Man: A Course of Study. Occasional Paper No. 3.

Written in 1965, the author describes the initial stages in the development of the elementary level curriculum, Man: A Course of Study. The structure and form of the course and three pedagogical techniques are discussed. The course is organized around the humanizing forces of tool-making, language, social organization, the management of man's prolonged childhood, and man's urge to explain. Plans for the section on language include a consideration about what communication is, the design features of a language, arbitrariness, acquisition, and the role of language in shaping human characteristics. The tool-making section is designed from a philosophical approach; the object is to explore how tools affected man's evolution. The unit on social organization focuses on the nature of structure in a society, roles filled by people, and the world view of a society. The childrearing unit centers around three themes: the extent to which and the manner in which the long human childhood leads to dominance of sentiment in human life, the human tendency toward mastery of skill for its own sake, and the shaping of man by the patterning of childhood. The fifth unit concerns itself with man's drive to explicate and represent his world through symbolic systems. The three pedagogical techniques emphasized to achieve the goals of these units are contrasting, using games, and stimulating self-consciousness about assumptions. The author states his plan to create far more units than could possibly fit into a school year in order to provide the teacher with flexibility in planning. (KC)