Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education by Ontario Ministry of Education
page 41 of 377 (10%)
page 41 of 377 (10%)
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Thus school knowledge frequently fails to function to an adequate degree
in the practical affairs of life. =How to Avoid This Danger.=--To meet this difficulty, school work must be related as closely as possible to the practical experiences of the child. This would cause the teacher, for example, to draw his problems in arithmetic, his subjects in composition, or his materials for nature study from the actual life about the child, while his lessons in hygiene would bear directly on the care of the school-room and the home, and the health of the pupils. Moreover, that the work of the school may represent more fully the conditions of actual life, pupils should acquire facility in correlating different types of experience upon the same problem. In this way the child may use in conjunction his knowledge of arithmetic, language, geography, drawing, nature study, etc., in school gardening; and his arithmetic, language, drawing, art, etc., in conjunction with constructive occupations. =Value of Typical Forms of Expression.=--A chief cause in the past for the lack of connection between school knowledge and practical life was the comparative absence from the curriculum of any types of human activity. In other words, though the ideas controlling human activity were experienced by the child within the school, the materials and tools involved in the physical expression of such ideas were almost entirely absent. The result was that the physical habits connected with the practical use of knowledge were wanting. Thus, in addition to the lack of any proper co-ordinating of different types of knowledge in suitable forms of activity, the knowledge itself became theoretic and abstract. This danger will, however, be discussed more fully at a later stage. =B. Curriculum May Become Fossilized.=--A second danger in the use of |
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