EXPERIENCES OF THE NATURAL WORLD
The first experiences the child gains from the world of nature are those
of beauty, of sound, colour and smell. Flowers at first are just lovely
and sweet-smelling; the keen senses of a child are more deeply satisfied
with colour and scent than we have any idea of, unless some faint memory
of what it meant remains with us. But he begins to grasp real scientific
truth from his experiences with the elements which have for him such a
mysterious attraction; by the very contact with water something in the
child responds to its stimulus. Mud and sand have their charms, quite
intangible, but universal, from prince to coster; a bonfire is something
that arouses a kind of primeval joy. Again, race experience reproducing
itself may account for all this, and it must be satisfied. The demand
for contact with the rest of nature is a strong and fierce part of human
nature, and it means the growth of something in life that we cannot do
without. We induce children to come into our schools when this hunger is
at its fiercest, and very often we do nothing to satisfy it, but set
them in rooms to look at things inanimate when their very being is
crying out for life. "I want something and I don't know what to want" is
the expression of a state very frequent in children, and not infrequent
in grown-up people, because they have been balked of something.
How, then, can we provide for their experience of this side of life? We
have tried to do so in the past by object and nature lessons, but we
must admit that they are not the means by which young children seek to
know life, or by which they appreciate its beauty. We have been trying
to kill too many birds with one stone in our economic way; "to train the
powers of observation," "to teach a child to express himself," "to help
a child to gain useful knowledge about living things," have been the
most usual aims. And the method has been that of minute examination of a
specimen from the plant or animal world, utterly detached from its
surroundings, considered by the docile child in parts, such as leaves,
stem, roots, petals, and uses; or head, wings, legs, tail, and habits.
The innocent listener might frequently think with reason that a number
lesson rather than a nature lesson was being given. The day of the
object lesson is past, and to young children the nature lesson must
become nature work.
It is in the term "nature lesson" that the root of the mischief lies:
nature is not a lesson to the young child, it is an interest from which
he seeks to gain more pleasure, by means of his own activity: plants
encourage him to garden, animals stir his desire to watch, feed and
protect; water, earth and fire arouse his craving to investigate and
experiment: there is no motive for passive study at this juncture, and
without a motive or purpose all study leads to nothing. Adults compare,
and count the various parts of a living thing for purposes of
classification connected with the subdivisions of life which we call
botany and zoology; but such things are far removed from the young
child's world--only gradually does it begin to dawn on him that there
are interesting likenesses, and that in this world, as in his own, there
are relationships; when he realises this, the time for a nature lesson
has come. But much direct experience must come first.
In setting out the furnishing of the school the need for this activity
is implied. No school worthy of the name can do without a garden, any
more than it can do without reading books, or blackboards, indeed the
former need is greater: if it is possible, and possibilities gradually
merge into acceptances, a pond should be in the middle of the garden,
and trees should also be considered as part of the whole. It is not
difficult for the ordinary person to make a pond, or even to begin a
garden.
In a school situated in S.E. London in the midst of rows of monotonous
little houses, and close to a busy railway junction, a miracle was
performed: the playground was not very large, and of the usual
uncompromising concrete. The children, most of whose fathers worked on
the railway, lived in the surrounding streets, and most of them had a
back-yard of sorts; they had little or no idea of a garden. One of the
teachers had, however, a vision which became a reality. She asked her
children to help to make a garden, and for weeks every child brought
from his back-yard his little paper bag of soil which was deposited over
some clinkers that were spread out in a narrow border against the
outside wall; in a few months there was a border of two yards in which
flowers were planted: the caretaker, inspired by the sight, did his
share of fixing a wooden strip as a kind of supporting border to the
whole: in two years the garden had spread all round the outside wall of
the playground, and belonged to several classes.
An even greater miracle was performed in a dock-side school, where to
most of the children a back-yard was a luxury beyond all possibility.
The school playground was very small, and evening classes made a school
garden quite impossible. But the head mistress was one who saw life full
of possibilities, and so she saw a garden even in the sordidness. Round
the parish church was a graveyard long disused, and near one of the
gates a small piece of ground that had never been used for any
graveyard purpose: it was near enough to the school to be possible, and
in a short time the miracle happened--the entrance to the graveyard
became a children's flowering garden.
Inside the school where plants and flowers in pots are numerous, a part
of the morning should be spent in the care of these: few people know how
to arrange flowers, and fewer how to feed and wash them; if there are an
aquarium or chrysalis boxes, they have to be attended to: all this
should be a regular duty with a strong sense of responsibility attached
to it; it is curious how many people are content to live in an
atmosphere of decaying matter.
