Thinking with Things
This chapter examines what happened when object lessons were implemented in the United States, particularly through the development of the Oswego Normal School in New York. E. A. Sheldon developed a rigorous curriculum based on the work of M. E. M. Jones and Elizabeth Mayo that trained pupil-teachers to give object lesson. The intent was to train students how to think and observe rather than to rely on students’ rote memorization of knowledge. His work transformed Oswego into the center of object teaching in the 1860s. Critiques of the practice at Oswego as well as the details of its classroom implementations help to explain what this practice actually looked like and what it meant for the ways students and teachers understood the material world. It also considers the ways object lessons could be used for instruction in composition and historical writing as well as moral training.