Book Description

Excerpt from Francis W. Parker School Year Book, Vol. 5: The Course in Science; July, 1918 The chief value of any course of study is that it provides a good point of departure for new attempts to improve the choice of materials and the methods of instruction. It embodies the best that has been accomplished, clarifies the situation, and makes possible further progress. Any tendency to crystallize the methods of working, or to fix the content of subject matter, is to be avoided. Therefore, the course in science which is presented in this year book is looked upon, not as a finished piece of work but as a stepping-stone to better science teaching. It is not a curriculum 'which has been written by a few in authority with the expectation that teachers will slavishly follow it, but it is the result of a number of years Of independent, experimental, and developmental work in all the grades of the school. For this very reason it may be criticized as somewhat incoherent and lacking in logical development from grade to grade, faults which made-to-order curricula usually lack. This criticism is not dismissed as unimportant, for it indicates the direction in which future improvement may be sought and secured all the more easily, by reason of the work which the preparation of this course of study has involved. The first step in formulating the course in science was to draw up a statement of the general principles which were to control the work. This formulation of principles, after discussion and revision was accepted by all members of the science committee as a tentative basis on which to proceed. When the work was nearly complete, the statement of fundamental principles was again critically examined and further revised in the light of what had been accomplished. The final revision, which follows, has been presented to the faculty as a whole and approved by them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.