Training Teachers to Teach Nature-Study 



Alice J. Patterson 

 Normal, 111. 



If nature-study and elementary science ever fulfill the mission 

 where unto they are called we must have teachers in our elemen- 

 tary schools who are fitted to do effective work in these subjects. 

 We need teachers who have the nature-study point of view, the 

 nature-study spirit; teachers who have a working knowledge of 

 nature-study material, and are imbued with the nature-study 

 method. 



While occasionally teachers are found who without special train- 

 ing do excellent work in nature-study because they seem naturally 

 to possess the requisite qualification, the fact remains that the great 

 majority of teachers who undertake the work need some special 

 preparation. The problem of training these teachers falls largely 

 upon the instructors of nature-study in our colleges and normal 

 schools. 



In my observation of grade teachers I have found the following 

 difficulties in the way of effective nature-study teaching: (a) 

 the apparent impossibility of the teacher to get away from the 

 formalism of the ordinary school subject; (b) the desire to teach 

 facts, to give information instead of directing the pupils to see, to 

 think and to act independently; (c) a deplorable ignorance of the 

 nature-study material in the environment of the school and the 

 helplessness of knowing how to get acquainted with it ; (d) coupled 

 with the last the absolute dependence upon books and authority in 

 the preparation of lessons; (e) encouraging children to come to 

 conclusions without sufficient data, to carry on a game of guessing 

 which is interpreted as thinking; (f) the inability to recognize that 

 some things must be told. 



In the light of the above obstacles to good nature-study teaching 

 it seems evident that in preparing teachers to go out into our ele- 

 mentary schools we must give attention both to material and 

 method. In a method course for prospective teachers it seems 

 wise to give at the outset considerable time to a study of material 

 even if the students are pretty well grounded in the facts of botany, 

 zoology, and physics. One value of this work is that the students 

 form the habit of going to nature objects and phenomena for 

 information, and of using books simply to direct observation, or to 



393 



