Naturalism

Dr. Kasturi Karmakar

Assistant Professor
Faculty of Education
ICFAI University Tripura
 Naturalism
• 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.
 Meaning of Naturalism

• It emphasis on the nature in every field of

education.
• It does not believe in existence of God.
• It gave importance to the matter and the
physical world.
• It is a philosophy which considers nature
as everything and denies the existence of
spirit.
 Protagonist of Naturalism
• J.J. Rousseau – Champion of
Naturalism
• Others – Aristotle, Comte, Bacon,
Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Tagore,
Pestalozzi, Froebel
 Definition
• Naturalism is metaphysics, which considers
nature as the whole reality. It excludes what is
supernatural or the other world”.
- Hocking.

• “Naturalism is a term loosely applied in

educational theory to systems of training that
are not dependent on schools and books, but
on the actual life of the education.”
- Adam
Forms of Naturalism

Forms of Naturalism

Atomistic Scientific Mechanical Historical

Naturalism Naturalism Naturalism Naturalism

Physical Biological
Naturalism 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 in the real life, man should try to make
this life happy and comfortable.
• 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.
 Aims of Education
• The aim of education is according to Herbert
Spencer, to enable the individual to lead a
complete life.
• it is the general aim, which comprises of five
specific objectives.
• The objectives are as follows:
1) Self-preservation
2) Securing the necessities of life
3) Upbringing children
4) Maintain of social and political relations
5) enjoyment of leisure
 Aims of Education

“Senses are the gateway of

knowledge”.
 Aims of Education

• Self-expression: Self-expression, not self-realization

is an important aims of naturalistic education.
• Self-Preservation: Education should help the child in
self-preservation. It includes self health along with
healthy environment.
• Fullest Development: Naturalism believes that the
chief aim of education is the fullest development of
the child.
• Survival of the individual: Naturalism believes that
the fittest alone should survive. Education must
equipe the child to struggle to exist.
 Characteristics of Naturalism
• Back to nature
• Negative education
• It is against bookish knowledge and verbalism
• Freedom of the child
• Material education
• Scientific education
• Naturalism gives central position to the child in the
educational process.
• Education prepare the child for his future adult life.
• It gives emphasis on the training of senses as senses
are the gateway of knowledge.
 Naturalism and Curriculum
• Naturalist do not advocate a fixed curriculum.
• Curriculum must be child-centered.
• It gives place for skills and other useful educational
activities.
• It lay stress on physical education and health
training and home science also.
• 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.
 Naturalism and Curriculum

• Herbert Spencer classifies all human activities

into five and assigns a place to each of them in
the curriculum. The five activities in order of
priority are
i) Activities of self-preservation
ii) Activities of a Vocation
iii) Activities of a worthy citizenship
iv) Activities of a worthy home membership
v) 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 method of teaching
according to the interests, capacities, and aptitude
of the child
• Learning by doing
• Heuristic Method
• Direct method
Naturalism and Method of Teaching
• Observation and excursion
• Play way method
• Learning through senses
• Learning through participation
• Other methods: Naturalists adopt Dalton
plan, Kindergarten, Excursion method,
Montessori Method, Experimentation so
as to bring about a natural development in
the child.
 Naturalism and Teacher
• Teacher should behave sympathitically 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 gives 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 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 Discipline
• They disapprove of punishment to
children.
• Punishment should be determined by
natural consequences of wrong deeds.
• If the child breaks the windowpane of
his room, he should not be punished
physically as Rosseau did imagine for
Emile.
 Naturalism and School
• 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.
• School develops the feeling of self learning and self-
discipline.
• It does not want to burden the child with examination.
• There should be no provision for punishment.
 Limitations of Naturalism
• Naturalism does not offer definite aims of
education.
• It neglects books, which are treasure of
knowledge contained in the printed material.
• Naturalism does not give due importance to
the moral and spiritual development of the
child.
• Naturalism assigns very little importance to
the teacher in the educative process.
 Merits of Naturalism
• 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.
• It motivates the child to acquire more knowledge in the
natural environment.
• It considers nature as the best teacher in whose
company the child learns better.
• It prepares and encourages the child to engage in
experimentation, discoveries and inventions.
• It considers individual interests, aptitude, inclination,
needs and capacities while structuring the curriculum.