If the children enjoy so intensely the colour of the leaves and flowers
they will be glad to have the opportunity of painting them; this is as
much a part of nature work as any other, and it should be used as such,
because it emphasises so strongly the side of appreciation of beauty, a
side very often neglected. It is here that the individual paint box is
so important. If children are to have any sense of colour they must
learn to match very truthfully; there is a great difference between the
blue of the forget-me-not and of the bluebell, but only by experiment
can children discover that the difference lies in the amount of red in
the latter. By means of discoveries of this kind they will see new
colours in life around them, and a new depth of meaning will come to
their everyday observations. This is true observation, not the "look and
say" of the oral lesson, which has no purpose in it, and leads to no
natural activity, or to appreciation.
It is difficult to satisfy the interest in animals. In connection with
the Nursery School the most suitable have been mentioned. The transition
and junior school children may see others when they go for excursions.
At this stage, too, children have a great desire to learn about wild
animals, and the need often arises out of their literature: the camel
that brought Rebecca to Isaac, the wolf that adopted Mowgli, the
reindeer that carried Kay and Gerda, the fox that tried to eat the seven
little kids, Androcles' lion, and Black Sambo's tiger, might form an
interesting series, helped by pictures of the creature _in its own
home_. It is difficult to say whether this may be termed literature,
geography, or nature study. The difficulty serves to show the unity of
life at this period. Books such as Seton Thompson's, Long's, and
Kearton's, and many others, supply living experiences of animal life
impossible to get from less direct sources.
As children get older, and have the power to look back, they will feel
the necessity of keeping records; and thus the Nature Calendar,
forerunner of geography, will be adopted naturally.
Another important feature in nature experiences is the excursion.
Froebel says: "Not only children and boys, but indeed many adults, fare
with nature and her character as ordinary men fare with the air. They
live in it and yet scarcely know it as something distinct ... therefore
these children and boys who spend all their time in the fields and
forests see and feel nothing of the beauties of nature and their
influence on the human heart. They are like people who have grown up in
a very beautiful country and who have no idea of its beauty and its
spirit ... therefore it is so important that boys and adults should go
into the fields and forests, together striving to receive into their
hearts and minds the life and spirit of nature." It is evident from this
that excursions are as necessary in the country as in the town, where
instead of the "fields and forests" perhaps only a park is possible, but
there is no virtue in an excursion taken without preparation. The
teacher must first of all visit the place and see what it is likely to
give the children. She must tell them something of it, give them some
aim in going there, such as collecting leaves or fruits, or recording
different shapes of bare trees, or collecting things that grow in the
grass. These are examples of what a town park might yield. Within one
group of children there might be many with different aims. During the
days following the excursion time should be spent in using these
experiences, either by means of painting and modelling, or making
classified collections of things found, or compiling records, oral or
written. Otherwise the excursion degenerates into a school treat without
its natural enjoyment.
With regard to the inevitable gaps in the children's minds in connection
with the world of living things, such pictures as the following should
be in every town school: a pine wood, a rabbit warren, a natural pond, a
ditch and hedge, a hayfield in June, a wild daffodil patch, a sheet of
bluebells, a cornfield at different stages, an orchard in spring and in
autumn, and many others. These must be constantly used when they are
needed, and not misused in the artificial method known as "picture
talks."
There is another side to nature work. Froebel says: "The things of
nature form a more beautiful ladder between heaven and earth than that
seen by Jacob; not a one-sided ladder leading in one direction, but an
all-sided one leading in all directions. Not in dreams is it seen; it is
permanent, it surrounds us on all sides."
Froebel believed that contact with nature helps a child's realisation of
God, and any one who believes in early religious experience must agree;
a child's early questions and difficulties, as well as his early awe and
fear show it--he is probably nearer to God in his nature work than in
many of the _daily_ Scripture lessons. All his education should be
permeated by spiritual feeling, but there are some aspects in which the
realisation is clearer, and possibly his contact with nature stands out
as the highest in this respect. There is no conscious method or art in
bringing this about; the teacher must feel it and be convinced of it.
Thus we come to the conclusion that the Nursery School nature work can
be safely left to look after itself, provided the surroundings are
satisfying and the children are free.
In the transition and the junior school there should be no nature
lessons of the object lesson type, but plenty of nature work, leading to
talks, handwork, and poetry. The aim is not economic or informational at
this stage, but the development of pure appreciation and interest. There
can hardly be a regular place on the time-table for such irregular work,
comprising excursions, gardening, handwork, and literature at least, and
depending on the weather and the seasons. There should always be a
regular morning time for attending to plants and animals and for the
Nature Calendar, but no "living" teacher will be a slave to mere
time-table thraldom.