy and Feeling in Education,
 Drawing extensively on the work of Erik In other words, a child's ability to learn and a
Erikson, Jones maintains that a theory of in- teacher's ability to teach in any given instruc-
struction requires a serious consideration of the tional situation is dependent upon the proper
emotional growth patterns of children, and he meshing of the "phase specific" emotional needs
presents Erikson's chart of life cycle stages to of two individuals at different stages of the life
buttress his argument (see chart on pp. 172-73). cycle. Thus if a student's deficiency in learning
He points out that if these patterns are under- skill in a specific area clashes with a teacher's
stood by teachers, they can use the opportuni- inability to instruct, a mutual growth crisis may
ties provided by good curriculum for helping result. Therefore, a complete theory of instruc-
children deal with the emotional issues which tion must consider the emotional needs of teach-
are salient at particular stages of the life cycle. ers and students alike.
For example, a child in the latency period (about Recalling his experience with the early de-
8 to 12 years) where the central growth crisis velopment of Man: A Course of Study, Jones
is "mastery versus defeat" may use his new illustrates his ideas with many examples taken
found skills in logical thought to reinterpret a from his own classroom observations. A case in
long-standing conflict with one of his parents. point is a class discussion of a group of slides
As Jones puts it, "What was unpredictable and taken from the Herring Gull unit. The students
inconsistent, and therefore unmanageable, may are examining adaptive coloration and instinc-
now become consistent and predictable and tive behavior of gull chicks in the early weeks
therefore manageable. Anxiety can be converted of life. The point of the lesson is to illustrate
into mere irritation-or even tolerance."13 One the inflexible, "programed" quality of gull be-
might assume that such mastery of the home havior, and to contrast these patterns with the
environment could have an additional payoff in flexibility of human learned responses. Toward
increased self-confidence in school. the end of the lesson the following exchange
At the center of Jones' argument is Erik- takes place:
son's assumption that emotional growth is "epi-
Teacher: "In this last slide you see one of
genetic," that is, subject to reshaping throughout
the life cycle and not limited by Freudian in- the juvenile gulls crouching in
fantile determinism. He states, "Psychoanalytic that particular position of sub-
mission. They do that to keep
theory may now be used not only 'post-dictively'
to chart how a person's past has determined his from being attacked by the big-
present; it may also be used predictively to chart ger gulls."
how a person's present may both determine his Student: (increduously) "You mean they
and redetermine his past."14
attack their young?"
future Herein lie
both the potential for teachers and the impli- Student: (uneasily) "How long before
cations for education generally. If emotional they can fly away?"
Student: (annoyed) "How long do they
growth, like cognitive growth, can be shaped in
instructional situations, both curriculum makers have to do that? When could they
and teachers must become more mindful of the fight back?"
Student: (anxiously) "Do they . . . hurt
part a child's own life history plays in the course
of his development. ... their . . . own ... young?"
Teacher: "Well, I guess gulls can some-
But the argument does not end with a con-
times be pretty mean."'I;
sideration of the emotional growth of children.
Drawing on Erikson's concept of mutuality, In Jones' view these children are voicing
Jones goes on to state that psychosocial develop- their anxieties about adult authority, parental
ment is intergenerational and therefore "the
domination, and the ability of the strong to in-
significance of this or that skill, attitude, or jure the weak. He suggests that here is an ex-
quality of awareness varies as a function of its cellent opportunity to engage children's feelings
position between the child's phase of develop- in the content of learning. How and why do
ment and the teacher's phase of development."15
15 Ibid., p. 144.
13
Ibid., p. 143. 16Jones, Fantasy and Feeling in Education,
14 Ibid., p. 144. p. 185.
171

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 A B C D

LIFE PSYCHOSEXUAL COGNITIVE IMAGINAL

STAGES STAGES SKILLS THEMES

Infancy Oral-sensory- attention incorporation

respiratory- observation total embracement
kinesthetic Zones inspection or absorption
Incorporative Modes "oceanic" proportions

Play Age Anal-urethral- affirmation disappearance

muscular Zones negation reappearance
Eliminative- exclusion power
retentive Modes postponement magic
control
impotence

Infantile-genital- investigation exploration

locomotor Zones contemplation discovery
Intrusive-inclusive scrutiny metamorphosis
Modes reflection origination

School Age Latency Period representation invention

transcription construction
paraphrase achievement
metaphorical
thought
Puberty and intuition justice
Adolescence generalization revolution
insight reformation
individuation utopias

Young Genitality paradox true love

Adulthood enigma
dialectic

Adulthood Genitality and tolerance generation

Generativity preception regeneration

Senescence Physical and Mental "ultimate concern"

Decline

Reprinted by permission of New York University Press from Fantasy and Feeling In Education by Richard M. Jones, copyright
(c) 1968 by New York University.

