Hierarchy of Learning

In one of my endless google rambles, I came across a rather interesting article by someone whose general life philosophy I don't agree with, but whose commentary on education made excellent sense.  The article is called the Hierarchy of Learning, and discusses the rather strange way we teach science, topic by topic, in a way that requires the student to simply trust the teacher's information, and memorize unconnected facts. 

Instead, the author suggests teaching science in a way that follows the way scientific knowledge was acquired by humans in the first place, from basic principles to more complex.  In this way, scinece not only serves as a science course, but also a history of science course.  Also, by covering the most basic things first, any hands-on experiments are age-appropriate. 

Now that all sounds well and good.  But the author did not go so far as to actually make an outline of how or when subjects should be taught, so I'm back to the drawing board for coming up with a history of science and science curriculum. 

In the mean time, Eliot can now identify oak and maple leaves, though we'll have to get a local guide to pinpoint the exact species we have here.