Introduction
The NSF Strategy
MACOS Materials
Lessons Learned
J. Myron Atkin
Rodger W. Bybee
George DeBoer
Peter Dow
Marye Anne Fox
John Goodlad
Jeremy Kilpatrick
(Glenda T. Lappan)
Thomas T. Liao
F. James Rutherford
Introduction
The NSF Strategy
MACOS Materials
Lessons Learned
|  | Lessons from the Sputnik Era in Mathematics Education (continued)
Glenda T. Lappan, Michigan State University The MACOS Materials: How Success Can Go Awry
Much of the curriculum development work in the 50s and 60s had as
an underlying goal to bring the excitement of research in areas of
science into the classroom, to engage students in activities that
encouraged them to think like scientists. In September 1964 Jerome
Bruner took a leave from Harvard to launch a project at Educational
Services Incorporated (ESI) (now Educational Development Center
(EDC)) to develop a Social Studies Program. These materials
became the Man: A Course of Study (MACOS) curriculum. These
were elementary school materials that combined pioneering fieldwork
on the social behavior of baboons, with films of the Netsilik Eskimo
done as a part of a Ford Foundation Project at ESI, and activities
that gave children hands-on experiences in making sense of science
and social science.
The intellectual underpinnings of MACOS are to be found in
Bruner’s book The Process of Education which was a report of a
conference at Woods Hole that was held in September 1959. The
ideas of MACOS were exhilarating: that one could give children
authentic experiences with real social science research and have them
comprehend out of these experiences what the essence of being
human is. Peter Dow, one of the MACOS team members, reports in
School House Politics that as MACOS first hit the schools it was
viewed with great excitement as an original and very engaging way to
promote scientific literacy and to help children learn to think like
social scientists. The dynamic engagement with ideas and with
materials was heralded as a great achievement. The materials were
distributed across the nation and acclaimed as an outstanding social
studies curriculum.
By the early 70s however, the mood of the country was changing.
Distrust of federally funded materials was increasing. A concern that
mathematics curricula were not developing basic skills, that the
materials were too esoteric and not of practical use, was heating up.
And the pressure on MACOS was about to begin. “The first sign of
impending trouble appeared in Lake City, a small market town in
northern Florida (population 10,000), in the fall of 1970. Shortly
after school opened in September, Reverend Don Glenn, a Baptist
minister who had recently moved to Lake City visited his daughter’s
sixth-grade class at the Minnie J. Niblack Elementary School and
asked her teacher for copies of the MACOS materials” (Dow 1991,
p.178). As Dow tells the story, the school was under a court
ordered integration plan. The teachers had chosen the materials
because they felt they might help ease racial tensions. However,
when Reverend Glenn saw the materials he formed a study group to
examine MACOS in detail. Glenn claimed that the materials
advocated sex education, evolution, a “hippie-yippee philosophy,”
pornography, gun control, and Communism. With support of a local
radio station he broadcast four hour-long programs criticizing
MACOS. He read excerpts from the student and teacher materials
and warned that MACOS was a threat to democracy. This set off a
growing series of attacks on MACOS over several years that led to
a full scale Congressional debate of MACOS in both houses in
1975. NSF launched an internal review of its Education Directorate
activities including an audit of the fiscal management of the project at
EDC. While the audit revealed little to complain about, the damage in
a sense was done. Dow quotes the former acting assistant director
for science education, Harvey Averch, “It was the worst political
crisis in NSF history.” (Dow 1991, p. 229).
The upshot of the MACOS controversy was a decade of little
education activity at NSF. The Education Directorate was
downsized to an Office with a skeleton staff and few programs.
However, the outcry for a federal role in education finally overcame
the conservative politics of the Reagan presidency, and in 1985 a
Directorate for Science and Engineering Education was established
within NSF. The initial level of funding for education efforts was not
anywhere near the commitment of Congress to NSF education
activities during the height of the curriculum development efforts of
the 50s and 60s. However, the directorate was back in the business
of supporting teacher enhancement and curriculum development in
science and mathematics and has increased its activities dramatically
in the past decade.
The question this session presents cuts to the heart of the matter:
What have we learned from the Sputnik stimulated education
activities that can help us in the current efforts to improve science and
mathematics teaching and learning?
What have we learned from the Sputnik Era?
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