BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes

BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes: A2zNotes Presents study material Long Question Answer Notes by the Latest BEd Syllabus for Philosophical and Socialogical Perspective of Education. A Collection of Question-Answers compiled and Edited by A2zNotes Well Experienced Authors Based on Latest Two-Years BEd Curriculum. Here in this post, we will provide you with Long Questions and Answers for the Definition and Meaning of Naturalism and Education, Concept of Education, Aims of Education, Curriculum of Education, and Methods of Teaching.

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Naturalism and Education

Naturalism took birth as a reaction to idealistic ideology. There are several sub-schools of thought in naturalism, and they have certain distinctions though they are basically similar. The naturalism of physical sciences left no impact on the field of education, but mechanical naturalism and biological naturalism brought about revolutionary changes in the field of education. Biological naturalistic philosopher, (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

Herbert Spencer expressed his views in an orderly way in his book Education: Intellectual. Moral and Physical. Here we present naturalistic education in brief. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

Concept of Education

Naturalists do not consider bookish knowledge as education. According to them, true education is the one that helps man to adapt according to his nature and to make his life happy. Mechanical naturalism has given birth to behaviorism in psychology. Behaviorist psychologists have analyzed the whole behavior of man on the basis of his instincts.

According to behaviorist McDougall, the sublimation of instincts is education. Biological naturalists seem to be in the favour of spontaneous development of the innate powers of man. They want to enable man to protect his life and adapt to his environment. According to them, education is the adjustment of the man to his external environment. In the words of Herbert Spencer:

Education means the establishment of coordination between the inherent powers and the outer life.

Aims of Education

Naturalists have contributed to determining the aims of education and have determined several aims of education. We shall discuss these aims here:

Transformation and Sublimation of Instincts: Mechanical naturalism gave birth to behaviorist psychology according to-which man is born with certain reflex actions. When these reflex actions come in contact with the outer environment, the conditioned reflex actions are formed. These conditioned reflex actions help man in doing different tasks. So mechanical naturalists consider the development of proper and useful conditioned reflex actions in man as the aim of education. According to McDougal the aim of education is the sublimation of instincts. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)
Development of Power and Ability for Struggle for Life: According to biologists, each creature has a desire to live and he has to struggle with his environment at all times for the protection of his life. Darwin has given two laws in this regard-struggle for existence and survival of the fittest. According to him, the aim of education should be to prepare man for the struggle in life.
Enable Man to adjust to his Environment: The French philosopher Lamark believed in the above laws of Darwin, but he analyzed them in another form. Lamark believed that each living being has the ability to adapt to his environment and the more a being is able to adapt himself to his environment, the more successful he is to protect his life. According to him, the aim of education is to develop that power in man by which he is able to adapt himself to his environment. For it, he has laid emphasis on the development of his physical and mental health. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)
4. Enable Man to Live a Natural Life: According to Rousseau, the aim of education should be to enable the child to lead a natural life. He believed that the Almighty makes all things good, but man interferes with them and pollutes them. In his words: “God makes all things good, man meddles with them and they become evil.” This is the reason that he was in favor of keeping children away from the polluted society in order to effect their independent development in the natural environment, and considered it to be the aim of education. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)
Preparation for Complete Living: The viewpoint of Herbert Spencer is somewhat wider. He also gave significance to his social and political activities besides his will to live. According to him, education should enable man for his self-defense, livelihood, protection of his offspring, participation in social and political activities, and utilization of leisure. He called it preparation for a complete life. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)
Development of the Qualities of the Race: George Bernard shaw believed in the experiences of the race and wanted to acquaint man with these experiences and make him able to proceed further with the help of these experiences. According to him, one of the aims of education should be the preservation of the experiences of the race and their transfer to the next generation. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)
Individual Development of Man: Naturalists believe in the innate powers, attitudes, interests, aptitudes, and abilities of man, and because no two individuals are equal from this viewpoint, so they emphasize the individual development of each man and determine it as the important aim of education. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

Curriculum of Education

Naturalists have constructed the curriculum according to aims. Naturalists consider natural life as true and lay the most emphasis on its protection and development, so they give the most importance to physical science, health science, and biological science; and the least to literature, art, and music. They give no place to religion and ethics.

Rousseau in his book ‘Emile’ has presented different curricula for children of different levels. He has given more importance to physical activities and experiences at every level and has opposed theoretical knowledge. He gave special significance to sports and games, swimming, riding, and handicrafts. He accepted women as the companion and servants of men, so he suggested that they should only be trained in housekeeping. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

According to Herbert Spencer, the aim of education is to prepare man to lead a complete life. According to him, only that person cant lead a complete life and can do five tasks successfully-(i) self-defense, (ii) earning a livelihood, (iii) procreation and child protection, (iv) social and political tasks, and (v) utilization of leisure time. In order to do these five activities,

Spencer has given place to different subjects in the curriculum. He has included health science for self-defense, language, mathematics, geography, and physical science for livelihood, physical science, child psychology and home science for procreation and rearing of offspring; history, sociology, and economics for social and political tasks and history, music, poetry, and art for utilization of leisure time. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

Spencer says that different subjects should be given a place in the curriculum in the same measure as they have importance in our life. In his view, literature, art, and music do not protect our life, they only give us momentary pleasure, so the question of acquiring them arises only when we have succeeded in protecting our physical life. From this view, he has given an important place to health science and physical science; and second place to literature, art, and music.

