Abstract
The academic freedom battles of the 1970s reached a climax in the MACOS controversy that signaled the virtual end of the funding period for new social studies projects. Many conservatives and traditionalists who wanted the schools to transmit the “American way” perceived MACOS as a threat. MACOS, or Man: A Course of Study, was originally the brainchild of Harvard Anthropologists Douglas Oliver and Irven DeVore for a K-6 historical and evolutionary sequence of “The Human Past.” When the project was taken over by Jerome Bruner and the Harvard ESI staff in 1964, it limited its focus to the middle grades (4–6) and focused on the question, “What is human about human beings?” Reflecting DeVore’s influence, four organizing themes emerged, designed to help children understand culture: social organization, language, mythology, and technology. The themes were to dictate where postholes would be dug. In addition, “contrasts and models” were adopted as pedagogical approaches. Contrast was to come from exercises comparing the life cycles of fish and animals with the social behavior of humans, in this case, the Netsilik Eskimos. Dramatic and graphic scenes of Netsilik life were included, among them materials depicting senilicide and other taboos of mainstream US society.
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Notes
William W. Goetz, “The Rise and Fall of MACOS: A Blip on the Historical Screen?,” TRSE 22, no. 4 (Fall 1994): 515–522.
See also, Buckley Barnes, William Stallings, and Roberta Rivner, “Are the Critics Right about MACOS?,” TRSE 9, no. 1 (Spring 1981): 35–44.
Peter B. Dow, “Innovation’s Perils: An Account of the Origins, Development, Implementation, and Public Reaction to Man: A Course of Study,” Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1979.
Karen B. Wiley. The NSF Science Education Controversy: Issues, Events, Decisions (Boulder, CO: Social Science Education Consortium, 1976).
Larry L. Kraus, “Curriculum, Public Policy, and Criticism: An Analysis of the Controversies Surrounding Man: A Course of Study,” Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1977.
Dick Hagood, “Course in Social Studies Creates Furor in Columbia,” FTU, November 5, 1970.
“Summary of Lake City Controversy,” Unsigned and undated, “Lake City, FL Controversy” folder, MACOS controversy drawer, EDC; Peter Dow, Schoolhouse Politics: Lessons from the Sputnik Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).
Dick Hagood, “Unit’s Motives Questioned in Columbia School Issue,” FTU, November 20, 1970.
Dick Hagood, “Minister Cites Objections to Social Studies Course,” FTU, November 21, 1970.
Dick Hagood, “Teachers Hit Board Ruling in Columbia,” FTU, December 4, 1970; “Columbia Co.—Lake City, Fla.” folder, controversy drawer, EDC.
Robert S. Harrison to John Gentry, November 30, 1970, “Columbia Co. — Lake City, Fla.” folder, controversy drawer, EDC.
Peter Dow to Don Koeller, December 10, 1970, “Columbia Co.—Lake City, Fla.” folder, controversy drawer, EDC.
Onalee S. McGraw, “What Educators Are Doing With Your Federal Taxes,” HE, August 14, 1971, 16.
Phyllis Musselman, “We’re All Animals—Kids Are Taught Here’,” WAN, September 22, 1971.
Phyllis Musselman, “Part IV—MACOS: It’s Your Tax $$ Isn’t It,” WAN, October 6, 1971.
Lorna Lecker, “Textbook Controversy Leads to Organization of Schoolbook ‘Watchdogs,’” BFP, Monday, November 26, 1973.
James C. Hefley, Textbooks on Trial: The Informative Report of Mel and Norma Gabler’s Ongoing Battle to Oust Objectionable Textbooks from Public Schools—and to Urge Publishers to Produce Better Ones (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1976), 114.
Peter Wolfson, “The Fight over MACOS—an Ideological Conflict in Vermont,” unpublished paper, 1–4, “Vermont” folder, controversy drawer, EDC; John Steinbacher, The Conspirators: Men Against God (Whittier, CA: Orange Tree Press, 1972), 51, 53.
Maggie Maurice, “Educator Lambastes Innovative School Programs,” BFP, November 2, 1973; Wolfson, “The Fight over MACOS,” 3.
Lorna Lecker, “South Burlington Views MACOS as Atheistic,” BFP, November 30, 1973.
Dorothy Nelkin, Science Textbook Controversies and the Politics of Equal Time (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977).
Hefley, Textbooks on Trial, 15–16; Mel and Norma Gabler with James C. Hefley, What Are They Teaching Our Children? (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 10. See also, Nelkin, Science Textbook Controversies, and Eugene F. Provenzo, Religious Fundamentalism and American Education: The Battle for the Public Schools (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press).
