Topics

Let’s begin by stating the criteria we can use in order to select topics. These are taken from the book “learning in Depth” and to the degree that they aren’t self-evident here are explained in Chapter 5:

  • Sufficient width.
  • Sufficient depth.
  • Sufficient connections with the self—cultural ties and imaginative and emotional ties.
  • Not too contrainedly technical.
  • Not too general nor too unconstrained (animal/cats/tiger kinds of distinction).
  • Not concerned with material likely to lead towards depression or constant attention to more degrading features of human existence.
  • The array of topics must provide an equivalently rich experience for all students.

Picture 29

Here is the initail list generated in the book finished up as a fairly ill-assorted lot. I concluded asking for further suggestions to be made through the Discussion section on this website. So, please make suggestions both for particular topics to be included, or excluded–it may look as though some of those suggested below are more “adult” than might be expected, given current assumptions about children’s minds. But as I have argued the inappropriateness of current conceptions of children’s minds and learning, they seem not so weird to me. So, here is an introductory set in no particular order:

Apples Spiders Dust The wheel Mollusks
The circus Sacred buildings Habitations Water Dogs
Butterflies and moths Teeth Mushrooms Tools Measurement of time
Ships Grass Trees Flowering plants Whales
Beetles Insects Ants Maps Wood
Flags and heraldry Volcanoes Rice Money Navigation
Birds Special clothing Edible roots Air Games
The Solar system Cooking Silk Worms Apes & monkeys
Olympic games Theatre Islands Exploration Mills
Bridges Seeds Sheep Cattle Counting systems
Agriculture Jewels Roads Bees Ancient ruins
Coral Clouds The submarine world Electricity Deserts
Counting systems Ponds and lakes Robots Fish Wheat
Stone Dance Spaces under the earth Pirates Inventors
Paper Dyes Wool Wells Tunnels
Mushrooms Steel Skin Space craft Submarines
Frogs and toads Pests Color Oil The Arctic and Antarctic
Ice Ages Farm animals The printing press Goats Gold
Energy Dams Clocks Bones Coal
Chemicals Bears Musical instruments Aircraft Carpets
Trains & Railways Trains & Railways Measurement of space Cats Icebergs & glaciers
Lakes & ponds Jungles Weather Castles Rubber
Eggs Photography Hands, feet, hooves, & paws Glass Cotton
Paints and their uses Mail systems Mail systems Food preservation Cereals
Rivers Camels Tea Horses Writing systems
Spices Leaves Mountains The book Light
Weaving Rodents Storms Reptiles Water transport
Coffee Iron Milk Savannah Irrigation

Some people have written in to suggest some other topics, and some principles for selecting topics. One suggested that teachers might find topics like Dust and The circus odd because they are not connected with the curriculum, and she suggested that we should instead have topics like Flowering plants that are connected with things already in the curriculum. Another teachers wrote to suggest that the topics so far were rather material, and that it might be good to include such topics as Courage, Compassion, Love, Safety, Trust, Fairy Tales.