Huxley was in the favour of giving equal place to both literary and scientific subjects. He said that it is equally bad to forget cultural subjects for physical science, as to forget the study of science for cultural subjects.

Methods of Teaching

There are two aspects of naturalism. According to first, naturalism is a philosophical ideology that has negated the spiritual existence and has propounded the existence of nature. From this aspect of naturalism came out aims of education. The second aspect of naturalism is psychological, it is the study of man’s nature and faith in his inherent powers.

In the field of education, this accomplishment has been of great significance. This aspect has given us several suitable teaching methods. The basis of these new useful methods can be found in the thoughts of Rousseau and Herbert Spencer.

The first call of Rousseau in this respect was to return to nature. Rousseau has described four stages of development-infancy, childhood, adolescence, and youth. He has delineated the nature of children in different stages and has selected different activities and subjects of study for different stages; however, he was opposed to bookish education.

Discipline

Naturalists do not accept the spiritual form of the soul, they consider it as an active element produced from matter. According to them, true education is to be guided by the natural self. For the development of this discipline, they oppose any type of outer interference. They believe neither in the punishment nor in the teacher’s influence. They argue that punishment suppresses the inherent powers of the children and it hinders their proper personality development. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

Influence by teachers is not considered to be good by them. They argue that the children adopt all the good and bad qualities of the teacher. Naturalists believe that nature by itself is a teacher that gives the lesson of discipline to man. When a man does evil, nature itself punishes him. According to Rousseau, discipline should be maintained by the natural outcomes of children’s errors. Thus, Rousseau believed in natural consequences. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

Herbert Spencer also believed in natural punishment. He opined that the task that begets happiness to man, he accepts; and the task which gives him suffering, he relinquishes it. This principle of Spencer is known as the hedonistic theory. He argued that nature gives man happiness and sorrow for his tasks. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

Huxley opposed the views of Rousseau and Spencer and said that we ought not to imagine proper discipline by nature. According to him, punishment by nature is very harsh and illogical. Nature gives equal punishment whether the error is committed knowingly or unknowingly. It provides the same punishment for inability and incapability.

If you go out during a hail storm, nature would injure your head, irrespective of the fact whether you are going out for a noble cause or for an evil cause. So this approach to discipline should not be accepted by anybody. According to Huxley, we should give freedom to the children for their spontaneous development but should also impose certain responsibilities upon them, only then their behaviour can become balanced. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

Teacher

Rousseau did not give any significance to teachers in the field of education. He said that the teacher is a part of the polluted society, he cannot be expected to reform the child. He was in the favour of keeping the child in the lap of nature in order to bring about his independent development. Thus, he considered nature as the teacher. But none of us can agree with his unreasonable view. Biological naturalists attached importance to the child’s nature. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

According to them, each child has certain instincts and his development depends on these instincts. From this viewpoint, the children are so different that the teacher cannot make them all equal or similar. So it is essential for the teacher to prepare a suitable environment keeping in view the interests, aptitudes, abilities, and needs of the children; in which they learn by doing and experience.

Thus, naturalists consider a teacher not as a tool for imparting knowledge but as a tool for preparing a suitable environment for children. Naturalists only expect of the teacher this much that he is helpful in the spontaneous development of the children.

Student

Naturalists consider the child as the center of education. A child is not born to be educated, rather education is organized to affect his development. Still, all children are not equal. They are not mini-adults to give them adult-like knowledge from the very beginning.

Naturalists keep in view the nature of the child-his instincts, interests, aptitude, abilities, and needs; and they teach the child what he is able to learn and in which he displays interest. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

School

Rousseau did not think of school as necessary. According to him, the lap of nature is school, and nature by itself is the teacher. But the naturalists who give significance to human nature accept the need for schools. According to them, whatever the social environment may be, the school environment should be such that it may arouse the desire in the children for learning all that which is good for humans as a whole. The school should be the place where such an environment is given to the children that may help in their spontaneous development. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

Of course, naturalists oppose any timetable for a school. They believe that nature by itself determines the time for working. Here once again by nature is meant two things. First, the natural environment which inspires of sleeping at night and working at day; and second, the child’s nature. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

We are aware that the children often pay less attention to sunshine, shade, rain, etc., and want to play at all times; while the grown-ups display interest in playing only at a specific time. So, the time for an activity in a naturalist school is better left to the natural environment and the child’s nature. They do not give any place to any outer control; they give the slogan of self-discipline. They want that the whole system of school should rest in the children’s hands.

Two more things related to school are worth mentioning as far as naturalists are concerned. First, they consider sex as a natural gift and support co-education in schools; and second, they oppose examinations and want to eliminate them in order to end with harshness at schools. (BEd 2nd Year Naturalism and Education Study Material Notes)

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