Of Natural Science, Women's History, and Montessori's

OF NATURAL SCIENCE, WOMEN’S HISTORY, AND MONTESSORI’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE Kathleen Allen, now retired from teaching, taught in Montessori elementary classrooms for more than 40 years. She has an AMI elementary diploma and holds a BA in English literature, an MA in history, and is currently pursuing a PhD in the humanities at Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, OH. She worked closely with Dr. John Wyatt on revisions and the implementation of The Keepers of Alexandria program in elementary classrooms and has been a key implementer of this program for two decades. 46 The NAMTA Journal • Vol. 43, No. 3 • Summer 2018 OF NATURAL SCIENCE, WOMEN’S HISTORY, AND MONTESSORI’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE by Kathleen Allen Kathleen Allen’s reverence for the stories of women naturalists spanning from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, and their parallel scientific interest in the documentation of life cycles through art and narratives, gives support to the child in history and nature that is so central to Montessori formal research and discipline. The parade of nearly a dozen short bios, from Beatrix Potter to Rachel Carson, frames not only a fresh outlook on science but also brings a soft feminist philosophical outlook while highlighting Montessori’s connections to the natural world. This chapter is based on a talk presented at the NAMTA conference titled Montessori History: Searching for Evolutionary Scientific Truth in Cleveland, Ohio, April 20–22, 2018. IntRODUctION Every thing has a history. Every one has a history. And what is history but stories? I am fascinated by both the small stories and the grand stories. A couple of years ago, I retired from my Montessori classroom, and what did I do? I became a student again. I am currently pursuing a PhD in interdis- ciplinary studies with a concentration on history and writing at Union Institute and University in Cincinnati. This program is sort of Cosmic Education for grownups. The field I am most interested in currently is the history of women scientists. While this talk will definitely address its title “Of Natural Science, Women’s History, and Montessori’s Theory of Knowledge,” I intend to keep it relaxed and low-key. Having entered the world of high academia, I prefer now to share little stories and a few images with you. We are here in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. This museum has many fascinating stories to tell, including that of Donald Johanson, who, in 1974, was named the curator of physical anthropology at the museum. And that was the year Johanson discovered “Lucy,” the fossil of Aus- tralopithecus afarensis in Ethiopia, an extinct hominin dated to between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago. The most interesting connection I did not know that I have to this museum is the famous stegosaurus “Steggie” who sits out front. This life-size model is the second stegosaurus to reside on the grounds. The original stegosaurus, which lasted through thirty years of climbing children, has been replaced with Steggie 2, who has recently been repainted with more accurate color- ing. My connection is to that original stegosaurus, which was created for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, for the Sinclair Oil Company exhibit called Dinoland. These dinosaurs were made in the studio of Louis Paul Jonas, a prominent sculptor and cre- ator of wildlife dioramas for museums. My brother, who was in high school at the time, worked at this studio in Hudson, New York, near our home. These life-size dinosaurs were carried by helicopter to a barge on the Hudson River and traveled south to New York City. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History then commissioned Jonas Studios to make an exact second stegosaurus from the World’s Fair mold for display. Allen • Of Natural Science 47 Museums are an incredible source of knowledge and wonder, and it is our responsibility to introduce children to museums early on. Modern museums combine the best in science and history and amazement. In my exploration of this museum, I noticed an exhibit on pterosaurs. Besides the marvels of these giant winged creatures, note this beautifully written text, enticing the potential visitor: They flew with their fingers. They walked on their wings. Some were gigantic, while others could fit in the palm of your hand. Millions of years ago, the skies were ruled by pterosaurs—the first vertebrates to achieve flight. Not dinosaurs, birds, or bats, pterosaurs were flying reptiles that lived in the world of dinosaurs 220 to 66 million years ago. I also noted that like many museums of its kind, the museum’s name includes the words “natural history.” Just how is natural history defined by this museum? The founding goal was “to perform research, education, and development of collections