ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SCIENCE: A PROGRESSIVE PLAN FOR CLASSROOM CHANGE

Authors

  • Richard Butt McGill University

Abstract

In how many thousands of classrooms in the last decade or two have teachers, inspired by the intrinsic appeal of some curricular innovation, come to grief over the behaviour of students reacting to novel demands on their self-control? If only children could take unaccustomed freedoms calmly! Richard Butt, aware that problems of implementation in the classroom have more or less broken the back of the first curricular reform movement in science education, reports a second and more realistic movement now under way; but he still finds inadequate its concern for the complexities of transition at the classroom level. He presents an illustration in detail of a "transitional curriculum," that will enable a traditional class and its teacher to learn by small stages certain necessary new relationships and social disciplines, at the same time as they are inducted gradually into the manipulations, problem-solvings, and team-work involved in an inquiry-oriented curriculum.

Author Biography

Richard Butt, McGill University

Richard Butt teaches and co-ordinates graduate courses in curriculum studies for the departments of Elementary Education and Educational Administration at McGill University. His current research and development interests emphasise school and classroom based approaches to educational change.

Downloads

Published

1979-04-01

How to Cite

Butt, R. (1979). ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SCIENCE: A PROGRESSIVE PLAN FOR CLASSROOM CHANGE. McGill Journal of Education / Revue Des Sciences De l’éducation De McGill, 14(002). Retrieved from https://mje.mcgill.ca/article/view/7280

Issue

Section

Articles