“科学教育”抑或“自然教育”:美国自然课运动评述

Science Education or Nature Education:Comment on the Nature-Study Movement in the United States

自然课运动是19世纪80年代至20世纪20年代发生在美国中小学教育界的一场教学改革运动,旨在将名为“自然”的课程引入中小学。这场运动最初是为了改革枯燥的教学法并提供科学教育,后来重心转向了培养学生对自然的热爱与保护,由此引发了对自然课是否是科学的讨论与批评,最终导致它被“基础科学”取代。不过,这场运动的理念以多种方式保留在美国的教育体系中。围绕这场运动的争论反映了当时教育者对科学是否是认识自然的唯一方式以及人与自然之关系的不同看法;该运动后期所倡导的认识自然的方式是值得肯定的。

From 1880s to1920s, the Nature-Study Movement took place in American primary and secondary educational community, aiming to introduce a subject called “nature” into the curriculum.Initially, the movement intended to reform the previous boring teaching method and provide science education, but later the focus shifted to encourage students to love and protect nature, leading to the debate about whether this subject was science and eventually to its replacement by “basic science”.However, the ideas of this movement remain in American educational system in many ways. The controversy about the movement reflects the different views of educators at that time on whether science was the only way to understand nature and the relationship between human and nature. Overall, the approach to understanding nature advocated later in the movement deserves recognition.