Like Six Boxes® Performance Thinking, Harless's Accomplishment Based Curriculum Development (ABCD) methodology, originally applied in adult training and performance improvement, was anchored in identification of the valuable products of behavior, what Harless called
accomplishments and what we call
work outputs.
Harless envisioned an educational system in which communities would come together to define the accomplishments they wanted their young people to be able to produce when they entered adulthood, both personal and work-related. The idea was that the community of stakeholders would prioritize what was most important for graduates to become truly accomplishment citizens.
The Eden Conspiracy
lays out this philosophy, presents step-by-step methodologies for what Harless called Front End Analysis and Curriculum Design, and describes the impact on education he believed this approach could have. He argued that community-based, bottom-up educational reform, based on rigorous local analysis of needs, could be more effective and sustainable than the many top-down educational reform efforts we have seen over the years.
Carl had the opportunity to write a Prologue, connecting the origins of behavior science with Harless's work and highlighting some of its features. Carl also wrote a Prologue, describing the amazing outcomes over the last 20 years that this approach has produced in Harless's home state of Georgia, elsewhere in the U.S., and n other nations.
This inexpensive book ($19.95) is an important read for educators, policy makers, politicians, community leaders, business people, and parents. It will also benefit the Cambridge Center, an important organization in the field of behavior science.
