The pedagogical value of excursions
Until recently, excursions were seen as a luxury, only permissible to illustrate the teaching of natural science. Now, however, it can be considered that, at least in theory, most of today's eminent teachers and methodologists think excursions to be of the highest value, not only in the natural sciences but also in geography, history, and literature.
Some ardent supporters of the excursion method find it necessary to transfer the centre of gravity of teaching, at least the natural sciences, to excursions and make class lessons only added to them. The representative of this direction in Russia is Prof. DN Kaigorodov, the most prominent and talented propagandist of the excursion method. With his fascinating articles, he awakened Russian pedagogical thought and created a form from randomly and singly practised excursions. True, his ideas turned out to be challenging to apply to our school, but what remains of them is a valuable contribution to Russian natural science methodology.
First, we will try to discover the educational elements that make excursions such valuable tools in education and upbringing.
- One of the essential tasks of the educational school is to familiarize with the phenomena of nature as a whole, including the basic wonders and laws of both the mortal world and the living; in the latter, in addition to the plant and animal kingdoms, we also find a man with his complex social, economic and spiritual life. In our opinion, all these areas should, to a greater or lesser extent, be studied at school. As a result, it is necessary to create an idea of the inextricable connection between all the areas available to our research - about the totality of the world of phenomena around us. Meanwhile, the entire system of not only school education but also scientific research rests on the opposite principle: we never have at our disposal nature as a whole, but on the contrary, we always dissect it and study separately such phenomena that are closely related between themselves. Domestic history, artistic and literary monuments, the economic and everyday life of a specific ethnographic unit of the population, the general natural conditions of the country - all these are the same exclusions from the public and unified process of human society, as, for example, the study of soil, bacteria, fungi, various families of green plants, worms, insects, etc. animals is the product of the artificial dismemberment of such natural and integral units as, a forest, a meadow, a swamp, etc. Thus, in a regular training course, we teach our students to deal mainly with isolated sides, isolated by analysis of life phenomena.
This analysis constitutes that powerful method of research that has already given us such rich results in terms of knowledge of nature. But one should not, however, forget that the primary purpose of this analysis is precisely to provide new material for a complete synthesis of natural phenomena.
Particular attention should be paid to this need for continuous synthesis of the material obtained by analysis, and every suitable occasion should be used. Such cases are presented, of course, from time to time to any teacher during classroom teaching. But excursions and travels represent an exceptionally favourable moment in this respect. It is on them that we meet phenomena in their natural relationships and complexity: everyday phenomena, social relations, works of art, historical monuments, fauna, flora and wonders of the mortal world arise before the student — and even before the teacher — all in new and new combinations, discovering its infinitely multiple mutual connections. Everything that was accounted for as something self-sufficient during the course reveals its dependence and relationship with other areas on the excursion.
It is to this side that the leader of the excursion should pay attention. Of course, this is the most challenging part in the preliminary development of the excursion plan since you will have to carefully study the visited area and mark for yourself the most characteristic places that could serve as a particularly vivid illustration of such relationships ...
It follows from what has been said that to extract precious results from excursions, it is desirable to collaborate between teachers of different specialities, and on this path, a vast area for creative work opens up; it is hoped that over time, Russian teachers, together, will create several manuals that would facilitate the conduct of excursions in various regions of our vast fatherland.
- From a general educational point of view, excursions add another vital element which is still not given sufficient importance. Yet, this aspect of the matter deserves, in our opinion, the most serious attention. The fact is that the knowledge obtained as a result of urgent requests that have arisen in us, requiring resolution through vigorous activity, is accompanied by an increase in sensory tone, emotions, i.e. states of mind that excite to action, and at the same time emotions coloured by a pleasant feeling — the feeling of "the joy of knowing". Our teachers often ignore this emotional side and are not consciously cultivated anywhere in the school. Unfortunately, when studying textbooks, our schoolchildren often experience the "emotion of boredom," which does not lead to joyful, creative activity. Here it is imperative to emphasize the need for the natural emergence of such emotions and not artificially attracting any extraneous circumstances. To form an equally pedagogically valuable association between the form of a given organ and the feeling obtained due to a vulgar anecdote. It is comparing them with others that are important and interesting for us. Who happened to attend the course Anatomy of Professor P. Fr. Lesgaft, he will never forget what strong emotions the cognition of any new fact was accompanied by, thanks to its broad comparison with all sorts of fields from embryology and comparative anatomy to social relations.
These emotions are of high value since they attract activity, further cognition, generally bring life to learning and colour the acquired knowledge with a bright tone of feelings, which becomes immeasurably more valuable and lasting from this.
