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.