An Experiment in Unit Teaching

Author

Rowena Weatherly, Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College

Date of Award

8-1940

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Degree Discipline

English

Abstract

As a teacher in a small rural school for the past four years, I have gotten much knowledge from experience. After observation and examination of school lunches, listening to discussions of patrons of the school and visiting in the homes, I was led to believe that the parents did not know how to properly feed their children. Since proper feeding id a factor of vital importance in the health of individuals, the conditions that existed in the community were both interesting and serious.

This thesis is based on a study made in the Lincolnville community at Gatesville, Texas. In this community there were children from only three homes. In two of these homes grievous conditions existed. For example, milk vessels were never scalded. They were rinsed with cold water taken from barrels outside the house. Food cooked in open vessels was merely covered with a lid and left until the next meal. The people of the community had no conception of balancing meals. The housewife was very extravagant w with left-over foods.

For school lunches the children brought the following: biscuits, eggs, potato pies, syrup-soaked bread, sandwiches of potatoes and bread and many other starchy foods. In one family there were six children who brought milk and water to school in large fruit jars and all of the children drank from the same jar. Some pupils ate raw sweet potatoes, peanuts and pecans. They would also eat candy every day and chew gum, which of course, would readily show that the parents and the students knew very little about the protection of their health and of the spending of money to its best advantages.

This experience suggested to me the need of a method of teaching whereby the pupils might be taught the essential value of food and the necessity of a well chosen diet. My problem was to discover a device by which information could be given concerning properly balanced diets, healthful foods for children and better hygienic habits might be taught in this rural school. It was with this purpose in mind that this unit method of teaching was begun.

Committee Chair/Advisor

A. L. Campbell

Committee Member

E. L. Sasser

Publisher

Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College

Rights

Date of Digitization

9-2-2021

Contributing Institution

John B Coleman Library

City of Publication

Prairie View

MIME Type

Application/PDF

Recommended Citation

Weatherly, R. (1940). An Experiment in Unit Teaching. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/pvamu-theses/349