NATURALISM

Introduction
 Nature is everything, there is nothing beyond it

 Nature is also termed as materialism

 Man should investigate the truth of nature by scientific methods with all his
capacities and resourcefulness

 It doesn't believe in sentimentalism, spiritualism, and supernaturalism

Definition of Naturalism

"Naturalism is metaphysics which considers nature as the whole of reality. It excludes what
is supernatural or the other world “

Meaning of Naturalism

 It emphasis on the nature in every field of education

 It is a philosophy which considers nature as everything and denies the existence of

ant spirit

 It does not believe in existence of God It gave importance to the matter and the
physical world

Forms of Naturalism

 Atomistic Naturalism

 Scientific Naturalism

1. Physical Naturalism
2. Biological Naturalism
  Mechanical Naturalism

 Historical Naturalism

Principles of Naturalism

 Stress on physical environment

 Universe is a huge machine. Man is also a part of this machine

 Reality can be truly analyzed by natural science

 The present is the real life, man should try to make this life happy and comfortable

 Unchanging loss of nature explains all the events and occurrences of the world

 Education in accordance with the nature of the child

 Man is the highest creature or animal according to his nature. So the essence of his
life is animal instinct and not spiritually

Characteristics of Naturalism

 Back to nature

 Negative education

 It is against bookish knowledge and verbalism

 Naturalism gives central position to the child in the educational process

 Education prepares the child for his future adult life Freedom of the child

 It gives emphasis on the training of senses as senses are the gateway of knowledge
  Material education Scientific education

Aims of Naturalism

 Attainment of present and future happiness

 Protection of human machine

 Adaptation to environment

 Improvement of racial gains

 Autonomous development

 Education according to nature

Naturalism and Curriculum

 Naturalist do not advocate a fixed curriculum must be child-centred

 It gives place for skills and other useful educational activities.

 It considers literacy subjects as useless and gives no place in the curriculum

 Curriculum should contain games, sports, physical

 culture, biology, physics, nature study, language, history, geography, and other allied
subjects

 It lay stress on physical education and health training and home science also
  Herbert Spencer classifies all human activities into five and assigns a place to each of
them in the curriculum The five activities in the order of priority are

 Activities of self preservation

 Activities of a vocation

 Activities of a worthy citizenship

 Activities of a worthy home membership

 Activities of the leisure time

Naturalism and Method of Teaching

 Naturalism is a result against the old, traditional, bookish system of education

 Direct experience with nature, things, and men is the keynote of instruction
according to naturalists

 They follow different methods of teaching according to the interests, capacities, and
aptitude of the child

 Learning by doing

 Direct method

 Heuristic method

 Observation and excursion

 Play way method

 Learning through senses

 Self government, self effort, and co-education Learning through participations

 Other methods: Apart from the above methods, naturalists adopt Dalton plan
kindergarten, excursion method, Montessori method, experimentation and text
book method so as to bring about a natural development in the child
Naturalism and Teacher

 Teacher should behave sympathetically and affectionately forwards the children

 Nature - supreme teacher

 Teacher the observer

 Understand about child

 Teacher the stage setter

 Teacher the gardener

Naturalism and Discipline

 Naturalist give full freedom to the child to perform and learn whatever he likes

-No punishment

-Full freedom

-Free society

 Naturalists assume that the child has no knowledge of good and bad, but he suffers
pain when he makes a mistake, and pleasure when he does something right Thus he
gets reward or punishment for his actions

Naturalism and School

 The school environment should be completely free. flexible and without any rigidity

 It should be helpful for the free and natural development of the child

 It should be situated in the lap of nature, far away from cities

 There should not be any fixed time table and ready dozes of knowledge
  There should be no provision for punishment School develops the feeling of self
learning and self-discipline

 It does not want to burden the child with examination

Merits of Naturalism

1. It gives the child a very important place in the educational process. It treats a child as
child and not as an adult. The child is good and pure at the terms of birth

2.It considers nature as the best teacher in whose company the child learns better Society is
full of evils

3.It considers individual interests, aptitude, inclination, needs and capacities while
structuring the curriculum

4.It prepares and encourages the child to engage in experimentation, discoveries and
inventions

5.It motivates the child to acquire more knowledge in the natural environment

Demerits of Naturalism

1-Nature cantered study makes the child become uncial with no feeling of social servicer

2- Naturalism ignores the spiritual world and considers the material world only

3- Naturalism lays stress on solutions for only the present needs and problems of an
individual and neglects his future needs and problems. It has failed to prepare the child for
the future life

4. Naturalism advocates unrestricted freedom for the child to develop himself naturally. This
is undesirable and harmful to the child
5. It minimizes the role of the teacher in the educative process A teacher is an observer, a
sympathetic guide and helper in structuring experiences for the child

Conclusion

The contribution of naturalism in significant in the progressive modern educational thought

and practice All the modern method of teaching technique owe their origin to this school of
philosophy

Bibliography

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 Iggs, John (1996). "Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment". Higher

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 Venkatesan Latha 2015.Textbook of nursing education.1-26.