Turning to excursions from this site, we find in them the most prosperous emotional element: what is air, water, a plant, an insect in a school, classroom presentation of a teacher? - a mixture of nitrogen with oxygen, H2O, availability and a combination of specific organs and properties, etc. No matter how the teacher "painted" in the classroom about the blue sky, the bright colours of flowers, about the noise of a pine forest, he, of course, will never evoke such vivid and complete ideas that students get from direct contemplation of nature. Is it possible to convey in words the delight with which a disciple, escaping from a dusty city, revels in the forest air and enjoys its blue and transparency; how to evoke with a word those emotions that arise at the sight of a lake, a river, even just a puddle with the sky and shores reflected in them; but the noise of the green forest, and the light of the sun with its play on the leaves of trees and round spots on the forest soil; and the spring bird choir or squirrel, quickly running up the trunk and jumping from branch to branch! Everything here is full of emotions, strong, healthy, drawing to activity; all acquired knowledge is coloured by solid feeling; as a result, increased activity of the organs of perception and thought, directing and coordinating the work of all organs of movement. All this has such value that for the sake of this cheerfulness acquired on excursions; they should be supported by all means and introduced into all school classes.
Incidentally, we note that quite often, fragile students suddenly discover on excursions both curiosity and a willingness to work. If this rise is supported in time, an utterly satisfactory worker can quickly develop from a lousy student.
Given all that has been said, the teacher should also understand that it is impossible to turn an excursion into such a traditional, dry and disciplinary pastime, like a lesson from another pedant. Such tours, which prevent the emergence of joyful and vigorous emotions, are almost useless! Of course, a specific discipline at any gathering of people united for some common goal is necessary; this will be discussed more, but it should not go so far as to hinder the achievement of the main goals of the excursion. Therefore, a teacher who has managed to "dry up" the tour will not see good results.
- In addition to the above, introducing excursions is essential as an excellent method of illustrating what has been reported in the lessons and a source for several interesting and valuable observations.
It is necessary to pay earnest attention to this side since our city children have never seen many phenomena and objects they are constantly forced to discuss in the classroom. Thus, they have only verbal representations associated with many wonders, which, perhaps, have nothing to do with reality. In this respect, very interesting are the data collected in Germany by the famous teacher-reformer of natural science Schmeil, and subsequently gathered more than once in our country. From the summary of these data, it was found that, for example, half of the students never heard the nightingale's singing, two-thirds of the students did not see the squirrels in the forest, and even the cuckoo did not hear from 10 to 30%. These figures are astounding. Is it possible to be calm about the fact that many of our children do not have any visual or auditory impressions from the most common phenomena, i.e., therefore, they are like the blind or deaf, talking about the singing of a nightingale, the crowing of a cuckoo, about a squirrel jumping on a tree, etc.? —With general education. In this regard, excursions are, in the first place, a powerful tool for creating complete, comprehensive subject ideas about the phenomena around us. Therefore, by the way, students should be given complete freedom to notice and consider on excursions everything that interests them, even if this does not relate directly to the primary purpose of the tour; of course, this does not apply to those cases when the teacher now draws the attention of children to some definite phenomenon - then, of course, it is necessary to demand public attention.
The required clarity and concreteness of the material must also apply to the fields of history, literature and the mother tongue. And in this respect, excursions will contribute to creating vivid, concrete images and clothe in flesh and blood those poor ideas obtained from only one book or verbal teaching. There is still much to be done in this respect, but there is already something (see, for example, the articles of N.M.Sokolov and G.G. Tumim in this collection).
- Excursions are also crucial because they provide an opportunity to collect excellent and rich material for subsequent lessons and practical exercises. For such material, we can recognize, on the one hand, those newly observed facts and phenomena that have enriched the area of consciousness of students with new ideas and images - can they provide rich topics for a whole series of lessons and conversations? On the other hand, the material in the literal sense of the word, in the form of various kinds of natural science collections, living and dead objects, can serve for further research and observation at home or in the classroom and practical exercises. Words of the development of frog eggs, the deployment of overwintered pemphigus buds (Utricularia) and the subsequent catching of aquatic inhabitants of the aquarium, including tadpoles, arouse great interest in students; it is also very desirable to recruit other representatives of marine flora and fauna, which are: algae, molluscs, water scorpion, water spider, etc. Observations on the spring awakening of the activity of the rhizomes and bulbs of our spring plants are valuable and exciting, for which it is necessary to recruit rhizomes in the fall lilies of the valley, anemones, etc. Finally, it is also handy to directly collect material as a demonstration - a guide for the next or even more distant lessons, if the collected does not deteriorate like, for example, minerals, properly treated insects, plants, etc.
An excursion can give no less value for humanitarian subjects; material for further processing in the classroom is delivered in abundance by any tour, for example, to a factory (for subject lessons, on the one hand, and Motherland in high school, on the other) or in an area rich in historical monuments, or even just an excursion to see outside the city, real autumn, winter, or spring for obtaining specific material in Russian lessons when analyzing the corresponding poetic works of our artists of the word. Those interested in this issue will find many topics in this collection.
