Goals for Each Stage of Learning Science: Conference Handout

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 Goals, Methods, Requirements

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

Methods

• 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 Goals, Methods, Requirements

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

Methods

• 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:
  • What question am I trying to answer?
  • What could the answer be?
  • How will I test this answer?
  • What result did I get?
  • Does this agree with the answer I thought I would get?  If not, what answer should I give instead?
• Teach the 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 Goals, Methods, Requirements

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

Methods

• 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.