Date of Award
5-1937
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science
Degree Discipline
Chemistry
Abstract
(°) A new philosophy of education has been gradually emerging — "new" since the days of Plato, but only recently accepted by the rank and file of our teachers. It is by no means enacted throughout the entire educational system of the United States.
The question arises, shall we educate our children for real life-like situations, which are found in their environments, and college; or just the latter? The author believes that the child should receive both. John Dewey states, "Education is not a preparation for life; it is life". But it has taken us a third of a century to realize that the school curriculum should be mainly concerned with engaging in activities through which subject matter may be learned, rather than with teaching the traditional school subjects directly. The children should not be considered as species of empty boxes to be filled as economically and effectively as possible, but as living creatures of endless diversified possibilities in activity and behavior. Thus after much travail and labor have the various "laboratory" and "progressive" schools come into existence.
The conservative people and institutions are the handicaps to this movement, and are the ones to be convinced of its value. The conservative school and the progressive schools come together and strike a medium.
It has been proved that the child learns more through activity. Thus, sensing that the things of ordinary life may be made educational, if children are led to look beneath the surface to find meanings, relations, and causes, and realizing that there is much in traditional courses to form a child's cultural inheritance, the reader will herein find a practical proposition for the embodiment of progressive principles in everyday public education.
The pages of this paper, then, present the procedure for an adequate integration of what we have come to call the old and the new education combined. The illustrations, pictures, charts, and the educationally fit units of work are of the utmost value to present day teachers. Through them teachers in our public rural schools may learn how they can gradually charge their procedure from following the traditional curriculum to the inauguration of an activity-subject-matter program under typical conditions. On the basis of this new philosophy, the author has committed himself to the development of a new type of program for a course in the teaching of chemistry in rural high schools. The advantage of this course is that the student becomes acquainted with chemistry as it is related to his environment. NOTE: Tests such as true and false, completion, matching, essay, etc. are recommended as the teacher sees fit.
It is admitted that many other things may be brought into these units and should be added as the teacher feels it necessary. The methods of teaching suggested are: inductive, deductive, telling or lecture and activity work.
It is absurd to think that this is all the subject-matter, for magazines, newspapers, bulletins, pamphlets, etc. will furnish extra material and subject-matter.
The subject-matter, experiments, and formulas in the appendix are parts of these units and should be used whenever they may be brought in, but they must be included.
Committee Chair/Advisor
R. P. Perry
Publisher
Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College
Rights
© 2021 Prairie View A & M University
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Date of Digitization
8-12-2021
Contributing Institution
John B Coleman Library
City of Publication
Prairie View
MIME Type
Application/PDF
Recommended Citation
Abernethy, M. L. (1937). A Practical Progressive Course of Chemistry for the Rural High School. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/pvamu-theses/237