in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, as- tronomy, botany, geology, paleontology, wildlife biology, and zoology.” Other definitions of natural history or the natural sciences include the categories of: physics, chemistry, Earth science, ecology, oceanography, and meteorology. Natural history is generally the earlier term, centered on observation of plants and animals in their environments, whereas natural science grew out of that founda- tion with the addition of the scientific method and increasing empiricism. All of this grew from the “natural philosophy” of the ancients. When we talk about natural history, we really just mean natural phenomena, those things of nature. There are generally two key branches, life science and physical science, and all derives from the depths and heights of nature. Dr. Montessori was a natural historian and she clearly directed us to support the child’s innate interest in nature. In The Advanced Montessori Method: Spontaneous Activity in Education, she wrote: I would therefore initiate teachers into the observation of the most simple forms of living things, with all those aids which science gives; I would make them microscopists; I would give them a knowledge of the cultivation of plants and train them to observe their physiology. I would direct their observations to insects, and would make them study the general laws of biology. And I would not have them concerned with theory alone, but would encourage them to work independently in laboratories and in the bosom of free Nature. 48 The NAMTA Journal • Vol. 43, No. 3 • Summer 2018 NatURE STUDY I have been rather immersed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries lately. There were powerful educational shifts during this time, including, of course, Montessori’s theories. This period, also known as the Progressive Era, usually considered to be from 1890 to 1920, was, to put it simply, a response to the ills of society brought on in part by increasing industrialization, the growth of urban areas, and burgeoning population. With this came a reawakening to the importance of natural history, which itself arose out of a confluence of factors, including: the philosophy of the transcendentalists, the poetry of romanticism, the foundational nature studies by Louis Agassiz, whose quote “Study nature, not books” became a rallying cry, the Industrial Revolution, and the Depression of 1893, which led to the movement of people from farms to cities. As a result, many children were growing up without the critical connection to the natural world; they were not staying on the farms and continuing the family traditions of cultivating the land. There was a growing consciousness concerning children and nature. The thought was that children must now be introduced to the natural world in their schools. Thus the Nature-Study Movement came into being. As an aside, this illustration of woodland bolete mushrooms was painted by Beatrix Potter. Beatrix Potter Anna Botsford Comstock (1854–1930) American For my PhD I am studying a major figure in what became known as the Nature-Study Movement. Her name is Anna Botsford Comstock. She was born in 1854 in western New York State, graduated from Cornell University in 1885 with a bachelor of science degree in natural history with a focus on entomology (the study of insects) and became the first female professor at Cornell. She wrote a 938-page book, Handbook of Nature Study, which was self-published in 1911, and is still in print. She married a fellow entomologist, her former professor, John Henry Comstock. Together they wrote many books on insects that Anna illustrated with her detailed wood engravings. They had no children, but frequently hosted their students for dinner parties and poetry readings at their home. Allen • Of Natural Science 49 Anna lived what she taught. She was a gardener, a beekeeper, and a keen observer of the natural world around her. She was known for taking her college students out on field studies, to observe the insects in their habitat. One student remembered her catching butterflies: [Mrs. Comstock] kirtled up her skirt almost to her knees. At the first sunlit clearing Mrs. Comstock gave a cry of joy and seizing her net from me, darted after a lovely, black-and-white striped swallowtail. “It’s a zebra, a zebra,” she cried, and presently managed to catch the butterfly, as it settled on a tall, wav- ing flower. At the beginning of her handbook, Anna defined nature study: Nature Study is, despite all discussions and perversions, a study of nature; it consists of simple, truthful observations that may, like beads on a string, finally be threaded upon the understanding and thus held together as a logical and harmonious whole. Therefore, the object of the nature-study teacher should be to cultivate in the children powers of accurate observation and to build up Anna Botsford Comstock within them, understanding. (1) 50 The NAMTA Journal • Vol.

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