Wild Child: Coming Home to Nature

[Wild Child] cover

Patrick Barkham’s Wild Child: Coming Home to Nature chronicles his year as a parent volunteer at the his children’s forest school, interwoven with memories of his own childhood and musings on the role of nature in our lives, especially while we are young. Childhood has changed since Barkham’s youth in 1980s Norfolk (UK), when he and neighboring kids roamed every day, inventing outdoor diversions. Most parents today feel a responsibility to provide constant supervision, or at least keep kids in out of the weather. Something has been lost, Barkham believes, and enrolling his three children at Dandelion outdoor nursery helps to restore it, grounding them in the natural world around them. As he says, “Formative experiences resonate throughout our lives.”

For me, one of the highlights of this book was the opportunity to learn new words and new usages. Some, like “reception year” (which refers to the first year of primary school), “clodgy,” “gubber,” and “slub” (all words for mud), and “sallow” (another word for the pussywillow tree), are new words for known concepts. Others are novel concepts for me. Soft fascination, which describes the power of forests and other natural environments to keep our senses gently engaged without wearing out our attention spans or tiring us, was a revelation to me. Coined by environmental psychologists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan in 1989, soft fascination is a hallmark of restorative environments, distinct from a state of “directed attention” such as listening to a lecture or watching TV. Environments rich in soft fascination help to recharge us, making them ideal for learning. Some educators in the UK have taken advantage of this fact by offering some outdoor lessons to upper primary school students who struggle in the classroom. The author is impressed with what he learns visiting two of these outdoor experience programs. In one forest school program for English language learners, many of them refugees, students who participated had improved test scores and attendance as well as harder-to-quantify improvements in confidence and attentiveness.

As an appendix, Barkham provides plenty of fresh ideas for outdoor engagement, including hapa-zome (a Japanese method of transferring leaf colors and patterns to fabric with a hammer) and seaweed cyanotypes. He reminds parents and teachers that it’s not knowledge but love of nature we need to impart. Young people will gather their own knowledge, once they have a chance to get outdoor experiences.

Published in the November 2020 Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 7, Issue 11.

The Outdoor Classroom in Practice, Ages 3-7 : A Month-by-Month Guide to Forest School Provision

[The Outdoor Classroom in Practice, Ages 3-7] cover

How are we going to save the world? Focusing on forests is a step in the right direction. In education, the forest school has been defined in the UK Forest School Research Summary as “an inspirational process that offers children, young people and adults regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence through hands-on learning in a woodland environment.”

UK expert Karen Constable provides teachers with a wealth of ideas and experiences for outdoor learning by cycling through the year month by month. The Outdoor Classroom in Practice, Ages 3 – 7; A Month-By-Month Guide to Forest School Provision demonstrates how a forest school-style learning experience can be introduced and used in an everyday early childhood educational environment.

Although developed in the UK, the activities are meant to be adjusted to blend with existing curricular plans to fit the needs of children anywhere in the world. Entries cover managing the site, preparing resources, working with parents, and making evaluations. Risk assessment is an ongoing concern. Activities described in this book include muddy fun, looking for landmarks, creating camouflage, building fire safety, making a tabletop garden, staying dry on rainy days, and much more.

Fiddleheads Forest School in the Washington Park Arboretum is one of Seattle’s innovative outdoor preschools. Forest school programs help to build self-esteem, confidence, independence, and happy young people. Creating a love of the outdoors in real time in all weather in all seasons is best started early to last a lifetime.

Given our environmental concerns today, there is urgency to the purpose of this book. It will help to prepare children with a voice to act for preservation of our common environment. It’s our shared future, especially theirs.

Published in The Leaflet, Vol. 7 Issue 4, April 2020

Ecological Literacy

[Ecological Literacy] cover

When is the right time to re-read a classic? When the message is compelling and more urgent than ever, as is the call for ecological literacy. Political and business leaders as well as students at all levels of the education system need to fully recognize that the earth is a complex system of interrelationships – geographic, economic, ecological, and sociopolitical. We are all members of this community of life, and need to do our part accordingly.

Ecological literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World is edited by Michael J. Stone and Zenobia Barlow of the Center for Ecoliteracy, Berkeley, California. American educator David W. Orr and physicist Fritjof Capra coined the term ecological literacy in the 1990s to mean understanding the principles of organization of ecological communities and using those principles for strengthening human communities.

The book features contributions from a range of distinguished writers and educators, such as Wendell Berry, Malcolm Margolin, Alice Waters, as well as David Orr and Fritjof Capra, who share their knowledge and empathy for how the world works and makes life possible. At the basic level, it helps educators weave themes of ecology into their teaching from many perspectives. The book sections include Vision, Tradition/Place, Relationship, and Action.

Published by Sierra Club Books, this book calls upon us to refresh, strengthen, and expand our solution-oriented thinking for a sustainable world. The action of one individual can make a great difference in the well-being of the earth. It is time for each of us to renew our commitment.

Reviewed by Dorothy Crandell and published in the June 2018 Leaflet Volume 5, Issue 6.

Nature Preschools and Forest Kindergartens

nature preschool book jacket Reading David Sobel’s latest book feels like attending a national conference on outdoor early childhood education. Each chapter draws on the expertise and experience of key decision-makers working with young children in nature programs all over the country. The format also gives a sense of history and progress over time, with Sobel’s journal entries from his work in outdoor education in the 1970s and his personal parenting journals from the 1990s presented alongside his contemporary research and observations from visits to today’s outdoor preschools.

Sobel first distinguishes forest kindergartens from nature preschools, explaining how they differ in genesis, mission, philosophy, curriculum, and focus, and how both types of programs in North America differ from the European Waldkindergarten schools which arose in the late 1960s in Germany and have influenced similar programs in Scotland and other European countries.

A central theme is the developmental case for a style of outdoor education where instructors act as mentors and guides as children experiment, choose activities and learn to work together, not only solving their own problems but deciding for themselves what questions they will ask and what games and projects to invent on the spot. These experiences, he argues, lead young children to develop initiative, perseverance and creativity as well as a richer vocabulary, a love of nature, and social skills that will serve them (and their communities) well in later life. Sobel’s reasoning is persuasive and the examples he gives are diverse and fascinating.

The chapter entitled “The Dollars and Sense of Business Planning and Budgeting,” contributed by Ken Finch, covers factors to consider when starting or expanding such a school. This detailed information seems particularly useful in a field that is growing quickly and likely attracts idealistic people who aren’t predisposed to draw up balance sheets and strategic plans. Whether a school is a non-profit organization or a for-profit business, it will be essential for founders to understand how to budget, how to attract staff, donors, families, and investors, and what rules and regulations affect such schools.

Sobel and his coauthors use stories, photos, and dialogue gathered from fledgling and more established nature preschools and forest kindergartens around the United States to highlight best practices in curriculum, focus, staffing, administration and funding. The book closes with a chapter by Erin K. Kenny, the cofounder and director of Cedarsong Forest Kindergarten on Vashon Island. Kenny details the events of a fall day there to illustrate some of the ways the school supports scientific inquiry, language learning, and emotional development for the children who attend. This book will intrigue anyone with an interest in outdoor education for young children.