Elaine’s Reviews > The Handbook Of Nature Study in Color - Introduction > Status Update

“All the names [of the parts of a flower] should be taught gradually by constant unemphasized use on the part of the teacher; and if the child does not learn the names naturally then do not make him do it unnaturally.”

Introduction to bird study. I learned a surprising amount. I must not be very curious about birds. I have one more Year One student, so I hope to learn more and love birds by the time he’s six.

Well I clearly didn’t know what I don’t know about feather! I need to borrow a hen.

Objectives are for the teacher and shouldn’t be revealed to the student. Nothing from the Handbook should be followed slavishly. Direct questioning bores the teacher AND the student.

“It is through this method of drawing that which interests him [nature study], that the child retain and keeps as his own, what should be an inalienable right, a graphic method of expressing his own impressions.”

If we overemphasize drawing as an art, we shut children—and adults—out of this means of self expression.