- With proper attention from those organizing excursions, these should be an excellent educational tool for young people's personal and social development. Unfortunately, the general lack of culture and the lack of suggestion since childhood of many elementary habits and rules for a German, for example, a child, sometimes make it rather difficult to conduct a 2-3-day excursion, with an overnight stay in an unusual and uncomfortable environment, with simplified nutrition, etc. But at the same time, these unique conditions enable the teacher to do a lot to create and develop personal and social-cultural skills.
For this purpose, first of all, it is essential to distribute during the excursions all economic and, in general, so to speak, rough worries, that is, tours not directly related to the main task, between the students themselves. Thus, they will inevitably have to provide each other with mutual services, and any negligence or bad faith in the performance of their duty will be punished by the public opinion of a comradely environment directly interested in the activities of each of their members.
Not unimportant is the fact that any long excursions are always associated with some physical deprivation; the latter leads to more remarkable restraint in meeting their primitive needs, which is very useful for children of wealthy parents: in Russian families, the sensations of hunger and thirst are often overestimated, and children from an early age are accustomed to allowing these primitive feelings to dominate over all others and predominantly spiritual needs. This severe drawback should be fought, and excursions can provide good material in this direction, making up for the shortcomings in primitive conditions with the valuable content of other experiences, full of interest and sometimes aesthetic emotions.
Excursions, finally, give a lot of scope for the manifestation of self-activity: the general conditions in which the tour takes place are unusual for students, the guardianship and supervision from the elders are always and inevitably lowered, and finally, the concern for physical amenities with which many homes are surrounded is reduced to the extreme, from students, which often creates of them completely helpless, not understand anything, but extremely demanding people in matters of physical needs. On willy-nilly excursions, everyone has to take care of themselves because, even with the most benevolent attitude towards this side of the case, the leader cannot have enough time to please all the excursion members.
It often happens that the unusual conditions in which the excursion places children require quick reaction and resourcefulness in this situation. Of course, these unique conditions shouldn't reach the degree of danger to life - this should be the most serious attention of leaders. Still, even the ability to quickly find and seek protection from sudden bad weather, the ability to navigate in unfamiliar terrain and the ability to see the way in the event of backwardness from the core of the excursion, ingenuity in eliminating and bypassing unexpected obstacles on the way, resourcefulness in obtaining and preparing food, arranging an overnight stay, etc., all this, for all its insignificance separately, in total, when the excursion business was built in an educational institution into the system, is an essential educational element in the sense of the development of self-activity, which is so crucial for a modern person, as we have already tried to find out in the introduction.
- In conclusion, we would like to draw the attention of teachers to the fact that excursions provide good material for the development of student's ability to perceive beauty in nature; that is, therefore, they can serve as a suitable means for awakening and culture of aesthetic emotions, the significance of which for the completeness of moral the appearance of an educated person is beyond doubt.
Only those who can feel beauty and experience aesthetic emotions can give something in this direction. Therefore, we would strongly advise against "imposing beauty in nature" on students as something obligatory. But if the teacher sees and feels this beauty, let him not hesitate to reveal his feelings in front of the students and, if possible, infect them too. Of course, the task of excursions alone cannot include the systematic development of students' aesthetic abilities, so we think that the teacher will already do a lot in this direction if he teaches students to the idea that an excursion can be not only a source of knowledge but also to the highest degree—pleasant sensations of beauty. Very many children, of course, are quite capable of aesthetic emotions. If they often do not experience them, it is only because they were not once indicated in nature with this source of pleasure. Suppose the teacher can cause them absolute pleasure on each excursion, pointing out the beauty of the whole landscape or its parts, not excluding even the slightest growth of mosses or lichens on some stone or rotten stump. In that case, the children will already have the habit of looking for beauty on a walk, paying attention to it, finding it and enjoying it.
Thus, a comprehensive and valuable aesthetic element will naturally be introduced into the student's consciousness field, enriching and deepening his relationship with the world around him.
We think that such a deepening and expansion of relations to the environment, being a source of enrichment of the general spiritual content of a person, is one of the most critical elements necessary for developing a moral personality.
Comprehensively examining the high pedagogical value of the excursion method, we are very far from that extreme enthusiasm for it, which tries to lay excursions at the basis of all teaching — at least some subjects (mainly natural history). Classroom teaching has great educational values that cannot be sacrificed to the One-Way Method. Therefore, class teaching should not be determined by excursions, but, on the contrary, both class teaching and tours should be defined and coordinated by the general curriculum and the general educational objectives pursued by the school.
Professor V.V. Polovtsov. The 1921 year
V.V. Polovtsov is one of the most significant figures in the teaching methodology of natural science in the first half of the twentieth century, the founder of the university teaching methodology.