The best method of presenting the principles to the children was the
next problem. The study of the questions asked had shown that the
children's interests were centered in the explanation of a wide
variety of familiar facts in the world about them. It seemed evident,
therefore, that a presentation of the principles that would answer
the questions asked would be most interesting to the child. Experience
with many different classes had shown that it is not necessary to
subordinate these explanations of what children really wish to know to
other methods of instruction of doubtful interest value.
Obviously the quantitative methods of the high school and college were
unsuitable for pupils of this age. We want children to be attracted to
science, not repelled by it. The assumption that scientific method
can be taught to children by making them perform uninteresting,
quantitative experiments in an effort to get a result that will tally
with that given in the textbook is so palpably unfounded that it
is scarcely necessary to prove its failure by pointing to the very
unscientific product of most of our high school science laboratories.
After a good deal of experimenting with children in a number of
science classes, the method followed in this book was developed.
Briefly, it is as follows:
At the head of each section are several of the questions which, in
part, prompted the writing of the section. The purpose of these is to
let the children know definitely what their goal is when they begin a
section. The fact that the questions had their origin in the minds
of children gives reasonable assurance that they will to some extent
appeal to children. These questions in effect state the problems which
the section helps to solve.
Following the questions are some introductory paragraphs for arousing
interest in the problem at hand,--for motivating the child further.
These paragraphs are frequently a narrative description containing a
good many dramatic elements, and are written in conversational style.
The purpose is to awaken the child's imagination and to make clear the
intimate part which the principle under consideration plays in his own
life. When a principle is universal, like gravity, it is best brought
out by imagining what would happen if it ceased to exist. If a
principle is particular to certain substances, like elasticity, it
sometimes can be brought out vividly by imagining what would happen if
it were universal. Contrast is essential to consciousness. To contrast
a condition that is very common with an imagined condition that is
different brings the former into vivid consciousness. Incidentally, it
arouses real interest. The story-like introduction to many sections is
not a sugar coating to make the child swallow a bitter pill. It is
a psychologically sound method of bringing out the essential and
dramatic features of a principle which is in itself interesting, once
the child has grasped it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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