Extracts from "The Handbook of Nature Study" by Anna Botsforc Comstock. Written in 1911, the principles she lays out remain fresh and relevant nearly 100 years later!
What Nature-Study Is
Nature-Study is a study of nature; it consists of simple, truthful observations that may, like beads on a string, finally be threaded upon the understanding and thus held together as a logical and harmonious whole. The object of Nature-Study should be to cultivate in children the powers of accurate observation and to build up within them understanding.
What Nature-Study Should Do for the Child
Nature-Study cultivates the child's imagination, since there are so many wonderful and true stories that he might read with his own eyes. At the same time, Nature-Study cultivates in him a perception and a regard for what is true, and the power to express it.
Perhaps half the falsehood in the world is due to lack of power to detect the truth and to express it.
Nature-Study cultivates in the child the love of the beautiful; it brings to him early a perception of colour, form and music.
But, more than all, Nature-Study gives the child a sense of companionship with life out-of-doors and an abiding love of nature.
Let this latter be the teacher's criterion for judging his or her work. If Nature-Study as taught does not make the child love nature and the out-of-doors, then it should cease. However, if the love of nature is in the teacher's heart, there is no danger.
When and Why the Teacher Should Say "I Do Not Know"
No science professor in any university, if he be a man of high attainment, will hesitate to say "I do not know" if they ask for information beyond his knowledge. The greater his scientific reputation and erudition, the more readily, simply, and without apology, he says this.
It is only the teacher in the elementary schools who has never received enough scientific training to reveal to her how little she does know, who feels that she must appear to know everything or her pupils will lose confidence in her.
In Nature-Study, any teacher can with honour say, "I do not know".
But she should not let lack of knowledge be a wet blanket thrown over her pupil's interest. She should say frankly: "I do not know; let us see if we cannot together find out this mysterious thing. Maybe no one knows it as yet, and I wonder if YOU will discover it before I do".
The Use of Scientific Names
This matter is of little importance if the teacher bears in mind that the purpose of Nature-Study is to know the subject under observation and to learn the name incidentally.
If the teacher says, "I have a pink hepatica. Can anyone find me a blue one?" the children, who naturally like grown-up words, will soon be calling these flowers hepatica.
But if the teacher says, "These flowers are called hepaticas. Now please everyone remember the name. Write it in your books as I write it on the blackboard, and in half an hour I shall ask you again what it is," the pupils naturally look upon the exercise as a word lesson and its real significance is lost.
How To Use the Book
Make the lesson an investigation and make the pupils feel that they are investigators. To tell the story to begin with spoils this attitude and quenches interest.
And lots more in the book including
What Nature-Study Should Do for the Teacher
Nature-Study as a Help to Health
Nature-Study as a Help in School Discipline
The Relation of Nature-Study to Science
The Child Not Interested in Nature-Study
The Correlation of Nature-Study with Language Work
The Correlation of Nature-Study and Drawing
The Correlation of Nature-Study with Geography
The Correlation of Nature-Study with History
The Correlation of Nature-Study with Arithmetic
Showing posts with label messages and methods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label messages and methods. Show all posts
Monday, July 30, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Techniques for reawakening love for nature
Extracts from "The Lost Language of Plants" by Stephen Harrod Buhner (a great book that you should try to read if you can, I have a copy).
"Human beings, throughout most of their habitation of Earth, have been so completely interwoven into their environment that, until recently, there was no separation between them."
"Such deep interconnectedness to environment is so fundamental to us as a species that, ultimately, it is not possible to understand ourselves as human beings without understanding something of wild nature itself."
"Because experience of nature and other life-forms is so deeply interwoven into our emergence as a species, human beings possess a genetic predisposition for wild nature and other life-forms -- though it must, through specific experiences, be activated".
"Edward Wilson calls this innate feeling or caring for living forms and systems, for nature, biophilia."
"There are holes inside all of us. Emptiness that can only be filled by some of the other life on this Earth. Without filling them, we live a half-life, never becoming fully human, never being healed or whole or completely who we are. Never becoming completely sane."
"The loss of connection to the land, to Earth, leaves the holes with which we are naturally born unfilled. Merely human approaches can never heal them. Pathologies come from the empty hole that are unfilled, from lack of contact and communication with the wild."
"The holes within us possess particular shapes -- that of stone or tree or bear."
"Many people believe we should first establish this reconnection in the young. But I think that the best hope for restoring it is with the grown -- those in whom the impulse for biophilia has been stunted, those in whom the interior wound is deep, those in whom the need is the greatest."
"If simple information were enough to stimulate the experience, a book will do as well. But books do not and cannot do as well."
"Licensed teachers are embedded in a human-centric, we're-the-most-intelligent approach. They are likely to belittle the living reality found in nature."
"The teacher must embody the experience itself, so that the child can observe it in action and the teacher teaches."
Techniques for restroring biophilia
"The restoration of our capacity for biophilia begins with restoring, and supporting, our capacity for feeling."
