初期科学概念の自然的育成と社会的育成 (I)

type:原著

児童が教室に入ってくる前にも、各種概念について、白紙なのではなく、各自の概念を持っている。概念の獲得過程は、生活や自然の中から現象や事物が認識され、まわりからその名前や呼び方を知らされて、容易に獲得するものと、例えば、"従兄" や"凶器" のように、事物のみの把握では、獲得されず、社会的な説明が加わって初めて概念が獲得されるものがある。この前者を自然的獲得概念、後者を、社会的獲得概念と呼ぶことにする。実は、自然科学概念の中にも、はっきり区別しがたいが、この2 種類があり、その概念を伝える方法も異なってくる。その違いは、各国で、その国の自然環境、社会環境、歴史的環境、宗教的環境によってことなる。したがって、特に、国際社会での理科(科学)教育に携わったり、外国から来た児童を扱かったりする者は、この違いを意識しながら、教育に当たるべきであることを提唱する。

When children come to classrooms for the first time, they are not completely innocent or open-minded but already have some preconceived ideas and conceptions about various things in the world. In general, processes in which conceptions are cultivated can be classified into two ways: one is that children experience or recognize various events and things existing in daily life and nature, and then people around them teach the names of such events and things to them, which is an easier way; the other is that children learn words such as "cousin" and "weapon" but cannot cultivate the conception of the word until some explanation is given about its social meaning. This sentence can not be understood in English, because these words are explained like this only in case of Japanese language. In this study this author calls the former as "naturally-cultivated conceptions" and the latter as "socially-cultivated conceptions". In fact, conceptions of natural science can be classified into these two categories, though it is difficult to draw a clear line, and we should adopt different methods of explaining the conceptions for each category. Such difference should vary widely depending on natural, social, historical and religional environment of each country. Therefore, this author would like to propose that teachers who are engaged in scientific education in the international society and those who teach children who come from foreign countries should pay special attention to such difference in conducting their educational activity.