CHAPTER XII
A CURRICULUM FOR BABYHOOD AND EARLY CHILDHOOD
“Knowledge has little or no intrinsic value in and of itself. Like light, knowledge is good not to see but to see by.... Ignorance is doubtless better than knowledge that does not make us better.”
—G. Stanley Hall.
“Where children are fed only on book knowledge, one fact is as good as any other.”
—John Dewey.
“If we seek the kingdom of heaven, educationally, all other things shall be added unto us—which, being interpreted, is that if we identify ourselves with the real instincts and needs of childhood, and ask only after its fullest assertion and growth, the discipline and information and culture of adult life shall all come in their due season.”
—Ibid.
The curriculum is to center, not about “subjects” in which the adult is interested but in
1. The child: (a) The phases of his life; (b) his age and stage of development; (c) therefore the vital interests characteristic of that stage; (d) his individual interests.
It will be modified in some degree by