"Restoring biophilia ... means 'coming to our senses', especially the sense of feeling -- of touch -- of being touched by the world."
"It has nothing to do with theory. Feelings come first, thinking second; thinking in service of feeling."
"This experience cannot be written down or found in books. It can only be developed ... by allowing ourselves to be touched by the livingness of the world, and exploring the meanings we encounter."
"This reconnects us to everything around us -- to everything that generates those feelings. It reweaves us into the fabric of life."
There are 9 exercises in the book, here is one of them.
Exercise 3
Go to a place in nature that you like. (Be sure and take a journal with you.) Choose a place you have been to before. Find the area that you like most and relax. Sit if you want to; get comfortable.
How does this place feel? Try to describe it in words. Be as specific as you can. Go on in your journal at length if you need to. Write down everything that comes to you no matter how silly it sounds. Even if you think it's crazy.
When you're done, allow your eye to rove, to be drawn to whatever one thing is most interesting to you. Look at it. Let your eye explore it, nothing everything about it. The colours, the shape, how it rests or grows in the ground. Its relation to the air around it, to the plants, water, soil, rocks around it.
What feelings do you have? Write them down.
Is there any part of what you are looking at that you like more? Less? Why? Can you tell? Do all parts of what you are looking at generate the same emotion? Different emotions? Write everything down in your journal.
Do this with at least two things that you see. Make sure that one of them is a plant. You can get up close if you want to, place your eye on a level plane, take an insect view. How is the plant shaped, how does it feel to your fingers, how does it smell? What emotions does it generate in you? Write everything down.
Now go to another natural place, different from the first. Sit down and relax. Get comfortable. How does this place feel? Write down everything that you notice. Go on at length.
Does this second place feel different from the first place you sat? How are the feelings different? Which place feels better -- the first or the second? Is there a name you can give the feeling you had at the first place? A name you can give the second? Names that will make clear the difference in feeling that you perceive? If you can't think of a word make something up.
When you are finished, as you did last time, find something your eye is drawn to and write down everything that you feel and perceive. Do this as well with two other things, at least one of them a plant.
Each place on Earth has unique feelings associated with it, as does each thing that grows or resides there. The number of shadings of their emotional nuances run into the thousands. Each can fit into a specific space within the different human beings that need them. There is a richness in feeling, a companionability that comes from perceiving, the complex interweaving of emotional textures that reside in the life that surrounds us.
"Human beings, throughout most of their habitation of Earth, have been so completely interwoven into their environment that, until recently, there was no separation between them."
"Such deep interconnectedness to environment is so fundamental to us as a species that, ultimately, it is not possible to understand ourselves as human beings without understanding something of wild nature itself."
"Because experience of nature and other life-forms is so deeply interwoven into our emergence as a species, human beings possess a genetic predisposition for wild nature and other life-forms -- though it must, through specific experiences, be activated".
"Edward Wilson calls this innate feeling or caring for living forms and systems, for nature, biophilia."
"There are holes inside all of us. Emptiness that can only be filled by some of the other life on this Earth. Without filling them, we live a half-life, never becoming fully human, never being healed or whole or completely who we are. Never becoming completely sane."
"The loss of connection to the land, to Earth, leaves the holes with which we are naturally born unfilled. Merely human approaches can never heal them. Pathologies come from the empty hole that are unfilled, from lack of contact and communication with the wild."
"The holes within us possess particular shapes -- that of stone or tree or bear."
"Many people believe we should first establish this reconnection in the young. But I think that the best hope for restoring it is with the grown -- those in whom the impulse for biophilia has been stunted, those in whom the interior wound is deep, those in whom the need is the greatest."
"If simple information were enough to stimulate the experience, a book will do as well. But books do not and cannot do as well."
"Licensed teachers are embedded in a human-centric, we're-the-most-intelligent approach. They are likely to belittle the living reality found in nature."
"The teacher must embody the experience itself, so that the child can observe it in action and the teacher teaches."
Techniques for restroring biophilia
"The restoration of our capacity for biophilia begins with restoring, and supporting, our capacity for feeling."
"Restoring biophilia ... means 'coming to our senses', especially the sense of feeling -- of touch -- of being touched by the world."
"It has nothing to do with theory. Feelings come first, thinking second; thinking in service of feeling."
"This experience cannot be written down or found in books. It can only be developed ... by allowing ourselves to be touched by the livingness of the world, and exploring the meanings we encounter."
"This reconnects us to everything around us -- to everything that generates those feelings. It reweaves us into the fabric of life."
There are 9 exercises in the book, here is one of them.
Exercise 3
Go to a place in nature that you like. (Be sure and take a journal with you.) Choose a place you have been to before. Find the area that you like most and relax. Sit if you want to; get comfortable.
How does this place feel? Try to describe it in words. Be as specific as you can. Go on in your journal at length if you need to. Write down everything that comes to you no matter how silly it sounds. Even if you think it's crazy.
