Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study - Ontario. Department of Education

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and birds and flowers".

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      CONCRETE MATERIAL

      It is evident that concrete material must be provided and so distributed that each member of the class will have a direct opportunity to exercise his senses, and, from his observations, to deduce inferences and form judgments. The objects chosen should be mainly from the common things of the locality. The teacher should be guided in the selection by the interests of the pupils, first finding out from them the things upon which they are expending their wonder and inquiry. Trees, field crops, flowers, birds, animals of the parks, woods, or farmyard, all form suitable subjects for study.

      TOPICS AND MATERIAL MUST SUIT THE SEASON

      The material should be selected not only with reference to locality but also with due regard to season. For example, better Nature Study lessons can be taught on the elm tree of the school grounds than on the giant Douglas fir of British Columbia; and on the oriole whose nest is in the elm tree than on the eagle portrayed in Roberts' animal stories; and it is manifestly unwise to teach lessons on snow in summer, or on flowers and ants in winter.

      MATTER MUST BE SUITED TO THE CHILD

      For the urban pupil the treatment of the material must be different from that in the case of the pupil of the rural school. Rural school pupils have already formed an extensive acquaintance with many plants and animals which are entirely unknown to the children of the city. The simpler facts which are interesting and instructive to the pupils of the urban classes would prove commonplace and trivial to rural pupils. For example, while it is necessary to show the city child a squirrel that he may learn the size, colour, and general appearance of the animal, the efforts of the pupil of the rural school should be directed to the discovery of the less evident facts of squirrel life.

      USE OF THE COMMONPLACE

      It must be kept in mind that besides leading the pupils to discover new sources of interest, the teacher should strive to accomplish that which is even greater, namely, to lead them to discover new truth and new beauty in old, familiar objects. It may be true that "familiarity breeds contempt" and there is always a danger that the objects with which children have associated in early life may be passed by as uninteresting while they go in search of something "new and interesting".

      For example, to be able to recognize many plants and to call them by name is no doubt something of an accomplishment, but it should not be the chief aim of the teacher in conducting Nature Study lessons on plants. It is of much greater importance that the child should be led to love the flowers and to appreciate their beauty and their utility. Such appreciation will result in the desire to protect and to produce fine flowers and useful plants, and this end can be reached only through intelligent acquaintanceship. There can be no true appreciation without knowledge, and this the child gets chiefly by personal observation and experiment. With reference to the wild flowers of the woods and fields, the method employed is that of continuous observation.

      ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE LESSON

      Each animal or plant should be studied as a living, active organism. The attention of the pupils should be focused upon activities; for these appeal to the child nature and afford the best means for securing interest and attention. What does this animal do? How does it do it? How is it fitted for doing this? How does this plant grow? What fits it for growing in this way? These are questions which should exercise the mind of the child. They are questions natural in the spirit of inquiry in child nature and give vitality to nature teaching. They are an effective means of establishing a bond of sympathy between the child and nature. The child who takes care of a plant or animal because it is his own, does so at first from a purely personal motive, which is perfectly natural to childhood; but while he studies its needs and observes its movements and changes, gradually and unconsciously this interest will be transferred to the plant or animal for its own sake. The nature of the child is thus broadened during the process.

      PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION

      In studying the material provided, whether it be in the class-room, or during a nature excursion, or by observations made in the farmyard at home, the teacher must guide the efforts of the pupils by assigning to them definite and suitable problems. Care must be taken to reach the happy mean of giving specific directions without depriving the pupils of the pleasure of making original discovery. For example, instead of asking them to study the foot of the horse and learn all they can about it, more specific problems should be assigned, such as: Observe how the hoof is placed on the ground in walking. What are the arrangements for lessening the shock when the hoof strikes the ground? Examine the under surface of the hoof and discover what prevents the unshod horse from slipping.

      NOTE-BOOKS AND RECORDS

      In Grades higher than Form I, written exercises should be required and also sketches representing the objects studied. For this purpose a Nature Study note-book is necessary—a loose-leaf note-book being preferable because of necessary corrections, rearrangements, additions, or omissions.

      In all records and reports, independence of thought and of expression should be encouraged. The drawing and the oral or written description should express what is actually observed, not what the book or some member of the class says has been, or should be, observed. The descriptions should be in the pupil's own words, because these are most in keeping with his own ideas on the subject. More correct forms of expression may be obtained when notes are taken from the teacher's dictation, but this is fatal to the development of originality.

      The disparity of the results in individual work gives opportunity for impressing upon the pupil, in the first place, the necessity for more accurate observation and, secondly, the impossibility of reaching a correct general conclusion without having studied a large number of examples. The development of critical and judicious minds, which may result from carefully observing many examples and generalizing from these observations, is vastly more important than the memorizing of many facts.

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      In the study of garden plants there is added a certain new interest arising out of experimentation, cultivation, and ownership. The love of the gardener has in it elements that the love of the naturalist does not usually possess—a sort of paternal love and care for the plants produced in his garden; but every gardener should be a naturalist as well. Most people have a higher appreciation for that which they own and which they have produced or acquired at some expense or personal sacrifice; therefore it is that the growing of plants in home and school gardens or in pots and window boxes is so strongly advocated throughout this Course. Ownership always implies responsibility, which is at once the chief safeguard of society and the foundation of citizenship. A careless boy will never respect the property of others so much as when he himself has proprietary interests involved. We believe, therefore, that every teacher should encourage his pupils to cultivate plants and, if possible, to own a plot of ground however small.

      The teacher should not merely aim at making a garden in the school grounds. The great question is rather how best to use a school garden in connection with the training of boys and girls. To learn to do garden work well is indeed worth while and provides a highly beneficial kind of manual training. To understand something of soils and methods of cultivation, of fertilizers and drainage, the best kinds of flowers, vegetables, fruits, and farm crops, and how to grow them successfully, is very important in such a great agricultural country as this; but the greatest of all results which we may hope to realize in connection with school gardening is the ennobling of life and character. The

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