One source detailing a funding link to the Castle Rock Foundation is MediaTransparency.org; Heritage published and helped distribute Mel and Norma Gabler, A Parent’s Guide to Textbook Review and Reform (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 1978).
John Steinbacher, The Child Seducers (Fullerton, CA: Educator Publications, 1971).
William F. Schulz, Making the Manifesto: The Birth of Religious Humanism (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2002).
Paul Kurtz, In Defense of Secular Humanism (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1983).
Onalee S. McGraw, Secular Humanism and the Schools: An Issue Whose Time Has Come (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 1976).
Lee Edwards, The Power of Ideas: The Heritage Foundation at 25 Years (Ottawa, IL: Jameson Books, 1997), 19.
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 61.
John Birch Society website, http://www.jbs.org/ retrieved March 26, 2009; George Johnson, Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics (Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1983).
Jean Hardisty, Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John Birch Society to the Promise Keepers (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999).
Nelkin, Science Textbook Controversies, 49; “The Heritage Foundation,” Media Transparency, http:/www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants/retrieved March 26, 2009; Dan Baum, Citizen Coors: An American Dynasty (New York: William Morrow, 2000), xii.
Russ Bellant, The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1991), 1.
Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 14–15, 466–468.
Nelkin, Science Textbook Controversies, 112. 66. Richard A. Viguerie and David Franke, America’s Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power (Chicago, IL: Bonus Books, 2004).
George Archibald, “MACOS, A National Controversy,” Keynote address at seminar and luncheon, “GOOD EDUCATION OR MIND CONTROL?” sponsored by the New Jersey Leadership Foundation, January 31, 1975, “Misc. Other Controversies” folder, Controversy Drawer, EDC; Conlan was also a conservative Christian and directed a Christian Freedom Foundation project “designed to demonstrate unity between evangelical Christianity and a conservative political agenda.” See William Martin, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (New York: Broadway Books, 1996), 152–153.
H. Guyford Stever to Olin E. Teague, March 17, 1975, p. 1, “NSF Report — Draft” folder, controversy drawer, EDC.
James J. Kilpatrick, “Teaching Fifth-Graders about Eskimo-Style Sex,” Washington Star, April 1, 1975, “CLO: MACOS” folder, box 20, NSF/HF; under a different title, James J. Kilpatrick, “Is Eskimo Sex Life a School Subject,” Boston Globe, April 2, 1975, EDC.
Peter B. Dow to Jerome Bruner, April 7, 1975, “Dow-Correspondence” folder, controversy drawer, EDC.
Jerome Bruner to Peter Dow, April 12, 1975, “Dow-Correspondence” folder, controversy drawer, EDC.
Zacharias interview, PSSC, Oral History Collection, as cited by John L. Rudolph, Scientists in the Classroom: The Cold War Reconstruction of American Science Education (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 100.
Science Curriculum Review Team, NSF, Pre-College Science Curriculum Activities of the National Science Foundation: Volume I—Findings and Recommendations (Washington, DC: National Science Foundation, 1975).
Dow, Schoolhouse Politics, 220–221; Letter from student Ben Kahn, “Let Me Choose,” Middletown Press (Connecticut), April 23, 1975, “Misc. Other Local Controversies” folder, EDC.
Susan Marshner, Man: A Course of Study—Prototype for Federalized Textbooks? (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 1975), 35.
Science Curriculum Implementation Review Group, “Report of the Science Curriculum Implementation Review Group to the Chairman,” Committee on Science and Technology,” October 1, 1975, attached to J. M. Moudy to Olin E. Teague, October 1, 1975; and “Minority Report of Joanne McCauley Including Dissenting and Additional Views,” October 20, 1975, both in “CLO: MACOS” folder, box 20, NSF/HF.
Ronald O. Smith, “Response to Social Education Asks: What Was One of Your Most Interesting or Significant Experiences during Your Year as President of the National Council for the Social Studies,” SE 34, no. 7 (November 1970): 812, 868.
NCSS, “Minutes: 13th Delegate Assembly, NCSS House of Delegates,” SE 34, no. 4 (April 1970): 466–471.
The controversy and cut in funding meant a gradual disappearance from classrooms. See, for example, Harry F. Wolcott, “The Middlemen of MACOS,” AEQ 38, no. 2 (June 2007): 195–206.
Peter Dow, interview in Charles Laird, Through These Eyes (Documentary Educational Resources: Watertown, MA, 2003), DVD.
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© 2011 Ronald W. Evans
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Evans, R.W. (2011). The MACOS Controversy and Beyond. In: The Tragedy of American School Reform. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119109_6
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