Man: A Course of Study

Man: A Course of Study (MACOS) was an upper-elementary-level, interdisciplinary social science curriculum that predominantly featured the principles of evolution and anthropology. Originating during the post-Sputnik educational environment when federal funds and university academics were ubiquitously present in curriculum design projects, MACOS was developed by Education Service Incorporation, a private, nonprofit organization that had been created by scientist Jerrold Zacharias. In 1962, Zacharias assembled a group of scholars who felt curriculum should teach children to act as investigating social scientists rather than teach an aimless survey of facts. These scholars, along with classroom teachers, collaboratively engaged in one of the most significant, federally supported education projects in curriculum studies history.

In 1964, Jerome Bruner, cognitive psychologist, assumed stewardship of MACOS, the elementary branch of the international, nonprofit Education Development Center's social studies' project. Bruner wanted to develop a curriculum that would help students respect, learn about, and be able to transfer general principles about humanity and the social world. Most importantly, Bruner wanted pupils to develop confidence in their mind's ability to question and interact with information. MACOS's content and pedagogical approach both reflected this goal.

The ideological superstructure of MACOS's content was man's nature and how it related to and was distinct from other species. This distinction was specifically explored through cultural forces' shaping influence on humanity. To focus on such expansive generalities, three guiding questions were proposed: What is human about human beings? How did they get that way? How can they be made more so? To illuminate these questions, five cultural forces (language, tool making, social organization, prolonged childhood, and humans' urge to explain) would be explored as the course progressed through its two major components: animal and cultural.

MACOS examined several animal species with increasingly complex life cycles, communication systems, social behaviors, and child-rearing practices. This examination began with salmon and herring gulls, which laid the content foundations for an in-depth analysis of baboons. Learning about each species revealed to students how human's biological and social nature compared with other organisms, with a final transition to MACOS's cultural component. This unit's goal was to help students realize how culture reveals both distinct differences and similarities between humans. Through the use of unnarrated film of the Netsilik Eskimo's hunter-gatherer society, students conceptualized humans' universalities and culture's influence.

To teach this content, MACOS employed diverse media and activities, thereby allowing educators to provide many and varied learning opportunities. These opportunities were buttressed by Bruner's four pedagogical principles: contrast, encouragement of hypothetical thinking, participation, and stimulation of self-consciousness. Contrast, found in the comparisons of humans versus higher primates, humans versus prehistoric humans, contemporary technological societies versus so-called primitive societies, and adult versus children, was designed to classify the course's content. Students were encouraged to develop hypotheses about the presented content. Models of reality and embodiments of important generalities incorporated games, role playing, and other participatory activities.

Beginning in 1967, MACOS was employed in schools throughout America, and in the early 1970s, began encountering resistance. Some parents challenged what they perceived as an elementary class promoting unchristian, wanton values and behaviors. Other parents and educators disputed these charges and enthusiastically supported MACOS. Eventually, MACOS's curriculum engendered such controversy that it reached the House of Representatives and a national audience.

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