There is a lot of interest today in reconnecting kids with the outdoors, to learn some basics regarding life in general. But, this unstructured time can be highly controlled by adults, or it can be uncontrolled by adults... Both are beneficial to children, but unsupervised outdoor experience is better---presuming the adults are courageous enough to allow it to happen.
We
both grew up in an era and an environment that was conducive to playing outdoors. Perhaps that was because of the absence of
television and certainly before cell phones and digital games. We have always looked upon our experiences in
the out of doors as a “given” and not anything unique. That’s all changed---especially for the
urban population.
On
the subject of nature, as we like to write about each month, we often hear how
we must do certain things to preserve and protect things in nature. We hear that native plants, clear running
streams, all the natural components of the out of doors need our help to
survive. Because of population growth
and land development, there is no doubt that is true.
Then
we happened on the comment by a conservationist which went something- like
this: “We need nature as much as nature
needs us”.
So,
for this newsletter, we did some research into that concept and here is what we
found:
Children are increasingly "contained" either by their parents and school teachers or by their own choice. Kids are in car seats, in strollers at the supermarket, or riding in the shopping basket at the grocery store. In schools, recess has mostly disappeared so they are contained in their classroom the entire time. If by chance they do get outside to the school play yard they are tightly controlled by an adult. Then, if not contained by an adult, then they choose containment by staying indoors to play games on their cell phone, or some other digital toy.All of this is at the cost of being outdoors and to experience the complexity and intricacy of nature. Children exposed to nature have shown significantly better cognizant skill than those who do not have any exposure to the outdoors.
Those studying this connection between learning and exposure to the natural world have found some strange situations. For example, many children who have not spent any time out of doors are hesitant to sit on the grass.
Organized programs to take a kid fishing, or hiking or whatever are steps in the right direction, but the real exposure comes when kids are allowed to do all this by themselves.
With our interest in this subject, we chose to attend a brief presentation by Ryan Spencer from the Meadows Center. He spoke about this and referred us to the organization named Children and Nature Network.
Children and Nature Network is front and center on this topic. Check out their website by searching for children and nature.
This is not a new interest on the part of educators, but it has not received the interest of the public schools that it should have by now.
