Some Questions of the Teaching of Biology

The author records the present state of biology as a science and recalls the most Important changes in the current biological research. As regards the methodology of biology teaching, she only deals with a minor part of it, viz. the one concerning pupils’ activity and object teaching.
On the basis of latest developments in biology as well as on the basis of observations and resiearch carried out at schools the author proves that the teaching of biology is now facing great qualitative changes. Biology is rapidly losing its descriptive and classifying character and is penetrating into the hitherto deeply hidden secrets of living matter. The discovery of laws governing the processes which are going on in the smallest particles and molecules of living matter enormously increases the importance of biology in life, in various fields of man’s activities, especially however, in agriculture and in medicine. This new situation in the biological science comparable to the revolutionary situation in physics, chemistry, mathematics, cyber netlcs, as well as the new requirements of practical life, calls for a thorough re vision in the teaching of biology as a whole. It Is necessary to reconsider the di dactlc principles, methods, forms and means of the teaching of this subject, and bring them in harmony with the present state of biological sciences and the needs of practical life. It is above all necessary to rid school biology /Of its one-sided, descriptlve-classlfylng character, which has developed from the older state of the science, which is now out-of-date. What must come first In the teaching of biology is the principle of pupils’ independence and activity.