The Saber-Tooth Curriculum is a collection of seven short, satirical stories that illustrate

some quirky aspects of our education system. The same Stone Age society is used as a
metaphor for our modern world throughout.

Allusion to the modern world is thinly-veiled. This Stone Age society has middle
schools, universities, education officials, investors, and even a national curriculum. Only
humour—including humorous names of people and school subjects—separates this
Stone Age society from reality.

The main messages in this book’s seven stories are:

1. The scientific method has made absurd yet un-disprovable theories become accepted in
education; (See this example.)
2. Schools teach an outdated set of skills to students;
3. School reform meets resistance from all angles;
4. Universities dictate school curricula with lofty, academic content and overcomplicate
education with ‘credits’, ‘units’ and rules on ‘pre-requisites’;
5. Unions control education for the short-term benefit of society;
6. When young people learn outdated skills, they can’t find meaningful work;
7. All of this is extremely difficult to change.

I agree with most of these points. After graduation from Cambridge during the economic
crisis with no job, no practical skills and no employers even remotely interested in hiring
biology graduates, I felt I’d been cheated into some massive con. Unlike history or art,
biology isn’t particularly interesting to other people, either. I would love to see curricula
become more relevant to society than they are today—we’d have a more interesting,
more employable crop of graduates in years to come.

Part II, The Saber-Tooth Curriculum, is the most famous story in this book. In synopsis,
a cave-dwelling society refuses to alter its school curricula despite an impending ice age
which completely redefines the skills required in the workplace. This story highlights
how schools still teach swathes of irrelevant knowledge (too much maths, too much
chemistry) and neglect the useful skills to the detriment of everyone (reading, writing,
health, religion, and more).

The most incredible thing about this book is that it’s still relevant 70 years after being
written! As long as school curricula are playing catch-up with society, The Saber-Tooth
Curriculum will stay relevant. Recommended for anyone who went to university.

Source:
Kennedy, James (2013). Book: The Saber-tooth Curriculum. Melbourne, Australia. Retrieved on January
19, 2020 from https://jameskennedymonash.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/book-the-saber-tooth-
curriculum/