SCIENCE IN THE CLASSICAL CURRICULUM
Susan Wise Bauer
Copyright 2000 by the author. Please do not reproduce. This material is adapted in part from The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, which contains much more information on this topic.
Grammar-stage science:
What are your goals?
- Arouse enthusiasm and satisfy natural curiosity
- Accustom child to reading and writing as a method of discovery
- Teach child how to observe carefully
(this isn’t natural as observation is – you use this also)
(don’t do lots of experiments: at this age, it is frustrating.
- Show science to be a coherent field of study with its own rules
(schools use the spiral approach, six weeks of this, six weeks of that, which is great for a skill but NOT for a content area! Science is, slightly, on the border between the two.)
- Introduce child to the vocabulary of science
What is your method?
- Study those aspects of science which the child finds naturally interesting
- Read about each subject; write briefly
- Focus on observation-centered study (NOT deduction-based study)
- Use a science “spine” that concentrates the child’s attention on a single area
- Find a program which uses, and explains, proper vocabulary
What do you require of the child?
- Concentration for 15 minutes to 45 minutes at a time
- Reading of 1 paragraph to 2 pages on a scientific topic
- Writing of 1 sentence to two paragraphs in summary
- Proper use and spelling of vocabulary
Logic-stage science
What are your goals?
- Teach the proper use of the scientific method
- Teach the limits and biases of the scientific method
- Accustom child to proper record-keeping methods
- Lead child into an understanding of the goals and limits of each scientific field
- Teach child to follow a logical progression of thought
What is your method?
- Focus on one field of study long enough to learn its procedures
- Use a curriculum that focuses on experimentation and deduction
- Require proper record-keeping:
1. What question am I trying to answer?
2. What could the answer be?
3. How will I test this answer?
4. What result did I get?
5. Does this agree with the answer I thought I would get? If not, what
answer should I give instead?
- Teach child to question the basic assumptions of the text
- Use multiple sources
- Look for logical fallacies and presuppositions.
What do you require of the child?
Require child to read more than one source
- Ask child to outline material and look for logical fallacies
Rhetoric-stage science
What are your goals?
-Instill a technical knowledge of the scientific disciplines
-Help the student understand science as a “human endeavor”
-Put science into its historical and social context
-Use science as a way to discuss ideas
What is your method?
-Use a technically thorough, upper-level science text
-Pursue an outside course of “science reading” in chronological order
-Discuss the philosophical issues raised by each field of science
-Trace the development of technology through history
-Question the “facts.” Always ask: why did this idea arise now?
What do you require of the child?
-Diligent mastery of the technical aspects of science
-Outside reading in the “great texts” of science
-Regular 2-4 page papers summarizing the lives and historical settings of
scientists
-Research projects tracing the development of particular ideas and technologies
-An attitude of healthy skepticism.
Go back to the Well Trained Mind Home page or Workshops and Handouts page.
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