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- Training and scientific knowledge : essential components of education
- Scientific education can be put within the reach of children - Georges CHARPAK
- Training and scientific knowledge : essential components of education
Scientific education can be put within the reach of children - Georges CHARPAK
The art of introducing children to scientific reflection acquired by personal experience
In the last five years, a process of educational reform has developed at an ever faster pace. It is called « La Main à la Pâte », but this name should not lead to excessively learned interpretation since it is simply the result of accidental circumstances connected to the difficulty of translating the expression « Hands on » which is used in the United States to describe a pedagogical experiment based on the same premise. It can be summed up by its most salient points: when children first attend school, around the age of 4 or 5, they are full of curiosity about the world around them, which leads them very naturally and instinctively to interact with it. They seek physical contact with the world, they want to interpret their perceptions, they construct concepts based on their experience.
Some people see this innate attitude as being very akin to the attitude of scientists who go to their laboratories because they are struggling to understand the whys and wherefores of hitherto unknown phenomena. As a result, they conduct experiments, take notes of their observations so that they are recorded and can be communicated to their peers.