172

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 E F G H I
QUALITIES OF
RECIPROCITY
IN EXPANDING
RADIUS OF NUCLEAR QUALITIES RELATED
SIGNIFICANT PSYCHOSEXUAL GROWTH OF SOCIAL
RELATIONS MODALITIES CRISES AWARENESS STRUCTURES

Trustworthy To get Trust and Hope Organized

Maternal To take Mistrust (Drive) Faith
Persons
(implicit faith)

Judicious To hold (on) Autonomy and Will Law and

Parental To let (go) Shame- (Control) Order
Persons doubt
(implicit justice)

Exemplary To "make" Initiative Purpose Moral Law

Basic Family (- going and Guilt (Direction)
(implicit morality) after)
To "make
like"
(- play)

Instructive To turn to Industry nad Skill Technology

Adults To know how Inferiority (Method)
(implicit techno-
Igoical ethos)

Confirming To be (one- Identity and Devotion Ideology

Adults and self) Identity (Fidelity)
affirmative Diffusion
peers
(implicit ideological
verification)

Mates and Partners To share (one- Intimacy and Love Organized

in search of self) Isolation (Affiliation) Cooperation
shared identity and
(implicit social selection) Competition

Progeny and Products To let be Authority Care Education

in need of To make be and Self- (Production) and
generative ingenuity To take care of absorption Tradition
(implicit social mutation)

New Generation To face not Integrity and Wisdom Literature

in need of being Despair (Renunciation) and
integrated To be a has Philosophy
heritage been

