The Sabertooth Curriculum

1. Yes, students should be taught what is needed for everyday life. We need to prepare them for what is ahead. Education is always changing. We are discovering new things all the time, and we never know what the world is going to bring. The "Saber-tooth curriculum" shows proof of that. The tribe in the story thought they had everything figured out and life was going to be paradise, and then they were thrown a curve ball, and life became miserable all over again. If they did not adapt to new ways of thinking and problem solving, they would have not survived. The radicals knew they had to change the education of the children. The students needed to be taught the new skills. The only reason New-Fist started the schools was to teach children useful information, not useless information. I bet, if New Fist was still around during this changing of time, he would have told the old wise men that their intentions were good, but the education of the children needed to adapt to everyday life.

2. Yes, students be taught about life today. They are our future and it is our job to prepare them for that. By doing this, we should teach them about the past and lead them into what is ahead. They should learn new ways to think and problem solve. Their are going to be many more and new problems that we will face in life, and they are going to be the ones who will become responsible for solving them.

3. I think curriculum should teach the students both skills and content knowledge, but mostly content knowledge. The skills still are important, but as Pink says in his book "A Whole New Mind," we are entering an age that involves more thinking than ever. Our world is changing and the students need to be able to adapt to it. A curriculum that focuses more on teaching the information about what it is and how it is, will better lead our students into the future.