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  • On the Study of Physics in Preschool Classrooms:Pedagogy and Lesson Planning
  • Matthew Schultz (bio)

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[End Page 138]

Beginning Your Unit

Though it may seem natural to begin your study of the physical universe with the moon, educators working in urban areas should skip ahead to section two, for in cities, especially large ones like New York and Tokyo, the moon is mostly irrelevant. Appearing small and weak behind skyscrapers, it fails to capture the imaginations of urban children and parents alike. They may wonder at the wastefulness of the moon, which sits in the sky contributing nothing when it could very well be used as a site for low-income housing or made into a screen on which the time and the weather are perpetually displayed. Teachers in suburbs and rural areas should begin with a simple observation of the moon. After all, it is thanks to the moon that humankind ever noticed the sky. Something always indicates the presence of nothing.

For this lesson you will keep the children quite late. Take them out to a place where the grass is unmowed and the horizon unobscured. Direct their attention to the subtle curve of the Earth, and let them experience themselves standing on something round, a globe, which lives in constant relation to another globe, which they will see, pale and pocked, above their heads.

Share silence and wonder with them.

Those of us in cities will not bother attempting this. Our skies are deserts. Those of us in cities will wait until day.

The Sun

When day breaks you turn your study to the sun, which works without ceasing to create useful products like light and warmth. Take the children outside for a twenty-four-hour period. Have them don protective goggles and let them stare at the sun. When night falls they will stare at the lack of sun. Have them draw on construction paper their impressions of the sky at various hours. Ask them why the sun appears here and then there. Ask the children where it is when it is not visible. Most likely they will note its slow, steady movement. After sunset they will tell you that it is just over that hill in the distance.

Then take the children to the sun for a twenty-four-hour period. Bring sunscreen with a high SPF to protect their skin and yours. Pack snacks for the long journey there and back. This time the children will observe the movement of the Earth. They will come to understand relativity as a general concept, and one of the children (most likely not more than one, or possibly not even one) will look at you with a new understanding.

Keep in mind that preschool-aged children think that their teachers are [End Page 139] simply an aspect of the classroom, existing only for that role, rising and setting just for them. Keep in mind that you believe this too—that the children, at least one of them (Gabriel, age three) was born to hear what you have to say. Look into this child’s eyes as the two of you stand on the surface of the sun and you will share an understanding of independence and mutuality and yes, yes, relativity! Then gaze off at the setting Earth and forget this shared insight. Fall back into particularity. Return home to Earth, to the classroom, and teach this child as if his ears were made for your words, and he will learn as if the classroom were built for his sake alone.

An Overview of Your Unit

Observation of the moon and sun will lead to observation of the sky, and observation of the sky will lead to observation of the stars. Observation of the stars will lead inward upon itself to that which lies at the center of stars and is witnessed at their death. This we call a black hole, and observation of a black hole will lead to observation of nothing, because a black hole is made of nothing. Learning this, the children will become frightened and depressed. And this will lead to observation of the self, because...

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