Re: The pioneers of the teaching of science imagined that its introduction
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Updated on: 05 Apr 2021, 18:27
The pioneers of the teaching of science imagined that its introduction into education would remove the conventionality, artificiality, and backward-lookingness which were characteristic; of classical studies, but they were gravely disappointed. So, too, in their time had the humanists thought that the study of the classical authors in the original would banish at once the dull pedantry and superstition of mediaeval scholasticism. The professional schoolmaster was a match for both of them, and has almost managed to make the understanding of chemical reactions as dull and as dogmatic an affair as the reading of Virgil's Aeneid. The chief claim for the use of science in education is that it teaches a child something about the actual universe in which he is living, in making him acquainted with the results of scientific discovery, and at the same time teaches him how to think logically and inductively by studying scientific method.
A certain limited success has been reached in the first of these aims, but practically none at all in the second. Those privileged members of the community who have been through a secondary or public school education may be expected to know something about the elementary physics and chemistry of a hundred years ago, but they probably know hardly more than any bright boy can pick up from an interest in wireless or scientific hobbies out of school hours. As to the learning of scientific method, the whole thing is palpably a farce. Actually, for the convenience of teachers and the requirements of the examination system, it is necessary that the pupils not only do not learn scientific method but learn precisely the reverse, that is, to believe exactly what they are told and to reproduce it when asked, whether it seems nonsense to them or not.
The way in which educated people respond to such quackeries as spiritualism or astrology, not to say more dangerous ones such as racial theories or currency myths, shows that fifty years of education in the method of science in Britain or Germany has produced no visible effect whatever. The only way of learning the method of science is the long and bitter way of personal experience, and, until the educational or social systems are altered to make this possible, the best we can expect is the production of a minority of people who are able to acquire some of the techniques of science and a still smaller minority who are able to use and develop them.
Para1: though ideally it is, the old-style teaching method of science are not as easily to revolutionized as we originally thought, however, the author still urge the need in educational system to change the method they adopt for teaching science.
Para2: this part of article states that there’s still a long way we need to overcome to achieve the improvement to the teaching method of science
Para3: to reiterate the problems mention in the above paragraphs, the passage then recommend a remedy for solving the issue, in that the educational system should emphasize more on the practical side of the science study
1. The author implies that the professional schoolmaster has
The professional schoolmaster was a match for both of them, and has almost managed to make the understanding of chemical reactions as dull and as dogmatic an affair as the reading of Virgil's Aeneid.
A. no interest in teaching science
B. thwarted attempts to enliven education
….correct
C. aided true learning
D. supported the humanists
E. been a pioneer in both science and humanities.
2. The authors apparently believes that secondary and public school education in the sciences is
A. severely limited in its benefits
…..correct
Those privileged members of the community who have been through a secondary or public school education may be expected to know something about the elementary physics and chemistry of a hundred years ago, but they probably know hardly more than any bright boy can pick up from an interest in wireless or scientific hobbies out of school hours. ….this very clearly, is an attack to the school education system
B. worse than that in the classics
C. grossly incompetent
D. a stimulus to critical thinking
E. deliberately obscurantist
3. If the author were to study current education in science to see how things have changed since he wrote the piece, he would probably be most interested in the answer to which of the following questions?
Those privileged members of the community who have been through a secondary or public school education may be expected to know something about the elementary physics and chemistry of a hundred years ago, but they probably know hardly more than any bright boy can pick up from an interest in wireless or scientific hobbies out of school hours. As to the learning of scientific method, the whole thing is palpably a farce. Actually, for the convenience of teachers and the requirements of the examination system, it is necessary that the pupils not only do not learn scientific method but learn precisely the reverse, that is, to believe exactly what they are told and to reproduce it when asked, whether it seems nonsense to them or not.
A. Do students know more about the world about them?
B. Do students spend more time in laboratories?
whether the science education indeed arouse the interest among the students, to which they would spend more out-of-school scientific activities, but “laboratory” here doesn’t be defined very specifically as an out-of-school or in-school works
C. Can students apply their knowledge logically?
….correct
The chief claim for the use of science in education is that it teaches a child something about the actual universe in which he is living, in making him acquainted with the results of scientific discovery, and at the same time teaches him how to “think logically” and inductively by studying scientific method. ...this sentence states this very clearly
D. Have textbooks improved?
E. Do they respect their teachers?
4. All of the following can be inferred from the text EXCEPT
A. at the time of writing, not all children received a secondary school education
“Those privileged members of the community who have been through a secondary or public school education may be expected to know something about the elementary physics and chemistry of a hundred years ago”
….. from sentence, we see that at the time of writing, only those privileged people could afford a secondary education
B. the author finds chemical reactions interesting
“The professional schoolmaster was a match for both of them, and has almost managed to make the understanding of chemical reactions as dull and as dogmatic an affair as the reading of Virgil's Aeneid.”
….. the author here use a irony tone to express his opinion in that chemical reaction, which is so interesting a subject as it should be, become a boring knowledge under the education system
C. science teaching has imparted some knowledge of facts to some children
Those privileged members of the community who have been through a secondary or public school education may be expected to know something about the elementary physics and chemistry of a hundred years ago, but they probably know hardly more than “any bright boy” can pick up from an interest in wireless or scientific hobbies out of school hours.
….from sentence, we see that “privileged members of the community” and “any bright boy” are only a subset group of people who learn the science knowledge among the larger group of students and kid when the writer writes this article, and the science teaching, still, fails to arouse the interest to those children
Actually, for the convenience of teachers and the requirements of the examination
system, it is necessary that the pupils not only do not learn scientific method but learn precisely the reverse, that is, to believe exactly what they are told and to reproduce it when asked, whether it seems nonsense to them or not.
….science teaching doesn’t improve in itself and fail to impart the schooling that can arouse the interest to children, and (C) would be correct if we change “science teaching has imparted some knowledge of facts to some children” to “science teaching fail to impart some knowledge of facts to some children”
D. the author believes that many teachers are authoritarian
“it is necessary that the pupils not only do not learn scientific method but learn precisely the reverse, that is, to believe exactly what they are told and to reproduce it when asked, whether it seems nonsense to them or not.”
…. students always do what the teacher told them to do, this is an “authoritative” way of teaching
E. it is relatively easy to learn scientific method
…. correct,
“The only way of learning the method of science is the long and bitter way of personal experience”… from this we could infer that learning scientific method are not as easy as one might thought
Originally posted by
mimishyu on 04 Apr 2021, 09:21.
Last edited by
mimishyu on 05 Apr 2021, 18:27, edited 1 time in total.
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