The Epic Narrative of Intellectual Culture as a Framework for Curricular Coherence

Abstract

This paper describes a proposed middle school curriculum designed to coordinate the major subject areas around a single coherent story line, and to tell the epic tale of the development of formal intellectual culture from its distant origins to the present day. Ourstory explores the history of scientific culture from the perspective of foundational disciplines (history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, anthropology). It examines the growth of scientific culture against the backdrop of the world’s traditional cultures, and balances the role of the sciences against the role of the arts in their respective contributions to the life of the mind.