That the dining-room and kitchen connect with the country and its
processes and products it is hardly necessary to say. Cooking may be so
taught that it has no connection with country life and with the sciences
that find their unity in geography. Perhaps it generally has been taught
without these connections being really made. But all the materials that
come into the kitchen have their origin in the country; they come from
the soil, are nurtured through the influences of light and water, and
represent a great variety of local environments. Through this connection,
extending from the garden into the larger world, the child has his most
natural introduction to the study of the sciences. Where did these things
grow? What was necessary to their growth? What their relation to the
soil? What the effect of different climatic conditions? and so on. We all
know what the old-fashioned botany was: partly collecting flowers that
were pretty, pressing and mounting them; partly pulling these flowers to
pieces and giving technical names to the different parts, finding all the
different leaves, naming all their different shapes and forms. It was a
study of plants without any reference to the soil, to the country, or to
growth. In contrast, a real study of plants takes them in their natural
environment and in their uses as well, not simply as food, but in all
their adaptations to the social life of man. Cooking becomes as well a
most natural introduction to the study of chemistry, giving the child
here also something which he can at once bring to bear upon his daily
experience. I once heard a very intelligent woman say that she could
not understand how science could be taught to little children, because
she did not see how they could understand atoms and molecules. In other
words, since she did not see how highly abstract facts could be presented
to the child independently of daily experience, she could not understand
how science could be taught at all. Before we smile at this remark, we
need to ask ourselves if she is alone in her assumption, or whether it
simply formulates the principle of almost all our school practice.
The same relations with the outside world are found in the carpentry
and the textile shops. They connect with the country, as the source of
their materials, with physics, as the science of applying energy, with
commerce and distribution, with art in the development of architecture
and decoration. They have also an intimate connection with the university
on the side of its technological and engineering schools; with the
laboratory and its scientific methods and results.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account