When you're done, allow your eye to rove, to be drawn to whatever one thing is most interesting to you. Look at it. Let your eye explore it, nothing everything about it. The colours, the shape, how it rests or grows in the ground. Its relation to the air around it, to the plants, water, soil, rocks around it.
What feelings do you have? Write them down.
Is there any part of what you are looking at that you like more? Less? Why? Can you tell? Do all parts of what you are looking at generate the same emotion? Different emotions? Write everything down in your journal.
Do this with at least two things that you see. Make sure that one of them is a plant. You can get up close if you want to, place your eye on a level plane, take an insect view. How is the plant shaped, how does it feel to your fingers, how does it smell? What emotions does it generate in you? Write everything down.
Now go to another natural place, different from the first. Sit down and relax. Get comfortable. How does this place feel? Write down everything that you notice. Go on at length.
Does this second place feel different from the first place you sat? How are the feelings different? Which place feels better -- the first or the second? Is there a name you can give the feeling you had at the first place? A name you can give the second? Names that will make clear the difference in feeling that you perceive? If you can't think of a word make something up.
When you are finished, as you did last time, find something your eye is drawn to and write down everything that you feel and perceive. Do this as well with two other things, at least one of them a plant.
Each place on Earth has unique feelings associated with it, as does each thing that grows or resides there. The number of shadings of their emotional nuances run into the thousands. Each can fit into a specific space within the different human beings that need them. There is a richness in feeling, a companionability that comes from perceiving, the complex interweaving of emotional textures that reside in the life that surrounds us.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
LOVE Nature
When I was guiding at Semakau Landfill, I had thought that it would be nice to have some short, impactful, and yet easy-to-remember acronym that I could use at my debrief for my participants. Finally, about half a year ago, I came up with LOVE Nature. Do feel free to use this in your debrief if you find it useful :)
L - Learn about nature
You can effectively protect and care for nature only if you understand it, or else you may end up doing more harm! You can read nature books, visit online resources (e.g. WildSingapore, blogs etc), and join guided nature walks (Semakau, BWV, CJ etc). For the Naked Hermit Crabs, L also stands for - Leave all nature things behind, but leave no man-made things behind. E.g. Don't collect shells, or the hermit crabs will have to run around naked! And take your rubbish with you when you leave the nature places.
O - Open up and share with others
Share with your friends what you've learned. Put it up in a blog, or invite friends to join nature walks. On top of sharing what can be found at our nature places and how nice they are, please also share about how we can protect them. E.g. The litter such as plasic bags) you throw in nature places may be mistaken as food by the animals, and they may choke and die after eating them. There is also the problem of collecting and poaching from our nature places. If more and more people collect and poach, eventually our future generations will not get to experience seeing and touching these wonderful living things in their natural environment.
V - Volunteer
Play a more active role! There are many ways you can volunteer. You can become a nature guide, or help to monitor seagrass and coral reefs, or help to plant trees, or help to set up and manage exhibitions etc. Visit WildSingapore.com for more info!
E - Express your views through the proper channels
Singaporeans like to complain, and thus when the authorities get too many complaints, they have to do something. So do send in compliments about how much you like our nature places to remain the way they are! And if you disagree with certain things the authorities are doing, express you views through the proper channel. You can send to http://www.reach.gov.sg/, or send to the forum on the papers.
So bascially, what we hope our visitors will do after attending our walks is very simple - just LOVE Nature!
L - Learn about nature
You can effectively protect and care for nature only if you understand it, or else you may end up doing more harm! You can read nature books, visit online resources (e.g. WildSingapore, blogs etc), and join guided nature walks (Semakau, BWV, CJ etc). For the Naked Hermit Crabs, L also stands for - Leave all nature things behind, but leave no man-made things behind. E.g. Don't collect shells, or the hermit crabs will have to run around naked! And take your rubbish with you when you leave the nature places.
O - Open up and share with others
Share with your friends what you've learned. Put it up in a blog, or invite friends to join nature walks. On top of sharing what can be found at our nature places and how nice they are, please also share about how we can protect them. E.g. The litter such as plasic bags) you throw in nature places may be mistaken as food by the animals, and they may choke and die after eating them. There is also the problem of collecting and poaching from our nature places. If more and more people collect and poach, eventually our future generations will not get to experience seeing and touching these wonderful living things in their natural environment.
V - Volunteer
Play a more active role! There are many ways you can volunteer. You can become a nature guide, or help to monitor seagrass and coral reefs, or help to plant trees, or help to set up and manage exhibitions etc. Visit WildSingapore.com for more info!
E - Express your views through the proper channels
Singaporeans like to complain, and thus when the authorities get too many complaints, they have to do something. So do send in compliments about how much you like our nature places to remain the way they are! And if you disagree with certain things the authorities are doing, express you views through the proper channel. You can send to http://www.reach.gov.sg/, or send to the forum on the papers.
So bascially, what we hope our visitors will do after attending our walks is very simple - just LOVE Nature!
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