p. 23 | Science as It Is Taught

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 6, 1909

Science as It Is Taught

SOME examples of examination questions in science, quoted by H. W. Hornwill in an article on “Science and the Schoolboy Mind,” contributed to The Scientific American (New York, August 22), are not only extremely ludicrous, but suggest serious doubts regarding the efficiency of instruction in elementary science in some of our schools. Mr. Hornwill himself regards such specimens as well worth the teacher's careful study, since they often point to some flaw in methods of teaching, and suggest in what direction there is need for reform. In the first place, he calls attention to their

bearing on the recent tendency to minimize the use of text-books and to trust to oral instruction. He says:—

“The risk attached to teaching by word of mouth is clearly seen in numerous instances of a pupil's confusing some important word with another that resembles it in sound. Here are some examples: ‘The equator is a menagerie lion running round the earth.’ ‘The earth's climate is the hottest next the creator.’ ‘Sound effects the oratory nerves.’ ‘The blood is putrefied in the lungs by inspired air.’ A confusion with the word ‘rotation’ is of course responsible for the definition of the axis of the earth as ‘an imaginary line on which the earth is supposed to take its daily routine.’ Scientific teaching offers a large number of opportunities for such confusions when technical terms reach the mind through the ear only, and not also through the eye. Really, one can not be hard on a child who tells us that food passes through the ‘elementary’ canal, or that one of the brightest stars is called ‘Juniper.’”

Other specimens illustrate the dangers of misconception when a word that is in common use has a special scientific meaning. Unless he is warned against the error, it is hard, for instance, Mr. Hornwill says, for a pupil to get out of his mind the idea that “shed” in “watershed” must point to some kind of building. We read:—

“Thus we get such examination answers as these: ‘A watershed is a place where there is water and rocks overhead that form a shed.’ ‘A watershed is a house between two rivers, so that a drop of water falling on one side of a roof runs into one river, and a drop on the other side goes into the other river.’”

“In a great many instances the root of the trouble is evidently an imperfect explanation of the fact or phenomenon described. When an examination candidate declares that ‘a parallel straight line is one which, when produced to meet itself, does not meet,’ how is it possible to escape the conviction that an attempt has been made to load the memory with a definition without the least endeavor to get hold of its meaning? Such an answer reflects far more seriously upon the teaching received than does the statement that ‘parallel straight lines, even if produced to all eternity, can not expect to meet each other.’ In the latter case, in spite of the confusion between the words ‘infinity’ and ‘eternity,’ there is at any rate a fairly substantial idea of what parallel lines are. Mere rote work teaching, again, would account for the declaration that ‘air usually has no weight, but when placed in a barometer, it is found to weigh about fifteen pounds a square inch.’ Clearly, there can have been little laboratory teaching in the school from which came the answer that ‘if a small hole were bored in the top of a barometer tube, the mercury would shoot up in a column thirty feet high,’ though one can not understand how any small boy with ordinary curiosity could have refrained from attempting to verify such a fascinating statement by independent experiment. The lazy mind, catching up vaguely something it has heard while escaping the least exertion of thought, is further illustrated in the startling proposition that ‘things which are equal to each other are equal to anything else.’”

Even the most efficient teacher is sometimes exposed to the subtle danger of making an unimportant feature so interesting that the significant matter is overlooked. A specimen case quoted by Mr. Hornwill is the answer that “gravity is chiefly noticeable in the autumn, when the apples are falling from the trees.” That the child who gave this answer was by no means a mere parrot is shown, the author thinks, by his ability to reach the conclusion that, if gravitation is chiefly illustrated in falling apples, the autumn is the time of year for it! To quote further:—

“Happily many instances might be given in disproof of the frequent accusation that present-day school-teaching stifles originality. The mental activity with which a pupil, when at a loss for an answer, will construct one out of his own head is often such as gives promise of conspicuous distinction if once the habit of diligence could be formed. It is not mere adroit evasion to say that ‘the difference between water and air is that air can be made wetter, but water can be cut, too.’ No less thoughtful was the lad, who, in an essay on ‘The Elements,’ said: ‘Air is the most necessary of all the elements; if there was no such thing as air, I would not be writing this essay now; also there would be no pneumatic tires, which would be a sad loss.’ A mind capable of detecting the subtlest analogies of nature must surely have been possessed by the boy who wrote: ‘Mushrooms always grow in damp places, and so they look like umbrellas.’ We may be sure that it was not from a San Francisco school that there came the assertion that ‘the probable cause of earthquakes may be attributed to bad drainage and neglect of sewage.’ . . . A particularly curious instance of independent but inaccurate observation is this answer to a question respecting the differences between steamers and sailing vessels: ‘A steamer cut or part the water aside; but with a sailing vessel it is not the case, for it sail up and down on the waves and billows.’ This answer, possibly, is due in some measure to the pictures—advertisements of steamship companies and the like—which represent steamers as aggressively cutting their way through the water, as compared with the quieter representations of the progress of sailing ships. Perhaps familiarity with the domestic uses of electricity is accountable for the statement that ‘electricity and lightning are of the same nature, the only difference being that lightning is often several miles in length, while electricity is only a few inches.’”—Literary Digest.