In 1971, Seymour Sarason published his now classic book on educational reform entitled, The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change. In the text, Sarason devotes an entire chapter to what he terms the modal process of change. The characteristics of this process, unfortunately, remain salient in today's educational climate. The Project in Intergroup Education was an educational reform that attempted to bring issues of intolerance and discrimination into K-12 classrooms during the post WWII era. In this article, I contend that using the conceptual lens suggested by Sarason's modal process, the examination of the Project offers a historical exemplar of an educational change and illuminates ways in which we might seek to challenge the typical implementation of change. Specifically we can see counterevidence to the modal process in the Project's emphasis on the significance and inclusion of the classroom teacher, the importance of school contexts and particular needs of students, and in the ways in which the curricular work of participating teachers evinced the changes sought by Project leaders.