173

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adults discipline the young? Why do people try
to dominate each other? Why do some submit
to others? When does a child become free of
parental control? How do humans differ from
other animals in this regard? What about the
relationship between teachers and students in
school? Jones argues that the potential of Man:
A Course of Study to achieve its stated objec-
tives would be enhanced if teachers were trained
to pay closer attention to the emotional needs
of children and to the power which such atten-
tion can release for furthering cognitive learn-
ing.
In conclusion Jones attacks Bruner for re-
jecting Lawrence Kubie's distinction between
unconscious and preconscious functioning, and
for passing off Freudian approaches to education
as "a form of pedagogical romanticism." Any
complete theory of instruction, he insists, must
find a way to relate the findings of cognitive
psychology to the insights of psychotherapy. In
support of this view he cites Kubie's arguments
for a consideration of the importance of pre-
conscious processes in human learning:
There is abundant experimental and
clinical evidence to indicate that traditional
conceptions of how human beings think and
learn have started from a natural but totally
misleading assumption that we think and
learn consciously. This is not true. Conscious
processes are important not for thinking but
for sampling, checking, and correcting and
as tools for communication. The intake of
factual data about the world around us is
overwhelmingly preconscious, i.e., sublimi-
nal. This preconscious input consists of an
incessant subliminal bombardment, which
goes on both when we are awake and when
we are asleep...
Second, the bits of information which
are furnished to us in this way, whether
subliminal or conscious, are then "pro-
cessed" in the machine that we call the
brain. This too is done on a subliminal level.
All of this is just another way of saying that
most if not all of our thinking is precon-
scious rather than conscious ...
Psychologists, psychiatrists, neurolo-
gists, neurophysiologists have erred together
in their undue emphasis on the conscious
components of mentation. This has misled
174
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the educator into neglecting the precon-
scious instrument of learning, which is the
effective instrument of recording, processing
and of creating. We should learn how to do
better than this. The question is how?17
In Jones' view Kubie's question should be
a central concern of future curriculum planners.
Education as Liberation
In some respects Man: A Course of Study
and other curricula created by national research
and development centers face an even greater
challenge from the new educational revolution-
aries who argue that all formal schooling is in-
herently oppressive. At least one prominent edu-
cator has recently remarked that Man: A Course
of Study is the product of an intellectual ruling
class and that it was created to subject teachers
and students to the domination of the ideas of
a scholarly elite.
One of the most persuasive proponents of
this revolutionary view of schooling is the Bra-
zilian educator, Paulo Freire. Freire developed
his ideas on education while teaching literacy to
poverty-stricken Brazilian peasants. By relating
literacy training to their immediate economic
and social problems, he rapidly transformed a
voiceless population into a powerful political
force. For this he was exiled by a government
that was hostile to his methods and goals.
In his Pedagogy of the Oppressed Freire
sets forth his pedagogic creed:
Only through communication can hu-
man life hold meaning. The teacher's think-
ing is authenticated only by the authenticity
of the students' thinking. The teacher can-
not think for his students, nor can he im-
pose his thought on them. Authentic think-
ing, thinking that is concerned about reality,
does not take place in ivory tower isolation,
but only in communication. If it is true that
thought has meaning only when generated
by action upon the world, the subordination
of students to teachers becomes impos-
sible....
17Lawrence S. Kubie, "Research in
Protecting
Preconscious Functions in Education," in Richard
M. Jones, ed., Contemporary Educational Psychology
(New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 76-78.
 This movement of inquiry must be di-
rected towards humanization-man's his-
torical vocation. The pursuit of full human-
ity, however, cannot be carried out in iso-
lation or individualism, but only in fellow-
ship and solidarity; therefore it cannot
unfold in the antagonistic relations between
oppressors and oppressed. No one can be
authentically human while he prevents
others from being so. Attempting to be more
human, individualistically, leads to having
more, egotistically: a form of dehumani-
zation. Not that it is not fundamental to
have in order to be human. Precisely it is
necessary, some men's having must not be
allowed to constitute an obstacle to others'
having, must not consolidate the power of
the former to crush the latter.
Problem-posing education, as a human-
ist and liberating praxis, posits as funda-
mental that men subjected to domination
must fight for their emancipation. To that
end, it enables teachers and students to be-
come Subjects of the educational process by
overcoming authoritarianism and alienating
intellectualism; it also enables men to over-
come their false perception of reality. The
world-no longer something to be described
with receptive words-becomes the object
of that transforming action by men which
results in their humanization.18
Central to Freire's pedagogical thought is
the notion of dialog, the continuous interaction
between students and teachers in their search
for understanding:
Dialog is the encounter between men,
mediated by the world, in order to name the
world....
Because dialog is an encounter among
men who name the world, it must not be a
situation where some men name on behalf
of others. It is an act of creation; it must not
serve as a crafty instrument for the domina-
tion of one man by another. The domination
implicit in dialog is that of the world by the
dialogers; it is conquest of the world for the
liberation of men.
Dialog cannot exist, however, in the
absence of a profound love for the world
18
Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed,pp. 63-64,
73-74.
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and for men. The naming of the world,
which is an act of creation and re-creation,
is not possible if it is not infused with love.
Love is at the same time the foundation of
dialog and dialog itself. It is thus necessarily
the task of responsible Subjects and cannot
exist in a relation of domination.19
Although developed in a country with a
sizable voiceless and impoverished proletarian
class, Freire's pedagogy has profound appeal for
an increasing segment of the student population
in the United States that feels victimized by an
unresponsive educational system. Taken literally
Freire's methods would eliminate all formal edu-
cational programs and allow curriculum to be
built from the immediate problems of those who
seek liberation from their oppressed condition.
