EDUCATING NATURALISTS" AND "TEACHING SCIENCE" BY LOUIS AGASSIZ

Abstract

Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) is honored as the greatest teacher of science education in the U.S.. He always said: "Go to Nature; take the facts into your own hands; look, and see for yourself!" The method of teaching at the museum is characterized as "educating a naturalist by discovery teaching." On the other hand, the method of the summer school on Penikese Island was "the teaching of natural history" and also "the training of teaching method." We can find the same philosophy between the method at the museum and the method at Penikese. Both teaching methods were initiated with the Agassiz's confidence in human's competence to be able to interact effectively with nature herself. Agassiz never believed that every student was competent to be a researcher of natural history. There were students who failed to find anything at the Agassiz's museum. Agassiz said at Penikese, "It is a false idea to suppose that anybody is competent to learn or to teach everything."