REORGANIZATION OF SCIENCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

PART I. THE AIMS, METHODS, AND ORGANIZATION OF SCIENCE AS A WHOLE IN SECONDARY EDUCATION.

I. GENERAL STATEMENT.

There is widespread recognition of the need for reorganizing science courses in secondary schools. Numerous encouraging efforts already have been made to redirect, enrich, and otherwise improve these courses. The variation of purposes for which sciences are taught, the increasing number of sciences offered, the development of intensive specialization within various sciences, the lack of sequence in the order in which they are frequently given, the wide variation in methods and content are striking evidences of the need for an approach to agreement. Only by comparison of the courses in many progressive schools can any tendency toward such uniformity be perceived. Steps should be taken also to prevent this increase in number and in specialization from diminishing the value of the instruction from the standpoint of the general needs of pupils and the needs of society.

Successful reorganization is made difficult by the narrow point of view of those persons who see in the movement an opportunity to advance the particular branch of science in which they are most interested and to demand for it a larger proportion of the pupil's time. More time is not a guaranty of increased efficiency. The more thoughtful teachers recognize that the values of science study will be increased if high-school science is planned as a whole and if the separate courses are made to follow fundamental principles of sequence. The progressive development of the pupil is essential. Moreover, the science course in any high-school year should be so organized as to constitute the best training for that period, regardless of any further science courses that the pupil may take.

The task of reorganization would be met only partially and incompletely if it attempted no more than an organization of coherent courses. Each science course needs such redefining as to purpose, and such rearranging of materials, as will bring it into harmony with valid principles. The proposed organization of subject matter is based upon:

(a) Numerous studies of the tendencies in science teaching in the country at large, and particularly in secondary schools in which experimental work upon reorganization has been undertaken.

(b) The experience and judgment of science teachers who have studied the modern needs of science teaching.

(c) The judgment of supervising officers and professors of education as expressed in their writings bearing upon science teaching and in their criticisms of the manuscript of this report.

Part I of this report contains three main divisions:

I. The general aims and purposes of secondary science instruction.

II. General principles governing the selection of material and its presentation.

III. Science sequences recommended for various conditions. Part II of the report presents the principal courses in science treated separately.

II. GENERAL AIMS AND PURPOSES.

The general aims and purposes of science teaching are here stated first with reference to the main objectives of education, and secondly, with reference to the specific knowledge, habits, powers, interests, and ideals that should be developed.

A. Contribution to educational objectives.-The Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education in its report entitled "Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education" (Bul. No. 35, 1918, U. S. Bu. of Edu.) has set forth seven main objectives of education upon which work in the secondary school should be focused. These objectives are derived from the point of view of the commission, namely, that:

It is the firm belief of this commission that secondary education in the United States must aim at nothing less than complete and worthy living for all youth, and that therefore the objectives described herein must find place in the education of every boy and girl.

Science instruction is especially valuable in the realization of six of these objectives, namely, health, worthy home membership, vocation, citizenship, the worthy use of leisure, and ethical character.

(1) Health. It is important that those who are ill may be cured. but it is much more important that people be so taught that they may not become ill. The control and elimination of disease, the provision of adequate hospital facilities and medical inspection, the maintenance of the public health, all necessitate widely disseminated knowledge and practice of the basic principles of personal hygiene and public sanitation. It is the duty of the secondary schools to provide such instruction for all pupils. This purpose finds realiza

tion chiefly through science and civics. Therefore, health topics should be included in the science taught in the junior high school, and in at least the first two years of the four-year high school.

(2) Worthy home membership.-Science touches the efficiency of the home and of life within the home at every angle. General science, biology, physiology, physics, chemistry, all have definite services to render toward the proper organization, use, and support of home life. A great vitalizing force for science instruction can be found in the relation of these courses to intelligent homemaking, management, and enjoyment. It is a serious criticism of science teaching in the past that these fundamental relationships have been so largely overlooked. These relationships apply not only to those who have the care of the home and of the children within it, but also to such other members of the family as may be called upon to make repairs to the heating and ventilating system, to adjust the electrical appliances, or to perform any of the many services that make for an effective home. Science has devised many conveniences that make the modern home comfortable and attractive, and science knowledge is required for their full appreciation and most intelligent use. These activities should be definitely related to better ideals regarding modern home life.

(3) Vocation.-Science instruction should contribute both to vocational guidance and to a broad preparation for vocation.

In the field of vocational guidance such instruction should make many valuable contributions to a more intelligent understanding of the world's work and such an understanding should be so presented as to be of direct assistance in the wise selection of a vocation. Such knowledge should also impress students selecting certain vocations with the importance of making thorough and adequate preparation for their life work.