What would this mean for curriculum projects
such as Man: A Course of Study?
There is clearly a conflict between the peda-
gogy Freire espouses and curriculum building
on a national scale if curriculum decisions con-
tinue to be made by state adoption boards to be
imposed with no recourse on a powerless popu-
lation of students and teachers. Until curriculum
decisions rest where they belong, in the hands
of the users, curriculum reform movements will
continue to be used as instruments of oppression.
A liberating education must perforce originate
from the aspirations of the participants.
Nevertheless, the pedagogical design of
Man: A Course of Study carries much of the
spirit of Freire's aims. The classroom is con-
ceived as a social enterprise in which learning
proceeds from a dialog between students or-
ganized into small groups, and between students
and teachers. These discussions turn around
significant questions which often have no clear-
cut answers. A comprehensive evaluation of
Man: A Course of Study, conducted under the
direction of Dean Whitla of the Harvard Office
of Tests, revealed that a large percentage of
teachers using the course transformed their
teaching style during the first year of teaching
to increase the amount of student-centered dia-
log. As one teacher trainer observed:
Teachers have really had a new look at kids,
because in the nature of this material, if you
listen at all to children, you come out with
19Ibid., pp. 76-78.
175
 a brand-new respect for what they have to
say. And that is the area I think that we've
succeeded in most ...20
Crucial to the success of these encounters
is the presence of a teacher who conceives of
himself as a developing human being who, like
his students, is searching for answers to funda-
mental human questions-who is seeking intel-
lectual growth and a liberated spirit for himself
as well as his students. This requirement poses
a formidable teacher education problem, but that
is a topic which deserves much fuller treatment
than is possible here.
In another sense also Man: A Course of
Study is at least partly responsive to Freire's
exacting demands. The subject matter itself is
the center of Freire's concerns. "The content of
the course is man: his nature as a species, the
forces that shaped and continue to shape his
humanity."21After working closely with the poor
in an effort to generate appropriate educational
programs, Freire reports:
One of these basic themes (and one
which I consider central and indispensable)
is the anthropological concept of culture.
Whether men are peasants or urban work-
ers, learning to read or enrolled in a post-
literacy program, the starting point of their
search to know more (in the instrumental
meaning of the term) is the debate of the
concept. As they discuss the world of cul-
ture, they express their level of awareness
of reality, in which various themes are im-
plicit. Their discussion touches upon other
aspects of reality, which comes to be per-
ceived in an increasingly critical manner.
These aspects in turn involve many other
themes.
With the experience now behind me, I
can affirm that the concept of culture, dis-
cussed imaginatively in all or most of its
dimensions, can provide various aspects of
an educational program.22
20 As
quoted in Janet P. Hanley and Dean K.
Whitla, Curiosity, Competence, Community, Man:
A Course of Study, An Evaluation (Summary), pre-
pared by Education Development Center, Inc.
(Washington, D.C.: Curriculum Development As-
sociates, Inc., 1970), p. 27.
21
Bruner, Man: A Course of Study, p. 4.
22Freire,
Pedagogy of the Oppressed,p. 117.
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If Freire is correct about the power of the
concept of culture to help oppressed peoples
achieve liberation, it may suggest some signifi-
cant new directions for curriculum development
in the coming decade. With the rise in ethnic
consciousness everywhere, and the worldwide
demand for recognition of human diversity, the
pressure is on for societies to find more effective
ways to integrate their differences. Perhaps a
serious study of the biological nature of man and
a more developed understanding of the universal
properties of human culture are prime requi-
sites for establishing effective inter-ethnic and
cross-cultural communication. If so, Man: A
Course of Study is a modest beginning.
Guidelines for the Future
I hope that this brief survey of some
pedagogical ideas from the past decade suggests
some areas for investigation by those who em-
bark on the hazardous task of curriculum de-
velopment for the difficult years ahead. Among
our most pressing needs is a clearer under-
standing of the ways in which teachers can
stimulate the cognitive development of young
children. What Bruner suggested in the early
1960's about the appropriateness of new intel-
lectual challenges in the early grades seems
even more urgent today: it is now an accepted
fact that "schooling" of some sort should take
place even in the preschool years. Recent studies
of infancy have confirmed the value of early
cognitive stimulation in the development of lan-
guage and have pointed up the problems which
arise from intellectual and emotional depriva-
tion in a culture of poverty. As Patricia Marks
Greenfield has observed:
Not only can people fail to realize goals,
the environment can fail to provide a
growth-promoting sequence for them. I
should like to suggest that the goals set for
the child by his caretakers and the relation
of these to the child's available means is a
critical factor in determining the rate and
richness of cognitive growth in the early,
formative years.23
23 As quoted in Jerome S. Bruner, "Poverty
and Childhood,"paper presented for the Annual
Citation Award of the Merrill-Palmer Institute,
Detroit, Michigan,June 9, 1970, p. 9.
 Secondly, while the application of Erikson's
life cycle stages to education remains prob-
lematic, much could be learned from efforts to
apply his concept of mutuality in exploring how
educators can support the emotional growth of
students and teachers. If psychosocial develop-
ment is intergenerational, as Richard Jones sug-
gests, then we must find new ways to capitalize
on the many opportunities for cross-generational
interaction which exist within the schools. In
particular, new curriculum programs should
have built-in arrangements for cross-age tutor-
ing, teaching in younger classes, working in day
care centers and head start programs, and new
forms of community involvement.
Lastly, curriculum makers must become in-
creasingly sensitive to the social and political
implications of curriculum building. In design-
ing curricula, we cannot escape the fact that
we make choices and impose values on the con-
stituency of students and teachers we serve. If
no schooling is neutral, and we believe in free-
dom of choice, then we must increase curricu-
lum options and be explicit about the social
goals of our curriculum materials. And in our
continuing search to understand the central
purposes of curriculum, we would do well to
have our ears tuned to the increasingly liberated
voices of the young, and to keep the writings of
Bruner, Erikson, and Freire close at hand.

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