404 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



HOW CAN WE HUMANIZE THE GENERAL 

 SCIENCE COURSE? 



Superintendent M. P. Mitchell, Hampshire Township 



High School 



Upon first attacking this subject one might be tempted 

 to say that such a course does not need to be humanized ; 

 that all science, especially General Science which perhaps 

 at best scratches only the surfaces of the special sciences, 

 is in itself a humanized subject. Without doubt those 

 science teachers present feel in regard to this subject 

 that personally the subject is all of that to them. We 

 have, however, to look at our classes to find some who 

 have not found this subject to mean the same to them as 

 we may have hoped. To me, the question confronting the 

 teachers of this course is not so much the one of ' ' Making 

 the General Science Course Humanized" as it is of 

 "Keeping the Course Humanized". There is no other 

 subject in the Curriculum of the High School which 

 should appeal more to the human curiosity and inquisit- 

 iveness than the General Science course. 



The problem of keeping the course humanized or vital- 

 ized seems to be two-fold in nature. The first task of 

 the teacher is to use only those methods of teaching 

 which will appeal to the adolescent child before him. An 

 analysis of my own teaching together with a recent sur- 

 vey of several schools clearly indicate that the most in- 

 terest on the part of pupils is aroused through the labor- 

 atory work. This, then, should play an important part 

 in the teaching program. The laboratory work may be 

 administered in a number of different ways. In my first 

 class in General Science I believe that I performed fully 

 ninety per cent of the experiments for the class, permit- 

 ting them to look on. Such a procedure did not satisfy 

 the class or prove to be good teaching.. I have complete- 

 ly changed my methods since that first teaching. I pre- 

 fer to have my class perform as many individual experi- 

 ments as time and other conditions permit. Next to this 

 I prefer to have the class working in groups sufficiently 

 small, so that every member of the group has an active 

 part in the performance of the experiment. 