In the field of vocational preparation, courses in shop physics, applied electricity, physics of the home, industrial and household chemistry, applied biological sciences, physiology, and hygiene will be of value to many students if properly adapted to their needs. Often a knowledge of the underlying principles increases the worker's enjoyment, helping him to think intelligently about and understand the processes with which he deals. Moreover, such knowledge and the interest aroused thereby may result in improving the work itself, and may result in inventions for the improvement of the work of others.

(4) Citizenship.-The members of a democratic society need a far greater appreciation of the part which scientifically trained men and women should perform in advancing the welfare of society. Science teaching should therefore be especially valuable in the field of

citizenship because of the increased respect which the citizen should obtain for the expert, and should increase his ability to select experts wisely for positions requiring expert knowledge. At the same time it should afford the basis for an intelligent evaluation of the services rendered by such experts.

Furthermore, the study of science should give a more intelligent appreciation of the services rendered to society by those who are engaged in vocations of a scientific nature and occupations based upon applications of science. Such appreciation of the services rendered should lead to greater respect for the worker who renders the service.

(5) Use of leisure time.-Science opens the door to many useful and pleasurable avocations. Photography may be taken up by many, but most intelligently by one who understands something of the nature of light, the action of lenses, the chemical changes involved in exposing, developing, and fixing plate and print. In the city and in the country, at the seashore, mountains, and elsewhere, nature is prodigal of her store of wonders. If the natural interest in these things has been developed and deepened by elementary courses in biology, botany, or zoology, not only is there added pleasure and enjoyment, but the door has been opened to wider interests, and to a rapidly growing fund of valuable literature regarding science. The marvelous adaptations of plants to their environment, the march of plant progressions, the sharp competitions among the forms of animal and plant life, the history of the remote past recorded in the rocks, are topics which mean much to one whose eyes have been opened by science instruction. To have avocational value, science courses should employ methods that can be used after school days. Trips to industrial plants to study raw materials, processes, and finished products, and visits to museums, are means of developing lifelong sources of enjoyment.

(6) Ethical character.--Science study should assist in the development of ethical character by establishing a more adequate conception of truth and a confidence in the laws of cause and effect. Science, along with other studies that exalt truth and establish laws, should help develop sane and sound methods of thinking upon the problems of life.

B. Specific values of science study.-(1) The development of interests, habits, and abilities.-Each pupil of secondary school age should develop many and varied interests in the fields of science. In times past these interests came to a great extent from experiences in home life, particularly on the farm and in the village, but as life has become increasingly complex and specialized it devolves more and more upon the school to supply the opportunities for actual

contact with materials that have real significance in the life of man, contacts that result in keen interests, appreciation, and power. To be of the maximum effect the experiences should be markedly different from those that are vicariously furnished by books, diagrams, and symbolic materials, such as make up the content of many subjects of study.

(2) Teaching useful methods of solving problems.-The new science should also develop direct, effective, and satisfying methods of solving problems. If these methods are to be of wide use outside the school, they must be formed through and firmly associated with the kinds of experiences that arise in common needs. Real situations and good methods consciously and constantly applied with satisfying results are necessary for this purpose.

(3) Stimulation.-Good science instruction should stimulate the pupil to more direct and purposeful activities. It should lead to a higher appreciation of the pleasure and profit to be obtained by the exercise of his own abilities. The value of science instruction for this purpose depends upon the character of the material used, the appeal made to divergent interests, and the connection shown with common questions of everyday life.

(4) Information values.-Science study should give the pupil control of a large body of facts and principles of significance in the home, school, and community. It should build up an intelligent understanding of the conditions, institutions, demands, and opportunities of modern life. The value is not only in the facts and principles but also in the measure to which they represent points of view, deepened and intensified powers of insight, methods of procedure, and points of departure for new attempts for further study.

(5) Cultural and æsthetic values.--The dualism that would classify subjects as cultural or noncultural, as humanistic or scientific, as æsthetic or materialistic, with an implication of the inferiority of the latter to the former, is rapidly dying out. All subjects are cultural in the degree to which they develop wider appreciations of the worth while. Science study properly conducted develops an appreciation of the inner meanings and connections of things, an appreciation of the service of science to the life and civilization of our time, an appreciation of the slow, painstaking efforts and tremendous toil with which scientific progress has been accomplished, and an appreciation of the privileges, duties, and responsibilities that living in this age of science involves.

So, also, all subjects are æsthetic in the degree to which they open the eyes to the perception of new beauty and increase the power to understand and enjoy.