Happy 3rd Sunday of Advent! I wasn't going to blog on Sundays, as this is the day of rest; but for me, contemplation is restful. I was stunned to see that I haven't written a new post in almost a month. This is because I have been pondering many things and have been busy preparing for Christmas and enjoying Advent festivities. Last night at dinner, this repose of the soul enabled me to gain a valuable insight.
My daughter's friend was visiting, and she lamented that although she was looking forward to her Christmas break from school, she was dreading the science exams that will precede it. She's an 8th grader who is in an advanced science class. This prompted my husband to comment that he was advanced in science in high school. He recalled timed chemistry lab tests. I was surprised to find myself quiet throughout the conversation, and I observed that my mind was fixed upon the phrase Nature Study.
Today I asked our guest more about her class, which is high school level. She described it as physical science but couldn't tell me what that meant. What topics were covered under that heading? All she could relay was that she had learned about energy.
The only really excellent science class I experienced in public school was in the 6th grade. A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to tell the teacher, Miss Snyder, how much I appreciated her class. I explained that I remembered her class, that it made a lasting impression. (And I'm almost 49, peeps!) She brought science alive. It was hands-on, and guess what? We did Nature studies!
I made a leaf collection, relying upon my grandma's knowledge of natural history and her field guides. I caught some insects and drowned them in alcohol (in hindsight, yikes!), pinned them to a board, then researched and labeled them. I had to be outside, observing God's natural world, to complete these projects. I obtained some intimate knowledge of plants and creatures, especially because I lived in the country.
I'm extremely grateful that as a child and teenager I had many opportunities to explore fields, woods, lakes, ponds, and creeks. My love of Nature has endured. In fact, I think one motivator for moving away from the city and back to my hometown was the lure of the quiet rural environment and proximity to the memories of my idyllic childhood wandering in the woods and hopping on stones across water. Yet even with these advantages, I realized as an adult that I really had not obtained a strong foundation in natural science.
If I had any science education in Jr. High, I don't remember it. I enjoyed learning the names of bones in high school, and I loved Moe's scale of hardness. I was extremely fond of the Periodic Table of the Elements, though chemistry alluded me almost entirely. Newton's laws of motion I found to be extremely intriguing. I did not like dissection and couldn't tell one internal organ from another, largely because the formaldehyde the frogs were soaked in caused everything to be the same color.
Way back in the 1980s, God was still allowed a presence in schools. In one class in high school, probably geology or biology, the teacher showed us a Creation vs. Evolution film. His comment afterward, which surprised me quite a bit, was that he thought it took more faith to believe in evolution than in creation. This was the opinion of a man of science, and I never forgot what he said. Today, such movies would not be shown, and such comments would likely put teachers at risk of being fired.
Before kids are introduced to advanced science, they should have many years of time spent intimately with Nature. They should be familiar with local trees, landscape features, animals, flowers and habitats; should know them by name. They ought to be able to distinguish the calls of neighborhood birds and the habits of many creatures. Direct observation, living books and nature journaling should take precedence, with textbooks and lab work taking a secondary role of reinforcement of key concepts. Nature Study is the basis of all science, and without such a background, advanced science classes are almost pointless. Most of all, the child should care about the world around him.
Though I don't enjoy the cold, I understand the importance of getting outside in winter, even for a short time, every day. I'm re-committed to a Charlotte Mason approach to natural science, which, by the way, is in harmony with Catholic tradition. The combination of nature deprivation and excessive screen time has lead us increasingly to being a nation of depressed, isolated, and unhealthy people, and children are the greatest victims. We are disconnected from one another, from the natural environment, and as it follows, from knowledge of God himself as a result. I would go so far as to say that we are losing our grip on reality and the wisdom of what it means to be human. It's time to reunite science with a sense of the awesome and the Divine.
