In order to make things clear and interesting to boys and
girls we must refer every day to what they have before learned in
school and out of school.
Again, if we accept the doctrine that old ideas are the materials out
of which we constantly build _bridges_ across into new fields of
knowledge, we must _know the children_ better and what store of
knowledge they have already acquired. Just as an army marching into a
new country must know well the country through which it has passed and
must keep open the line of communication and the base of supplies, so
the student must always have a safe retreat into his past, and a base
of supplies to sustain him in his onward movements. The tendency is
very strong for a grade teacher to think that she needs to know nothing
except the facts to be acquired in her own grade. But she should
remember that her grade is only a station on the highway to learning
and life. In teaching we cannot by any shift dispense with the ideas
children have gained at home, at play, in the school and outside of it.
This, in connection with what the child has learned in the previous
grades, constitutes a stock of ideas, a capital, upon which the teacher
should freely draw in illustrating daily lessons.
Pages:
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253